Karin Fast

 
Professor of Media and Communication

Research

I am interested in the role of media and communication in everyday life, especially in working life. Oftentimes, I use the term mediatization to refer to how media shapes work - and vice versa. I have a special interest in digital work geographies and how they intertwine with urban changes. Much of my research is located within The Centre for Geomedia Studies – a prioritized interdisciplinary research environment at Karlstad University. 

In the last few years, my research has tilted towards analyses of media non-use, including moral and discursive changes that are symptomatic of post-digital capitalism. In a variety of contexts, many actors recommend we use our digital media less. But who gains from these new media moralities? How does the growing "digital detox" industry talk about digital media? And how do we judge those who fail to abide by the disconnectivity imperative or who, for one reason or another, cannot simply switch off their phone? These are examples of questions that I have addressed in some of my most recent research publications and conference papers.

In an ongoing research project, my colleagues and I explore these and similar questions in the specific context of coworking spaces. We recognize these shared, urban, and stylized work environments as post-digital workplaces, designed to cater to workers' obligations to be "always on" as well as to their potential desires to be "sometimes off". You can read more about this and other research projects of mine further below. 

In summary, my research evolves around topics like "mediatization", "mediatized work", "platform labour", "digital labour", "media morality", "the post-digital", "digital disconnection", "media non-use", "transmedia", "geomedia", "digital work geographies", and "media-induced gentrification". Typically, I scrutinize these topics through the lenses of social stratification and inequality, paying particular attention to categories or elements of class, habitus, capital, taste, distinction, eliteness, precarity, etc. 

I finished my PhD in 2012, with my thesis More Than Meets the Eye: Transmedial Entertainment as a Site of Pleasure, Resistance and Exploitation. The thesis involved a full-circuit qualitative study of Hasbro’s Transformers brand, and combined political economy and cultural studies to scrutinize producer-consumer power relations in the age of "media convergence".

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

I have published in peer-reviewed journals such as New Media and Society, Convergence, Communication Theory, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Media, Culture & Society, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Communication and the Public, Media and Communication, and European Journal of Cultural Studies.

 

Books:

  • Albris, K., Fast, K., Karlsen, F., Kaun, A., Lomborg, S., & Syvertsen, T. (Eds.) (2024). The Digital Backlash and the Paradoxes of Disconnection. Göteborg: Nordicom.
  • Fast, K. & Jansson, A. (2019). Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in Digital Modernity. London: Routledge.
  • Fast, K., Jansson, A., Lindell, J., Ryan Bengtsson, L., & Tesfahuney, M. (2018). Geomedia Studies: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized Worlds. London: Routledge.

 

Selected recent research articles and book chapters:

  • Fast, K. & Syvertsen, T. (2024). Post-digital consumption: The controversy surrounding the mobile phone box as a means of disconnection. In Albris, K., Fast, K., Karlsen, F., Kaun, A., Lomborg, S., & Syvertsen, T. (Eds.) The Digital Backlash and The Paradoxes of Disconnection. Göteborg: Nordicom. 
  • Enli, G., & Fast, K. (2023). Political solutions or user responsibilization? How politicians understand problems connected to digital overload. Convergence, 29(3), 675-689.
  • Fast, K. & Jansson, A. (2023). The post-digital self: How transmedia dissolves the boundaries of work and tourism. In Freeman, M. & Dalby, J. (Eds.) Transmedia Selves. Routledge.
  • Fast, K. & Abend, P. (2022). Introduction to geomedia histories. New Media & Society, 24(11). 
  • Fast, K. (2022). Who has the right to the coworking space?: Reframing platformed workspaces as elite territory in the geomedia city. Space & Culture, 1-15. 
  • Fast, K. (2021). The disconnection turn: Three facets of disconnective work in post-digital capitalism. Convergence. 
  • Lindell, J., Jansson, A., & Fast, K. (2021). I’m here! Conspicuous geomedia practices and the reproduction of social positions on social media. Information, Communication & Society, 1-20.
  • Fast, K., Lindell, J. & Jansson, A. (2021). Disconnection as Distinction. In Jansson, A. & Adams, P. C. (Eds.) Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection. Oxford University Press, pp. 61-90.
  • Jansson, A., Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., & Lindell, J. (2021). Mediatization from within: A plea for emic approaches to media-related social change. Communication Theory, 31(4), 956-977.
  • Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., Jansson, A., & Lindell, J. (2020). Media and basic desires: An approach to measuring the mediatization of daily human life. Communications, 46(2), 275-296.
  • Fast, K; Ljungberg, E., & Braunerhielm, L. (2019). On the social construction of geomedia technologies. Communication and the Public, 4(2), 89-99. 
  • Fast, K. (2018). A discursive approach to mediatization: corporate technology discourse and the trope of media indispensability. Media and Communication, 6(2), 15-28. 

 

ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS

As stated above, much of my research is tied to The Centre for Geomedia Studies – a prioritized interdisciplinary research environment at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies, Film Studies, Tourism Studies, and Human Geography, at Karlstad University. I am part of the group’s management team and the coordinator of Geomedia's research infrastructure, which encompasses The Geomedia Panel - a longitudinal and qualitative interview panel that serves to explore attitudes towards and experiences of what we call "geomediatization" (Fast et al., 2018). Put briefly, the concept refers to processes that involve increasing spatialization of media as well as the mediatization of space/place. 

The Geomedia Panel runs parallel to Measuring Mediatization - a quantitative, longitudinal, (geo)mediatization research project (PI: André Jansson, funded by Anne-Marie och Gustaf Anders stiftelse för mediaforskning). This project was launched in 2016 and is still ongoing. It address people’s experiences of extended entanglements with and dependence on media (technologies, texts, and institutions), thus validating whether and under what conditions mediatization is actually taking place.

For the last four years, as an employee at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Oslo, I have had the pleasure of working on a project called Invasive Media, Ambivalent Users and Digital Detox (Digitox), led by Professor Trine Syvertsen (University of Oslo) and funded by the Norwegian Research Council (2019-23). The project is a collaboration between the University of Oslo (media studies and psychology), the University of Bergen (media studies), and Kristiania University (media/game studies). I worked full-time on the project from February 2020 to June 2021, and part-time up until the end of 2023.

As of January 2023, I work on the project Hot Desks in Cool Places: Coworking as Post-Digital Industry and Movement; a 4-year research project funded by the Swedish Research Council and led by Professor André Jansson (Karlstad University). This project addresses the future of work, and battles over this future, by studying a trendsetting type of media-enhanced, urban workplaces: so-called coworking spaces. As the notion of 'post-digital' in the title suggests, particular attention is given to expressions of digital reflexivity and disconnection. For example, we are curious to learn how coworking spaces react to and potentially materialize (e.g. in office layout) digital disconnection norms and sensibilities. 

 

ENDED RESEARCH PROJECTS

Before I started working at the University of Oslo, I was the project leader of Music Ecosystems Inner Scandinavia (MECO) – a three-year, bilingual, interdisciplinary and cross-sectional research project that, among other things, asks critical questions about the unequal conditions of music consumption in the era of accelerating digitalization and datafication. The project was a collaboration between Karlstad University and Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, and co-funded by EU/Interreg Sweden-Norway, Region Värmland, Studiefrämjandet Örebro-Värmland, Karlstad University, Arvika Kommun, and Hedmark Fylkeskommune.

My previous research projects also include Music Innovation Networks Inner Scandinavia (MINS) (2015-18, funded by EU/Interreg) and Kinetic Élites: The Mediatization of Social Belonging and Close Relationships among Mobile Class Fractions (2012-15, funded by Swedish Research Council).

Teaching

I have taught a variety of media and communication studies courses over the years, from undergraduate level to graduate. I have also taught doctoral courses in human geography, e.g. on feminist geographies. I have several years of experience with PhD thesis supervision, as both main and co- supervisor. I was the first Programme Director of the new Master's Programme in Geomedia Studies: Media, Mobility and Spatial Planning – an interdisciplinary, international master’s programme that integrates Media and Communication Studies and Human Geography into what we call ‘Geomedia Studies’. The programme was launched in August 2019 and is open to qualified students from Media and Communication Studies, Human Geography, or adjacent subjects. I regularly teach in the Geomedia Studies programme. 

Selected publications

PhD Thesis

Fast, K. (2012). More Than Meets the Eye: Transmedial Entertainment as a Site of Pleasure, Resistance and Exploitation. Karlstad: Karlstad University Studies. 

 

Selected recent articles and book chapters

 

  • Fast, K. & Enli, G. (2024). Political work under post-digital conditions: Or, how politicians endure digital entrapment and distraction in daily life. In Albris, K., Fast, K., Karlsen, F., Kaun, A., Lomborg, S., & Syvertsen, T. (Eds.) The Digital Backlash and the Paradoxes of Disconnection. Göteborg: Nordicom.

 

  • Fast, K. & Syvertsen, T. (2024). Post-digital consumption: The controversy surrounding the mobile phone box as a means of disconnection. In Albris, K., Fast, K., Karlsen, F., Kaun, A., Lomborg, S., & Syvertsen, T. (Eds.) The Digital Backlash and the Paradoxes of Disconnection. Göteborg: Nordicom.

 

  • Fast, K. & Jansson, A. (2023). The post-digital self: How transmedia dissolves the boundaries of work and tourism. In Freeman, M. & Dalby, J. (Eds.) Transmedia Selves. Routledge.  

 

  • Enli, G., & Fast, K. (2023). Political solutions or user responsibilization? How politicians understand problems connected to digital overload. Convergence, 29(3), 675-689.

 

  • Fast, K. & Abend, P. (2022). Introduction to geomedia histories. New Media and Society, 24(11), 2385-2395

 

  • Fast, K. (2022). Who has the right to the coworking space?: Reframing platformed workspaces as elite territory in the geomedia city. Space and Culture, 1-15. DOI: 10.1177/12063312221090429. 

 

  • Fast, K. (2021). The disconnection turn: Three facets of disconnective work in post-digital capitalism. Convergence, 27(6), 1615-1630.

 

  • Lindell, J., Jansson, A., & Fast, K. (2021). I’m here! Conspicuous geomedia practices and the reproduction of social positions on social media. Information, Communication & Society, 1-20. DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2021.1925322. 

 

  • Jansson, A., Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., & Lindell, J. (2021). Mediatization from within: A plea for emic approaches to media-related social change. Communication Theory, 31(4), 956-977. 

 

  • Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., Jansson, A., & Lindell, J. (2021). Media and basic desires: An approach to measuring the mediatization of daily human life. Communications, 46(2), 275-296.

 

  • Fast, K., Ljungberg, E., & Braunerhielm, L. (2019). On the social construction of geomedia technologies. Communication and the Public, 4(2), 89-99.  

 

  • Fast, K. (2018). A discursive approach to mediatization: Corporate technology discourse and the trope of media indispensability. Media and Communication, 6(2), 15-28. 

 

  • Örnebring, H., Karlsson, M., Fast, K., & Lindell, J. (2018). The space of journalistic work: A theoretical model. Communication Theory, 28(4), 403-423. 

 

  • Fast, K. & Örnebring, H. (2017). Transmedia world building: ‘The Shadow’ (1931 - present) and ‘Transformers’ (1984 - present), International Journal of Cultural Studies, 20(6), 636–652. 

 

  • Fast, K., Örnebring, H., & Karlsson, M. (2016). Metaphors of free labor: A typology of unpaid work in the media sector, Media, Culture & Society, 38(7), 963-978. 

 

  • Fast, K. & Lindell, J. (2016). The elastic mobility of business elites: Negotiating the ‘home’ and ‘away’ continuum, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(5), 435–449. 

 

 

 

 

 

Publications