Signe Sophus Lai

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Primary fields of research

My research is placed at the intersection between infrastructure studies, political economy of communication, and critical data studies. My focus is evenly on the role of the internet in everyday life as well as the societal implications of big data, digital infrastructures, and emergent business models, and counts the following topics:

• Datafication and online tracking with a specific focus on digital infrastructures, visibility, and political economies
• Digital communication systems and internet regulation
• Methodological development and digital methods in digital media and communication research
• Sociological media and communication theory

Current research

I currently work on four interraleted research projects:

Mobile Surveillance Infrastructures explores mobile datafication and monetisation from the perspective of apps and other infrastructures directly related to mobile communication and mobile data flows, including app stores, operating systems, and third-party services.

Mapping Digital Communication Dystems across historical and national context in order to understand and discuss how digital infrastructures, markets, and policies frame - enable and constrain - the everyday  communication of individuals. At the moment: focusing on Nordic welfare states.

Infrastructures of tracking investigates cookie-based tracking of users across websites and maps data flows and ownership structures as they relate to sites and trackers in Denmark and the rest of the EU.

The Peoples' Internet (PIN), an international project led by Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen and funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, charts the current and future state of the internet in three central regions - China, the US, and Europe.

 

I have previously studied TV audiences and particularly TV series across Europe in the international research project Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens (MeCETES). My specific focus was on measurements of viewing and engagement (online and offline) as well as on quantitative studies of TV series distribution.

Teaching

I teach and supervise Communication and IT students at the BA and MA level in topics including:

• Media and communication theory
• Empirical methodologies
• Digital methods
• Digital infrastructures, platforms and internet regulation
• Media reception and user studies
• Project management

Selected publications

1. Published

   Gateways: Comparing Digital Communication Systems in Nordic Welfare States

   Lai, Signe Sophus & Flensburg, Sofie, 2023, Nordicom. 205 p.

   Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review

2. Published

   Human Capabilities in a Datafied Society. Empirical approaches to studying the interplay between digital communication and internet infrastructures

   Lai, Signe Sophus, 15 Jan 2021, Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. 312 p.

   Research output: Book/Report › Ph.D. thesis › Research

3. Published

   Follow the Data! A Strategy for Tracing Infrastructural Power

   Flensburg, Sofie & Lai, Signe Sophus, 2023, In: Media and Communication. 11, 2, p. 319-329 11 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

4. Published

   Invasive Species of the App Ecosystem: Exploring the Political Economy of Mobile Communication

   Lai, Signe Sophus & Flensburg, Sofie, 2021, In: International Journal of Communication. 15, p. 2301–2318 18 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

5. Published

   A proxy for privacy: Uncovering the surveillance ecology of mobile apps

   Lai, Signe Sophus & Flensburg, Sofie, 15 Jul 2020, In: Big Data & Society. 7, 2, p. 1-20 20 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

6. Published

   Infrastructures of tracking: Mapping the Ecology of Third-Party Services Across Top Sites in the EU

   Helles, Rasmus, Lomborg, Stine & Lai, Signe Sophus, 2020, In: New Media & Society. 22, 11, p. 1957-1973 19 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

7. Published

   Comparing Digital Communication Systems: An empirical framework for analysing the political economy of digital infrastructures

   Flensburg, Sofie & Lai, Signe Sophus, 24 Oct 2020, In: N O R D I C O M Review. 41, 2, p. 127-145

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

8. Published

   Networks of power: Analysing the evolution of the Danish internet infrastructure

   Flensburg, Sofie & Lai, Signe Sophus, 20 May 2020, In: Internet Histories: Digital Technology, Culture and Society. 5, 2, p. 1-22 22 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

9. Published

   Mapping digital communication systems: Infrastructures, markets and policies as regulatory forces

   Flensburg, Sofie & Lai, Signe Sophus, 25 Dec 2019, In: Media, Culture & Society. 42, 5, p. 692-710 18 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

10. Published

    Digital tracking and infrastructural power

    Lomborg, Stine, Helles, Rasmus & Lai, Signe Sophus, 2023, Handbook of Critical Studies of AI. Lindgren, S. (ed.). Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 354–366 13 p.

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review