"Smart" cities and stupid power structures?: International problems, local context and technological solutions

The following thesis reflect upon the discourse surrounding Norwegian “smart” cities, and the power structures related to such cities. Both through political-, economic-, and ideological power networks. This is done through considering different definitions (and the lack of good definitions), and critique toward the concept. The thesis views smart cities through three levels: 1) infrastructure, including different technologies 2) data streams, from these infrastructures, and 3) “intelligence”, which process the data streams. These levels are then connected to concepts like neoliberalism and surveillance capitalism. Power in general is also shed light upon, in addition to the structures which makes up the Norwegian public administration. Furthermore, an attempt is made to connect ideological power to various explanatory models for technological development. Methodically, the thesis is based on critical discourse analysis, where two public strategies issued by the Ministry of Local Government and Modernization, aimed at digitalization and artificial intelligence, respectively. The discourse analysis also includes one report written on behalf of the same ministry, which basically is a survey on the Norwegian smart city status. Further, the discourse analysis tries to identify connections between the three documents, both to paint a bigger picture of the situation with public strategies connected to the smart city sphere, but also to discover how these documents may have affected one another.Mastergradsoppgave i digital kulturDIKULT350MAHF-DIKU