About research in Media and Communication studies
At Media and Communication Studies (MKV) at Karlstad University, we conduct internationally prominent research with a particular focus on issues at the intersection of MKV and geography. These include the relationship between media and mobility, how media habits are both created and shaped by the spaces and places we move through, or how the local and the global interact in the contemporary digitalized media landscape. Our research is independent, socially oriented and theoretically and methodologically innovative.

Media and Communication Studies at Karlstad University strives to be an open environment where researchers and doctoral students from different backgrounds contribute to developing cosmopolitan perspectives on society. As a mark of the global character of the subject, an annual international visiting professorship was established in 2009.
Centre for Geomedia Studies
Research in the subject is to a large share conducted at the Centre for Geomedia Studies. In a series of interlinked research projects, the production of space, places and mobilities in a (trans)mediatized world is studied. The group's research themes include, for example, tourism and social media, geopolitical aspects of digital infrastructure, local news in a fragmented media landscape, new media and the urban-rural divide, regional and local place making, and digitalized forms of work. The centre also organizes workshops, symposia and other research activities within the thematic area.
NODE studies journalism
The research center NODE (The Ander Centre for Research on News and Opinion in the Digital Era) represents another major research specialization within the subject. The center studies the changing nature of journalism, news and opinion in a rapidly-changing digital environment. In particular, NODE studies a) news production, distribution and consumption, and b) the mechanisms of strategic opinion formation and the interaction between political parties, organizations, companies and citizens. Recent and ongoing studies include work on threats and harassment of Swedish journalists; the reshaping of journalistic professional ethics; and the fragmentation of local journalism. There are often overlaps between NODE and Geomedia research: for example, the projects on local news in a fragmented media landscape and mobility as a key journalistic value bring together researchers from both disciplines.
Identity, visual culture and citizenship
Running through both of these environments are also a number of research themes that have built up in the subject over the years. One such theme is culture and identity, where researchers study identity formation both in terms of everyday communication processes and in relation to media products in different cultural fields. Another theme is visual culture and design, which includes research on transnational film cultures and transmedia art. We also examine the dynamics between media, social belonging and democratic participation, focusing on how citizenship is constructed through different forms of media. The research in the subject is multifaceted yet focused within the broad areas represented by Geomedia and NODE.
