Karin Fast

 
Docent i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Forskning

I am an Associate Professor (Docent) in Media and Communication Studies at the Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University. I also work part-time at the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo, Norway.

 

Current research interests

Today, my research spans four key research fields: (de- / counter-)mediatization, media work, transmedia and geomedia. My most recent projects and publications evolve around themes such as ‘transmedia work’, ‘coworking’, ‘disconnectivity’, ‘gentrification’, and ‘geomedia technologies’. I have published in peer-reviewed journals such as, for example, 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. Two of my latest books are:

  • 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.

 

Some of my most recent research articles and book chapters are:

 

  • Fast, K. & Abend, P. (2022). Introduction to geomedia histories. New Media and Society, 24(11). DOI: 10.1177/1461444822112216

 

  • 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: 10.1177/1206331222109042

 

  • Fast, K. (2021). The disconnection turn: Three facets of disconnective work in post-digital capitalism. Convergence. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F13548565211033382. Published online first.

 

  • 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. 14 s.

 

Recent conference papers of mine include, for example:

 

  • Fast, K., Jansson, A., Lindell, J., & Bengtsson, S. (2022). Making “good use” of mobile media: Surveying smartphone practices as a social and moral space. ECREA, October 19-22, Aarhus, Denmark.

 

  • Lindell, J., Jansson, A., Bengtsson, S. & Fast, K. (2022) “Mapping media life: Mediatization as conceptual mediator in a hyper-fragmented academic field”. ECREA, October 19-22, Aarhus, Denmark.

 

  • Fast, K. & Enli, Gunn (2021). Digital distancing – As good as it gets?: A study of political work and life under the (dis)connectivity imperative. Nordmedia2021, August 18-20. Virtual conference.

 

  • Lindell, J, Jansson, A, & Fast, K. (2021). I’m here! Conspicuous geomedia practices and the reproduction of social positions on social media. ICA: International Communication Association, May 27-31. Virtual conference.

 

  • Fast, K. (2021). Where the spatial elite resides?: Examining coworking and coworking spaces through the lens of eliteness instead of precariousness. ICA: International Communication Association, May 27-31. Virtual conference.

 

  • Fast, K. (2021). Enter the Post-Digital Housewife: Re-spatializing digital labour in the culture of disconnectivity. American Association of Geographies (AAG): Annual Meeting, April 7-11. Virtual conference. 

 

  • Fast, K. (2021). The ‘disconnection turn’ and its consequences for work. Higher Seminar at Södertörn University, May 18. Stockholm/virtual seminar. Invited speaker (with Trine Syvertsen).

 

  • Fast, K., Lindell, J. & Jansson, A. (2021). Disconnection as distinction: A Bourdieusian study of where people withdraw from digital media. Geomedia2021: Off the Grid, May 5-8. Virtual conference.

 

  • Fast, K. (2021). (Dis)connected territories in the post-digital city. Designing the Local in Times of Geomedia (organized by The Geomedia Research Group at Karlstad University), April 15. Virtual conference.

Ongoing research projects

Much of my research is conducted within 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 on (experiences of and ideas about) geomediatization. 

On a regular basis, I also conduct longitudinal (geo)mediatization research within the frames of the longitudinal survey project Meassuring Mediatization (funded by Anne-Marie och Gustaf Anders stiftelse för mediaforskning). 

Currently, I hold a position (20% of full-time) as Researcher at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Oslo, where I work in the project 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), University of Bergen (media studies) and Kristiania University (media/game studies). I worked full-time in the project from February 2020 to June 2021.

As of January 2023, I also 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 in this project too 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 sentiments and norms. 

Previous research projects

Before I started my position in 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 still ongoing project is 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)

 

  • Kinetic Élites: The Mediatization of Social Belonging and Close Relationships among Mobile Class Fractions (2012-15, funded by Swedish Research Council).

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 builds on a full-circuit qualitative study of Hasbro’s Transformers brand, and scrutinizes producer-consumer power-relations in the age of media convergence through the lenses of political economy and cultural studies.

Selected research awards

’Top Faculty Paper Award of the ICA Philosophy, Theory and Critique Division’, 2019, for the paper Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., Jansson, A., & Lindell, J. (2019). Media and basic desires: An approach to measuring the mediatization of daily life. ICA 69th Annual Meeting, May 24-28, Washington D C., USA.

‘The Wolfgang Donsbach Outstanding Article of the Year Award’ of the ICA Journalism Studies Division, 2019, for the article Örnebring, H., Karlsson, M., Fast, K., & Lindell, J. (2018). The space of journalistic work: A theoretical model. Communication Theory, 28(4), 403-423.

 

Undervisning

I teach and supervise a variety of (geo)media studies courses across various educational levels, including the masters’ and doctoral studies'. I was also the first Programme director of the new Masters 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.

Utvalda publikationer

PhD Thesis

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

Recent peer-reviewed articles

Fast, K. (2021). The disconnection turn: Three facets of disconnective work in post-digital capitalism. Convergence. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F13548565211033382. 

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.

Jansson, A., Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., & Lindell, J. (2020). Mediatization from within: A plea for emic approaches to media-related social change. Communication Theory.

Bengtsson, S., Fast, K., Jansson, A., & Lindell, J. (2020). Media and basic desires: An approach to measuring the mediatization of daily human life. Communications, 1 (ahead-of-print).

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. 21 s. AWARD-WINNING ARTICLE.

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. 

Karlsson, M., Bergström, A., Clerwall, C. and Fast, K. (2015). Participatory journalism – the (r)evolution that wasn’t: Content and user behavior in Sweden 2007-2013. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(3), 295–311. 

Books

Fast, K., & Jansson, A. (2019). Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in Digital Modernity. London: Routledge. 

Fast, K., Jansson, A., Tesfahuney, M., Ryan-Bengtsson, L. & Lindell, J. (Eds.) (2018). Geomedia Studies: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized Worlds. New York: Routledge.

Book chapters

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

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.

Fast, K., Jansson, A., Tesfahuney, M., Ryan Bengtsson, L., & Lindell, J. (2018). Introduction to Geomedia Studies. In K. Fast, A. Jansson, M. Tesfahuney, L. Ryan-Bengtsson, & J. Lindell (2018). Geomedia Studies: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized World. New York: Routledge, pp. 1-17.

Jansson, A., Fast, K. (2018). Transmedia identities: From fan cultures to liquid lives. In M. Freeman & R. R. Gambarato (red.) The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies, pp. 40-49. 10 s.

Fast, K., Örnebring, H. & Karlsson, M. (2017). Metaphors of free labor: A typology of unpaid work in the media sector. In Yao Jianhua (Ed.) Digital Labour in the Media Industries (Series of Media and Digital Labour: Western Perspectives, Volume II). Beijing: The Commercial Press. Reprint of article.

Other publications

Kaun, A., & Fast, K. (2014). Mediatization of Culture and Everyday Life. Södertörn: Mediestudier vid Södertörn; Karlstad: Karlstad University Press.

 

Publikationer