Abstract Digital tools facilitating everything from health to education have been introduced at a rapid pace to replace physical meetings and allow for social distancing measures as the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up the drive to large-scale digitalisation. This rapid digitalisation enhances the already ongoing process of datafication, namely turning ever-increasing aspects of our identities, practices, and societal structures into data. Through an analysis of empirical examples of datafication in three important areas of the welfare state – employment services, public service media, and the corrections sector – we draw attention to some of the inherent problems of datafication in the Nordic welfare states. The analysis throws critical light on automated decision-making processes and illustrates how the ideology of dataism has become increasingly entangled with welfare provision. We end the article with a call to develop specific measures and policies to enable the development of the data welfare state, with media and communication scholars playing a crucial role.

中文翻译：

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促进数据福利国家：数据化的北欧视角

摘要 随着 Covid-19 大流行加速了大规模数字化的发展，促进从健康到教育的一切数字化工具被迅速引入，以取代实体会议并允许采取社会疏离措施。这种快速的数字化增强了已经在进行的数据化过程，即将我们的身份、实践和社会结构不断增加的方面转化为数据。通过对福利国家三个重要领域——就业服务、公共服务媒体和惩教部门——数据化的实证例子的分析，我们提请注意北欧福利国家数据化的一些内在问题。该分析对自动化决策过程提出了批评，并说明了数据主义意识形态如何越来越多地与福利提供纠缠在一起。我们在文章结尾呼吁制定具体措施和政策，以促进数据福利国家的发展，媒体和传播学者发挥着至关重要的作用。