Abstract

The talk will explore examples of synthetic voices applied on Danish authorities’ public websites. By June 2025, the EU Accessibility Act requires all websites and apps to implement accessibility solutions, including text-to-speech options. But what do these voices convey in terms of gender, age, authority, authenticity, sociality, trust, mood, and other factors? Who controls them? Is the written content on public websites even suitable for being read aloud? And what are the democratic implications of these developments?

Short Bio

Iben Have is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Her research is interdisciplinary, spanning media and communication studies, sound studies, and musicology. She focuses on mediated sound and audio media, digital reading, and phenomena such as ‘quietude’ and ‘pauses.’ Her current work explores practices of ‘reading with ears’ and ‘writing with voices’ in digital communication and media culture. Her latest books include The Digital Reading Condition (co-edited, Routledge, 2023), Calm (Johns Hopkins, 2023), and the prizewinning textbook Lydmedier [Audio Media] (Samfundslitteratur, 2024). Pure.

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.

All seminars are in-person and held in English. To attend online, please contact Sofia Bentsen at sofia@aias.au.dk by 9:00am on the day of the semimar as the latest to request a link.