Flickering together at the digital campfire: Sweden’s moose migration livestream as a seasonal, multispecies ritual of slow nature connection

Den Stora Älgvandringen (DSÄ), Sweden’s annual livestream of the spring moose migration, provides a rare counterpoint to platform cultures organised around speed, novelty, and metrics. This article conceptualises DSÄ as a digital campfire: a ritual ecology of attention and companionship grounded in ecological temporality and more-than-human presence. Drawing on a multi-sited qualitative corpus (programme archives, chat transcripts, and public Facebook discussions), the analysis shows how participation layers together silent dwelling, conversational companionship in chat, and year-round tending by core “flamekeepers” who welcome newcomers, share knowledge, and maintain continuity across seasons. Rather than centring spectacle or narrative climax, DSÄ organises collective watching around waiting, uncertainty, and seasonal return, cultivating arts of attentiveness and shared memory. Situated in public service media, the livestream stands outside monetisation logics, which affords editorial independence while exposing the project to political and budgetary pressures. The value that emerges is durational and relational: presence as participation, rhythm as meaning, and co-presence with more-than-human life as a public good. The article advances three contributions: it specifies the digital campfire as an analytical concept distinct from brand-led uses of the term; it demonstrates how slow, multispecies media can sustain communal care and informal expertise; and it reframes value in digital culture in terms of continuity and ecological attunement rather than virality and reach.