Stefan Gelfgren

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at Umeå University

Society is transforming due to changes in demographics, the environment, and technology, and thus faces multiple challenges. In this context, data coordination and access, collectively referred to as the digital transformation, are key to addressing anticipated societal tensions. This interview-based qualitative study focuses on how researchers res...

The digital initiatives in the parishes within the Church of Sweden were founded upon local initiatives from the parishes based on local needs and context. In keeping with the diaconal responsibility of making church a place for all, new ways to reach people were welcomed. Widespread internet connectivity and digital literacy, individual skills, an...

This article deals with the paradoxical relationship between the nineteenth-century Evangelical Revival and secularization. It is argued here that the revival and its worldview played a role in increasing pluralism and choice in the nineteenth century – a process often related to secularization. The Evangelical movement both attempted to oppose mod...

This text gives two examples of how research within the history of science and ideas can make use of digital methods through a combination of close and distant reading. The first case maps all churches and prayer chapels in the Diocese of Luleå to answer the question if a Bible belt exists in Norrland; what it (if there is one) looks like, what its...

This chapter describes and discusses how digital media has been used, implemented, and negotiated within Christianity and how these processes vary between and within different traditions (divided here into Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox). The view on digital media differs between different traditions, and therefore the goals and purposes of dig...

This chapter examines the possible existence of a Bible belt, an area of stronger, often conservative, religious expressions in norther Sweden. Media sources and previous studies are employed to explore the relevance of the Bible belt concept. During the twentieth century, studies have been conducted to detect and describe the characteristics of di...

This article examines the role of advocacy organizations and their use of social media within the field of disability in Sweden. How do the organizations negotiate digital media, and what are the (intentional or unintentional) consequences related to the use of social media? With focus on the representatives of advocacy organizations, we study how...

This book highlights tensions and negotiating processes between modern society and conservative religious groups. Conservative religion and society have co-existed for at least a century in an increasingly pluralist society. Still, the right to religious freedom and tolerance clashes with certain expressions of religious exclusivity. In this book,...

Users of digital media leave traces that corporations and authorities can harvest, systematise, and analyse; on the societal level, an overall result is the emergence of a surveillance culture. In this study, we examine how people handle the dilemma of leaving digital footprints: what they say they do to protect their privacy and what could legitim...

Geovisualization, here perceived broadly as a representation of data on a digital map, has been used within a number of disciplines for different purposes: from creating new knowledge to sharing existing scholarly ideas. This chapter focuses on how building maps conceptually and with specific research questions in mind often requires a set of fresh...

Social media is often seen as an arena for negotiation of power, where marginalized voices can be given influence in the public debate. This study focuses the use of Twitter for discussions related to disabilities and disability policy in Sweden. The empirical material is gathered through the hashtag (#) “funkpol”, the primary hashtag used to discu...

Presentation given at UiT Digital Humanities Conference 2017

Is the internet a means for individual empowerment and collective upheaval against oppressive powers, or is it a tool to monitor and control people in the hands of authoritarian rulers? This article addresses the "dyophysite" or what can be called the double nature of internet. That is a dualism that goes back to the origin of internet with its roo...

Universities around the world have increasingly turned to digital infrastructures as a way to revamp the arts and humanities. This article contributes a fresh understanding by examining the material development of HumlabX, a research laboratory for digital humanities at Umeå University, Sweden. Specifically, we approach the empirical case as a time...

This article studies how the Laestadian movement (a Christian confessional revivalist movement that is sceptical of technology) uses digital media in general, and the internet in particular, in its work. In a time when churches on a large scale are concerned with how to communicate with people through digital media, the Laestadian movement choses a...

In summer 2012, the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden appeared on Twitter. There was only one problem - it was not the Archbishop himself who was tweeting, but an anonymous person. A discussion then ensued on Twitter and in the blogosphere between those in favor of the Archbishop and his department and mainly social media proponents. The present a...

In summer 2012, the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden appeared on Twitter. There was only one problem – it was not the Archbishop himself who was tweeting, but an anonymous person. A discussion then ensued on Twitter and in the blogosphere between those in favor of the Archbishop and his department and mainly social media proponents. The present a...

This study aims to construct a typology of the visual style of Christian spaces in the online virtual world of Second Life (SL). Virtual worlds offer diverse new possibilities for architectural style, unrestricted by gravity, weather or scarcity of materials. These new regions also operate largely beyond the control and indeed awareness of establis...

p>With the starting point of all Christian places (114 places) in the virtual world Second Life (SL), this article aims to study how SL is part of a negotiation process between old offline media and new online media, between established traditions and innovation. The questions addressed in this article are how such places are constructed, the const...

The American televangelist and healer Benny Hinn was invited to host three meetings at a Christian conference in Uppsala 2010. The hosting institution was the Swedish charismatic Christian denomination Livets Ord. Benny Hinn has been invited by them several times before, and it can be said he is popular in some parts of Christianity, but considered...

The chapter, based on a set of developed teaching scenarios, discusses how virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, can be used in student centered pedagogy; intertwining theory and practice, emphasizing process-thinking, critical perspectives, and strengthen the confidence and independence of the student. Drawing upon experiences from traditiona...

The chapter, based on a set of developed teaching scenarios, discusses how virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, can be used in student centered pedagogy; intertwining theory and practice, emphasizing process-thinking, critical perspectives, and strengthen the confidence and independence of the student. Drawing upon experiences from traditiona...

Thesis (PhD)--Umeå universitet, 1993. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation examines the relation between revivalism and secularisation through the Swedish Evangelical-Lutheran organisation Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen (EFS) – approximately the Swedish Evangelical Mission Society) between 1856 and 1910.