The digital media group at SIFO is a strategic effort aimed at strengthening the research competence on issues related to new media, ICT and consumption. It seeks to address relevant media / technology developments and how these affect consumers' everyday life. This project commenced in 2006 as an initiative to meet the demand for further and deeper research on consumer-/media-related topics due to the explosive development of digitalisation, converging technologies and a media-saturated society. The complexities that these developments entail calls for various perspectives and methodologies in order to grasp the present-day realities and challenges. The ambition of this group / project is to have an open mind about how to approach these research challenges. Hence it is a cross-disciplinary effort embracing anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists. A further idea behind the group is to coordinate the various projects at SIFO that are related to digital media / ICT in order to create a more coherent research field within the institute. In this sense it will be easier to identify themes and perspectives that are relevant, and to connect this to previous research within SIFO (as well as out-of-house with other academic and commercial partners).

SIFO started off its ICT / media research around year 2000, focusing primarily on Internet / e-commerce activities, particularily related to the travel industry, with trust as an analytical focus. There was also an emphasis on children and online marketing. Lately the focus has shifted to a more comprehensive view of digital / electronic activities (new and old) and the analytic perspectives have centred on domestication and language-games. Thus the family and everyday life has been at the core of the research. The balancing perspective has been introduced in relation to gambling activities in the home, which is the focus of an ongoing Phd. Another Phd related to the group looks at immigrant households' media-technology consumption, where domestication as well as diaspora are prevalent perspectives. Theoretical-analytical approaches, such as practice theory and discourse, is being dealt with through sub-groups (see below) as they are seen to be relevant for several of the projects within the group. The projects that the group engages in are of various characters, ranging from more grounded research, to collaborative/applied research with academic / professional partners, to research / evaluations conducted for ministries/government agencies.