Jukka Vahti

Who? 

Jukka Vahti works as a Project Director on Sitra’s Democracy and Participation theme’s Digital Power and Democracy project. In his work, he particularly focuses on the challenges facing democracy caused by the rapidly changing media environment, social media and dis- and misinformation, and on increasing understanding of the social significance of data and digital power.

Jukka is one of the authors of the “Tracking Digipower – How Data Can Be Used for Influencing Decision-makers and Steering the World” report published in May 2022. In addition, he was the co-author of the Sitra report Mediavälitteinen yhteiskunnallinen vaikuttaminen — Murros ja tulevaisuus (“Media-mediated societal influence – a transition and the future”) published in January 2021. Previously, Jukka has been closely involved in Sitra’s Updating Democracy project and is also one of the hosts of Sitra’s podcast on a good future.

From 2014 to 2021, Jukka worked as a Specialist and Leading Specialist in Sitra’s communications team and has promoted Sitra’s projects on the reform of social welfare and healthcare.

What? 

Before Sitra, Jukka worked as a journalist for more than 10 years, the majority of which was spent as a political reporter. He is also familiar with editorial supervisory duties. Jukka has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Jyväskylä’s Department of Communication Studies.

Contact Jukka if you want to explore co-operation with the Democracy and Participation theme or know more about the changes in the media environment or the future of democracy.

What else? 

Jukka’s hobbies include endurance running, many kinds of ball sports and music, both as a listener and as a composer. In addition, he nurses his guilty conscience about unread newspaper and magazine stories, scientific articles and books. Jukka believes the development of technology and digitisation will provide us with more opportunities for changing society than ever before – but it will require a new kind of competence, creativity and co-operation from decision-makers, a range of different organisations and all of us in our day-to-day lives.