The Linnaeus University Knowledge Environment Digital Transformations hosted the Fourth International Symposium on Digital Transformation (ISDT) from 17–18 September 2025 in Kalmar, Sweden. Following the precedent set in previous years, the symposium accepted 47 papers, organized around six themes: Digital Business (7), Digital Working Life (6), e-Health (7), Digital Learning and Education (10), Artificial Intelligence (6), and Digital Humanities (11). All abstracts underwent anonymous peer review, and authors were invited to revise their submissions based on feedback. Together, these contributions highlight the technical sophistication, methodological diversity, and societal relevance of contemporary research in digital transformation.

In addition to paper presentations, ISDT 2025 featured three keynote addresses that underscored the symposium’s scholarly and practical significance. Prof. Mato Brautović (University of Dubrovnik, Croatia) presented “Research as a political act: data access, power and the future of digital platform accountability”; Prof. Kathrin Creswell (University of Edinburgh, UK) discussed “Putting the UK at the forefront of using artificial intelligence for the benefit of health and care: a mixed methods formative evaluation of the NHS Artificial Intelligence Lab”; and Prof. Sarah Prestridge (Griffith University, Australia) examined “It’s an evolution not a revolution: examining digital learning that requires pedagogical change”. These keynotes provided conceptual anchors for the symposium, highlighting the societal, ethical, and pedagogical implications of digital transformation research.

Over two engaging days, participants explored emerging trends, current efforts, and innovative possibilities across the field. ISDT 2025 proudly welcomed researchers pursuing versatile and interdisciplinary approaches to societal challenges shaped by digitalization. The symposium emphasized not only methodological innovation but also the integration of theory and practice, demonstrating how design- and technology-oriented research can contribute to both academic knowledge and real-world applications.

We extend our sincere thanks to the Steering Committee of the Knowledge Environment Digital Transformations—Jesper Andersson, Kristoffer Holt, Päivi Jokela, Italo Masiello, Lina Nilsson, and Glenn Sjöstrand—for their guidance and support, as well as to Johan Vaide and Soumitra Chowdhury for planning assistance and Brian Kottonya for technical support. We are grateful to the administration of Linnaeus University for financial support via the internationalization fund, to the 19 reviewers who generously volunteered their time, and especially to the Communications Department at Linnaeus University for their support with the practical organization and logistics of ISDT 2025.

In this abstract we present and discuss the central themes of a collaborative research project that examines the role of emotional mobilization in shaping democratic discourse and enhancing societal resilience amidst ongoing digital transformation. In today’s increasingly fragmented and hybrid media landscape, emotionally charged narratives—particularly those propagated by populist actors via alternative media and social platforms (Holt, 2023)—frequently challenge evidence-based communication, thereby contributing to heightened polarization and a decline in public trust. With the continued rise of populist and far-right political movements, it is crucial to understand how to elicit emotional engagement with active citizenship and forms of democratic deliberation. While emotional appeals are often portrayed as antithetical to rational deliberation, they may also serve as catalysts for democratic engagement, social cohesion, and civic participation. Our research questions how emotional narratives in the media may interact with and challenge evidence-based communication in democratic discourse, what role emotional mobilization has in shaping user engagement, polarization and trust in journalistic expertise, and how can an understanding of affective mobilization contribute to building more resilient, inclusive and trustworthy democratic communication practices.The core ideas that guide our research emerge from a collaboration between the A Questioned Democracy and Digital Transformations Knowledge Environments at Linnaeus University. Our research approach adopts an intermedial and cross-disciplinary methodology to analyse the interplay between emotional and factual appeals across diverse media ecologies (for the emotional turn in media studies, see Wahl-Jorgensen, 2019). Drawing on digital media content from Sweden—including alternative news sites, mainstream journalism, and social media platforms—the study combines computational methods (e.g., sentiment and network analysis), qualitative approaches (e.g., discourse and frame analysis), and participatory workshops to investigate how emotions and facts co-constitute public discourse (Acheampong et al, 2021).By moving beyond the conventional dichotomy between reason and emotion, the project seeks to advance a more nuanced understanding of affective dynamics in digital communication. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing debates on democratic resilience by examining how emotional mobilization can both distort and strengthen deliberative processes. The broader objective is to inform the design of inclusive, trustworthy, and emotionally attuned communication strategies—particularly within a European context characterized by epistemic uncertainty, algorithmic amplification, and rising populist influence (Moffitt, 2016).Although the project ideas described above are in currently in their early stages, this presentation will outline its conceptual underpinnings, research design, and collaborative framework. Emphasis will be placed on the methodological challenges and opportunities associated with studying affect, evidence, and trust in an intermedial, data-rich environment. The expected outcomes range from strengthening democratic resilience through improved media practices, informing public communication strategies that balance reason and affect, and developing educational resources and policy recommendations to enhance societal trust in democratic institutions and knowledge systems.

This study explores the evolution of Ioannis Metaxas’ social networks during his exile in Italy (1919–1920) and his return to Greece (1921–1923), focusing on the gender, nationality, and occupation of the network’s actors. Utilizing a mixed-method approach that combines Social Network Analysis (SNA), visualization techniques, and historical-critical interpretation, the study constructs temporal networks to examine changes in Metaxas’ connec-tions over time. Analysis through Gephi’s network visualizations and statistical metrics revealed that Metaxas’ network was dynamic and strategically adaptable, evolving to meet his needs in various contexts. Notably, de-spite his military background, Metaxas had limited contact with military personnel; women also played a crucial role as information conduits within his network. These findings demonstrate the value of integrating computa-tional techniques in historical research, offering new insights into Metaxas’ adaptable relationships and a broader understanding of historical events.

Linnaeus University (Linnéuniversitetet, LNU) is an international public university in the province of Småland, Sweden. LNU was founded in 2010 by a merger of the former Växjö University and Kalmar University, and currently has approximately 44,000 enrolled students. The university is currently Sweden’s sixth largest in terms of student numbers. It has 600 partner universities in more than 80 countries around the world.

Over the past decade, there has been a distinct emphasis on the Digital Humanities at LNU through a variety of initiatives, all focused on fostering interdisciplinary expertise in the Humanities, data analysis, cultural heritage, and ICTs. Best described as a decentralized collaborative culture, DH at LNU includes knowledge environments (e.g. Digital Transformations), centers of excellence (e.g. the Centre for Data Intensive Sciences and Applications), and the iInstitute (the local center for the international iSchools consortium). LNU was the first Swedish university to join DARIAH and is now leading the bid for national membership. In 2016, Linnaeus established a Digital Humanities Hub to focus on data-intensive digital humanities, leading to the implementation of digital humanities as a research and teaching subject at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and to the Digital Humanities MA programme. This programme is being offered in English to international students, who benefit from being able to take advantage of the worldwide iSchools agreement for virtual student and faculty exchange. As part of the work of the DH Hub and the iInstitute, LNU was recently granted funding for a national PhD school in digital humanities, an initiative between four Swedish universities. In this presentation we will outline the original vision for fostering DH at Linnaeus University, reflect on the challenges and successes of the past few years and present general ideas on how to facilitate DH at the intersection of multiple disciplines. 

What constitutes 'world archaeology'?

Visualize the subject of archaeological publications by geographic region location over time.

Antiquity Journal was founded as a journal of world archaeology in 1927, continuously publishing peer-reviewed research through to the present day. This tool takes the place names listed in Antiquity abstracts from 1927 to 2015, attributes them to a geographic region, and allows the user to view and manipulate the resulting graph. Below, users may also generate visualizations of specific time periods for individual regions.

Since the late nineteenth century, archaeological research on the ancient past in East-Central Europe has been impacted by the hunt for peoples assumed to be the one true ancestral population, continuously occupying the territory of the modern nation-state. In Romania, we see this with a myth of origin founded on the idea of firstly Roman, then Dacian, and finally Daco-Roman continuity, arguing that modern Romanians are directly descended from a population known from Antiquity. In Bulgaria and Hungary, we see myths of origin linked to the Bulgars and Magyars, respectively, deriving a national identity from the peoples who entered the region in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period. These myths and the study of the past form a symbiotic relationship, creating and sustaining each other. This chapter focuses on Romania to illustrate how a regionally diverse past has been co-opted into a narrative supporting one nation's myth of origin. Using the same archaeological evidence from the region of modern Romania, I consider how we might construct archaeological narratives that give a similar sense of 'deep' belonging without supporting narratives of mythical autochthonous continuity.

We are grateful for the participation of the respondents and heartened at the general agreement on the importance of a politically proactive archaeology. Inevitably, the authors offer differing perspectives on how best to achieve this goal, including the degree to which political engagement may foster the strength and relevance of the discipline (McGuire 2023), the limitations of landscape or assemblage perspectives for analysing these issues (Gardner 2023; Szary 2023), and whether or not such a call is even necessary because many archaeologists are already engaged with this type of research (Soto 2023). We appreciate the opportunity that these comments provide to us for critical reflection on our arguments; here, we briefly engage with the major themes raised as part of the ongoing dialogue.