Bio
I am a professor at the Department of Geography, Media and Communication at Karlstad University and coordinator of the Centre for Geomedia Studies. Previously, I worked at the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, was (temp.) Professor of Media and Communication Studies at ZeMKI at the U of Bremen and at the TU Dresden. Prior to that, I was an assistant at the University of Vienna and have spent time as a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Research Interests
My current research focuses on analyzing geomedia, visual communication, digital communication, and digitalized publics. I investigate these while considering the increasing visuality and multimodality of communication and against the background of the increasing entanglement of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ spheres, especially with regard to the mediatization of space. In connection with this, I deal with questions of participation and how the field of tension between visibility and invisibility is fathomed, as well as with questions of inequality and responsibility in digitized spaces.
Current funded research
DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE SOVEREIGNTY (2022-2026)
I am the project leader and manager of the research project "Digital infrastructure sovereignty. Towards a public value-based media policy for the datafied Swedish welfare state," funded by the Swedish Research Council (2022-05392).
FROM PIXELS TO PEACE (2025-2029)
I am co‑Principal Investigator of the SNSF‑funded project “From Pixels to Peace: The Role of Visual Communication in Conflict Transformation”, which will run until 2029. I coordinate this interdisciplinary initiative in partnership with swisspeace, the University of Basel, and USI Università della Svizzera italiana (University of Lugano).
Despite numerous peace initiatives, conflict, war, and violence continue to dominate both public discourse and academic research. Although scholarship increasingly acknowledges that peace and war often coexist as ways of managing conflict, peace itself remains largely invisible. Meanwhile, images of war and violence evoke powerful emotional responses, reinforcing simplistic, binary narratives that obscure the complexities of contemporary conflicts. Our project seeks to address this imbalance by investigating how peace can be visually communicated in more nuanced and compelling ways. Drawing on concepts such as “everyday peace” and the “local turn” in peacebuilding—which emphasize the significance of local perspectives—we examine visual representations of peace in contexts where it is partial, fragile, and continually negotiated.
For more information and updates on fieldwork and dissemination activities, visit our website.
Selected publications
Recent Publications
Journal Articles and Conference Proceedings
Brantner, C., Karlsson, M., Kuai, J. (2025). Sourcing behavior and the role of news media in AI-powered search engines in the digital media ecosystem: Comparing political news retrieval across five languages. Telecommunications Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2025.102952
Kuai, J., Brantner, C., Karlsson, M., van Couvering, E., & Romano, S. (2025). AI chatbot accountability in the age of algorithmic gatekeeping: Comparing generative search engine political information retrieval across five languages. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251321162
Saurwein, F., Brantner, C., Möck, L. (2025). Responsibility networks in media discourses on automation: A comparative analysis of social media algorithms and social companions. New Media & Society, 27(3), 1752-1773. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231203310
Sjøvaag, H., Brantner, C., Ferrer-Conill, R., Karlsson, M., & Helles, R. (2025). Datafying citizens. Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure. Nordicom Review, 26(1), 76-99. https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2025-0004
Brantner, C., Rodríguez-Amat, J. R., & Stewart, J. (2024). Gauging the Google gaze: A digital visual analysis of images of a semi-peripheral town. Culture Unbound. https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.4303
Fast, K., Brantner, C., & Abend, P. (2024). Bringing the future to geomedia studies: Geomedia as sociotechnical regime and imaginary. Media and Communication, 12. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.9112
Stehle, H., Bock, A., Wilhelm, C., Springer, N., Mahrt, M., Lobinger, K., Linke, C., Engelmann, I., Detel, H., & Brantner, C. (2024). In/visibility in the digital age: A literature review from a communication studies perspective. International Journal of Communication, 18, 5471-5493. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20567/4857
Recent edited journal issues
Fast, K., Brantner, C., & Abend, P. (Eds.). (2024). Geomedia futures: imagining tomorrow’s mediatized places and place-based technologies. Special issue. Media and Communication. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.9112
Recent book chapters
Lobinger, C., & Brantner, C. (2025, forthcoming). Q-Sort und die Erforschung visueller Kommunikation. In A. Hepp, F. Hohmann, & P. Sinner (Eds.), Medien-, Daten- und Vernetzungspraktiken erforschen: Methodische Konzepte und Forschungssoftware. Springer.