Stina Bengtsson
Biographic Data
| ID | 241792 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stina Bengtsson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stina |
| FAMILY NAME | Bengtsson |
| SIGNATURE | BENGTSSON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Jönköping University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4358-8388 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The pure and the dirty – self-harming in the Bible
Traditional research on self-harm has predominantly focused on medical models and individual-level psychological factors, but recent sociological perspectives have highlighted the importance of understanding self-harm within broader social contexts. This article explores self-harm in biblical texts, employing Mary Douglas’ cultural anthropological theory on systems of purity and dirt. The study identifies three distinct forms of self-harm in bibl…
The Relevance of Digital News: Themes, Scales and Temporalities
In news research, news relevance was for long synonymous with how journalists constructed it. But recently, scholars have questioned the assumption that journalists’ preferences correspond with their audiences’. Several studies have approached news relevance from the audience point of view, showing audiences’ news relevance is constructed as an everyday practice, through assessments of topics and brands, and at the backdrop of users’ earlier expe…
Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Swedish adolescents’ mental well-being: The role of impulsivity, sleep, spirituality, and self-esteem
Generally, there are multiple pathways through which COVID-19 pandemic affects the well-being of adolescents. Therefore, there may be a need for psychoeducation and/or counseling on different coping strategies during infectious pandemics with a high risk of mortality to enhance mental well-being
From citizen identity to datafied life: Rethinking media reliance in times of pervasive connectivity
Whereas media reliance is one of the classical concepts in media and communication studies, this article argues that deep mediatization imposes a renewed relevance of the term, as well as a need to develop a more nuanced framework for studying its social implications. Traditionally, media reliance was used to explain how people develop a citizen identity. Today, while connective media, datafication and AI have transformed what it means to be reli…
Circles of Recognition: Deaf Identity, Sign Language, and Social Justice in Turn-of-the-Century Sweden
The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century . By Dagmar Herzog
Smartphone morality: A mixed-method study of how young adults judge their own and other people’s digital media reliance
Escalating smartphone reliance is a debated issue, especially when it comes to the digital wellbeing of young people. Hence, this article addresses smartphone use as a morally contested activity among young adults. We first analyse the existence of moral dissonance pertaining to one’s own smartphone use – whether one uses the device according to internalised norms or not. Second, we explore moral distancing – to what extent morally problematic sm…
Classics in Media Theory
Reflections in Case-Based Learning: Experiences of Computer-Based Simulations in Social Work Education
Case-based learning has a long history in social work education, but has been relatively unaffected by the advances of information and computer technology. The aim of this study is to discuss new, and perhaps more rewarding, forms of decision case learning by using a computer-based simulation, SimChild, that puts the student in the position of a professional social worker assessing a child protection case. Aggregated statistics from the SimChild …
Activation measures through the lens of governmentality
This article focuses on young unemployed people in Sweden involved in two activation measures. Using the analytical framework of governmentality, it analyses how the participants perceive and value activation measures as government-driven interventions aimed at bringing young people into the labour market based on a neoliberal discourse of the welfare state. The article highlights that the welfare system tries to not only promote behavioural chan…
The Meanings of Social Media Use in Everyday Life: Filling Empty Slots, Everyday Transformations, and Mood Management
Since their emergence in the early 2000s, social media have continued to increase in popularity, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Even though they have been studied in relation to a wide range of topics, including their role in politics, social relationships, activism, identity construction, and youth cultures, the rise of social media is also connected to a number of less dramatic, yet pervasive, shifts relating to their integrat…
Mediatization from Within: A Plea for Emic Approaches to Media-Related Social Change
Based on a literature review, this article shows that current mediatization scholarship is characterized by what Pike (1967) refers to as etic accounts. These accounts forward theoretical categories on media-related social change to conclude that our age is characterized by deepened and expanded media reliance. However, such theoretical extrapolation takes place not from, but at the expense of, people’s lived experiences, that is, emic accounts o…
A phenomenology of news: Understanding news in digital culture
Digital media transform news. First, we see this in changing use patterns. Young people today show a decline in interest in traditional news formats and practices, such as watching the evening news on TV or reading a daily newspaper. But digital media also transform production and distribution of news, leading to new ways to conceptualise and understand news. In the light of these profound transformations in audience behaviour many have started t…
Sensorial Organization as an Ethics of Space: Digital Media in Everyday Life
This article outlines an analysis of the ethical organization of digital media and social and individual space in everyday life. This is made from a perspective of an ‘ethics of the ordinary’, highlighting the mundane negotiations and practices conducted to maintain a ‘good life’ with the media. The analysis shows a sensorial organization of space is conducted in relation to social space, as well as individually. The interviewees use facilities p…
Child protection and cultural awareness: Simulation-based learning
Social work educators have long struggled with the challenge of finding appropriate strategies for fostering cultural awareness among their students. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how a computer-based simulation, SimChild, can be used in teaching about child protection to enhance cultural awareness among students and expand their insight into how personal biases can affect professional practice. In SimChild, individual students can a…
The nation’s body: Disability and deviance in the writings of Adolf Hitler
This article takes its starting point in the Nazi ideology as it appears in the writings of Adolf Hitler, and discusses how disability and the body can be understood in the context of Mein Kampf. The article underlines how disability and bodily infirmities, alongside race, featured significantly in Hitler’s demagogic message. Although the overall image of disability was related to a sense of threat – and a culture gone wrong – Mein Kampf also con…
Avatar as Second Suit: Power and Participation in Virtual Work
This article provides an analysis of the experiences of user–avatar relations and interaction of people who work in a virtual world. Earlier research often claims that relationships between users and their avatars are, by nature, strong and intense. By analyzing individuals who conducted paid labor in a number of public institutions in a virtual world, this article argues that the frame of work heavily influenced the professional users’ experienc…
Out of the frame: Disability and the body in the writings of Karl Marx
How disability as a phenomenon is to be understood has been widely discussed within the field of disability research. Influenced by a Marxist perspective, the social model has reinforced the view that disability results from the organization of society rather than from individual premises. This article elaborates on these issues by exploring the writings of Karl Marx and his views concerning disability. The analysis pinpoints bodily normality in …
The Right to the Citi(zen): Urban Spaces in Commercial Media Environments
Following the publication of Henri Lefebvre’s book Le Droit à la ville (1968), a debate has emerged regarding the neoliberal takeover of urban spaces and activism. Nonetheless, in the past 10 years, we have seen the continuous expansion of public space via social networking media and, today, most public institutions in Western states use social networking sites to communicate with their “citizens.” Although there are many serious problems associa…
The myth of the total institution: Written narratives of patients' views of sanatorium care 1908-1959
The two-sided coin – disability, normalcy and social categorization in the New Testament
This article addresses the issue of disability, normalcy and social categorization in relation to the New Testament. It discusses how disabilities ended up in elusive and contradictory categories where a number of various mechanisms and roles coincided and where different systems of logic converged. The scrutiny suggests that people with disabilities simultaneously were considered to be both a threat and an opportunity. The analysis illustrates h…
Digital distinctions: Mechanisms of Difference in Digital Media Use
This article aims at understanding to understand the distinctive mechanisms of digital media use, seen in relation to cultural practices at large. The empirical material is a survey study of university students at the Business Administration, Media and Communication Studies, Political Science and Philosophy departments at Södertörn University, Sweden. The empirical analysis deals with the students' digital media use and preferences, and how these…
You Have to Have a Certain Feeling for This Work”: Exploring Tacit Knowledge in Elder Care
Increased care worker knowledge has been emphasized for improving quality of care for older persons in organized elder care in Sweden. However, care workers and national policies are not always corresponding, with observations suggesting that care workers emphasize tacit knowledge. The aim of this article is to explore the nature of this kind of knowledge and how it can be identified and described. Field notes from participant observations at two…
On the borderline – representations of disability in the Old Testament
This article explores disability in the Old Testament. The discussion takes its starting point in a number of domains and arenas where disability was visualized and investigates the significance and meaning that can be attached to these domains in relation to the problem of inclusion and exclusion. The analysis highlights complex and contradictory phenomena, where the interpretation was not given but rather dependent on the cultural context and d…
Faraway, so close! Proximity and distance in ethnography online
This article argues for a revised importance of distance, besides the much emphasized closeness, in the debate on and use of ethnographic methods in online environments. When returning to the founding fathers of ethnographic methods, distance is often put forward as a core aspect of ethnographic methods, something widely forgotten, or even rejected, in the current debate in the field. Space has been restructured by digital media technologies, and…
A phenomenology of news: Understanding news in digital culture
Digital media transform news. First, we see this in changing use patterns. Young people today show a decline in interest in traditional news formats and practices, such as watching the evening news on TV or reading a daily newspaper. But digital media also transform production and distribution of news, leading to new ways to conceptualise and understand news. In the light of these profound transformations in audience behaviour many have started t…
Virtual Nation Branding: The Swedish Embassy in Second Life
In this article I will present and discuss the Swedish virtual embassy as a new example of nation branding. By exploring the development of the Swedish embassy in Second Life, activities arranged by and involving the virtual embassy as well as the surrounding discourse of international mainstream media and people engaged in the development of Second Life, I will analyse the significance of the virtual environment in this virtual nation-branding p…
Imagined user modes: Media morality in everyday life
This article deals with the moral dimensions of everyday media use. It discusses the values, strategies and norms of the moral economy of media use in everyday life. First, it identifies three different kinds of values connected with media texts and technologies. Second, it discusses different strategies to create a morally correct balance in everyday life. Third, it puts forward the concept of imagined user modes to deepen our understanding of t…
Producing and consuming knowledge in social work practice: Research and development activities in a Swedish context
This article presents various forms of activities performed by locally based social welfare research and development (R&D) units in Sweden. The authors argue that these units are vital actors in the field of encouraging and strengthening evidence-based social work practice. They are close to social services organisations and have the ability to use flexible methods in order to bridge the gap between research and practice in a local context. The t…
Faraway, so close! Proximity and distance in ethnography online
This article argues for a revised importance of distance, besides the much emphasized closeness, in the debate on and use of ethnographic methods in online environments. When returning to the founding fathers of ethnographic methods, distance is often put forward as a core aspect of ethnographic methods, something widely forgotten, or even rejected, in the current debate in the field. Space has been restructured by digital media technologies, and…
Mediatization from Within: A Plea for Emic Approaches to Media-Related Social Change
Based on a literature review, this article shows that current mediatization scholarship is characterized by what Pike (1967) refers to as etic accounts. These accounts forward theoretical categories on media-related social change to conclude that our age is characterized by deepened and expanded media reliance. However, such theoretical extrapolation takes place not from, but at the expense of, people’s lived experiences, that is, emic accounts o…
Smartphone morality: A mixed-method study of how young adults judge their own and other people’s digital media reliance
Escalating smartphone reliance is a debated issue, especially when it comes to the digital wellbeing of young people. Hence, this article addresses smartphone use as a morally contested activity among young adults. We first analyse the existence of moral dissonance pertaining to one’s own smartphone use – whether one uses the device according to internalised norms or not. Second, we explore moral distancing – to what extent morally problematic sm…
The Meanings of Social Media Use in Everyday Life: Filling Empty Slots, Everyday Transformations, and Mood Management
Since their emergence in the early 2000s, social media have continued to increase in popularity, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Even though they have been studied in relation to a wide range of topics, including their role in politics, social relationships, activism, identity construction, and youth cultures, the rise of social media is also connected to a number of less dramatic, yet pervasive, shifts relating to their integrat…
Out of the frame: Disability and the body in the writings of Karl Marx
How disability as a phenomenon is to be understood has been widely discussed within the field of disability research. Influenced by a Marxist perspective, the social model has reinforced the view that disability results from the organization of society rather than from individual premises. This article elaborates on these issues by exploring the writings of Karl Marx and his views concerning disability. The analysis pinpoints bodily normality in …
The Right to the Citi(zen): Urban Spaces in Commercial Media Environments
Following the publication of Henri Lefebvre’s book Le Droit à la ville (1968), a debate has emerged regarding the neoliberal takeover of urban spaces and activism. Nonetheless, in the past 10 years, we have seen the continuous expansion of public space via social networking media and, today, most public institutions in Western states use social networking sites to communicate with their “citizens.” Although there are many serious problems associa…
The myth of the total institution: Written narratives of patients' views of sanatorium care 1908-1959
Activation measures through the lens of governmentality
This article focuses on young unemployed people in Sweden involved in two activation measures. Using the analytical framework of governmentality, it analyses how the participants perceive and value activation measures as government-driven interventions aimed at bringing young people into the labour market based on a neoliberal discourse of the welfare state. The article highlights that the welfare system tries to not only promote behavioural chan…
Child protection and cultural awareness: Simulation-based learning
Social work educators have long struggled with the challenge of finding appropriate strategies for fostering cultural awareness among their students. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how a computer-based simulation, SimChild, can be used in teaching about child protection to enhance cultural awareness among students and expand their insight into how personal biases can affect professional practice. In SimChild, individual students can a…
Digital distinctions: Mechanisms of Difference in Digital Media Use
This article aims at understanding to understand the distinctive mechanisms of digital media use, seen in relation to cultural practices at large. The empirical material is a survey study of university students at the Business Administration, Media and Communication Studies, Political Science and Philosophy departments at Södertörn University, Sweden. The empirical analysis deals with the students' digital media use and preferences, and how these…
Virtual Nation Branding: The Swedish Embassy in Second Life
In this article I will present and discuss the Swedish virtual embassy as a new example of nation branding. By exploring the development of the Swedish embassy in Second Life, activities arranged by and involving the virtual embassy as well as the surrounding discourse of international mainstream media and people engaged in the development of Second Life, I will analyse the significance of the virtual environment in this virtual nation-branding p…
Producing and consuming knowledge in social work practice: Research and development activities in a Swedish context
This article presents various forms of activities performed by locally based social welfare research and development (R&D) units in Sweden. The authors argue that these units are vital actors in the field of encouraging and strengthening evidence-based social work practice. They are close to social services organisations and have the ability to use flexible methods in order to bridge the gap between research and practice in a local context. The t…
Imagined user modes: Media morality in everyday life
This article deals with the moral dimensions of everyday media use. It discusses the values, strategies and norms of the moral economy of media use in everyday life. First, it identifies three different kinds of values connected with media texts and technologies. Second, it discusses different strategies to create a morally correct balance in everyday life. Third, it puts forward the concept of imagined user modes to deepen our understanding of t…
You Have to Have a Certain Feeling for This Work”: Exploring Tacit Knowledge in Elder Care
Increased care worker knowledge has been emphasized for improving quality of care for older persons in organized elder care in Sweden. However, care workers and national policies are not always corresponding, with observations suggesting that care workers emphasize tacit knowledge. The aim of this article is to explore the nature of this kind of knowledge and how it can be identified and described. Field notes from participant observations at two…
On the borderline – representations of disability in the Old Testament
This article explores disability in the Old Testament. The discussion takes its starting point in a number of domains and arenas where disability was visualized and investigates the significance and meaning that can be attached to these domains in relation to the problem of inclusion and exclusion. The analysis highlights complex and contradictory phenomena, where the interpretation was not given but rather dependent on the cultural context and d…
Faraway, so close! Proximity and distance in ethnography online
This article argues for a revised importance of distance, besides the much emphasized closeness, in the debate on and use of ethnographic methods in online environments. When returning to the founding fathers of ethnographic methods, distance is often put forward as a core aspect of ethnographic methods, something widely forgotten, or even rejected, in the current debate in the field. Space has been restructured by digital media technologies, and…
The two-sided coin – disability, normalcy and social categorization in the New Testament
This article addresses the issue of disability, normalcy and social categorization in relation to the New Testament. It discusses how disabilities ended up in elusive and contradictory categories where a number of various mechanisms and roles coincided and where different systems of logic converged. The scrutiny suggests that people with disabilities simultaneously were considered to be both a threat and an opportunity. The analysis illustrates h…
Digital distinctions: Mechanisms of Difference in Digital Media Use
This article aims at understanding to understand the distinctive mechanisms of digital media use, seen in relation to cultural practices at large. The empirical material is a survey study of university students at the Business Administration, Media and Communication Studies, Political Science and Philosophy departments at Södertörn University, Sweden. The empirical analysis deals with the students' digital media use and preferences, and how these…
Out of the frame: Disability and the body in the writings of Karl Marx
How disability as a phenomenon is to be understood has been widely discussed within the field of disability research. Influenced by a Marxist perspective, the social model has reinforced the view that disability results from the organization of society rather than from individual premises. This article elaborates on these issues by exploring the writings of Karl Marx and his views concerning disability. The analysis pinpoints bodily normality in …
The Right to the Citi(zen): Urban Spaces in Commercial Media Environments
Following the publication of Henri Lefebvre’s book Le Droit à la ville (1968), a debate has emerged regarding the neoliberal takeover of urban spaces and activism. Nonetheless, in the past 10 years, we have seen the continuous expansion of public space via social networking media and, today, most public institutions in Western states use social networking sites to communicate with their “citizens.” Although there are many serious problems associa…
The myth of the total institution: Written narratives of patients' views of sanatorium care 1908-1959
Avatar as Second Suit: Power and Participation in Virtual Work
This article provides an analysis of the experiences of user–avatar relations and interaction of people who work in a virtual world. Earlier research often claims that relationships between users and their avatars are, by nature, strong and intense. By analyzing individuals who conducted paid labor in a number of public institutions in a virtual world, this article argues that the frame of work heavily influenced the professional users’ experienc…
Sensorial Organization as an Ethics of Space: Digital Media in Everyday Life
This article outlines an analysis of the ethical organization of digital media and social and individual space in everyday life. This is made from a perspective of an ‘ethics of the ordinary’, highlighting the mundane negotiations and practices conducted to maintain a ‘good life’ with the media. The analysis shows a sensorial organization of space is conducted in relation to social space, as well as individually. The interviewees use facilities p…
Child protection and cultural awareness: Simulation-based learning
Social work educators have long struggled with the challenge of finding appropriate strategies for fostering cultural awareness among their students. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how a computer-based simulation, SimChild, can be used in teaching about child protection to enhance cultural awareness among students and expand their insight into how personal biases can affect professional practice. In SimChild, individual students can a…
The nation’s body: Disability and deviance in the writings of Adolf Hitler
This article takes its starting point in the Nazi ideology as it appears in the writings of Adolf Hitler, and discusses how disability and the body can be understood in the context of Mein Kampf. The article underlines how disability and bodily infirmities, alongside race, featured significantly in Hitler’s demagogic message. Although the overall image of disability was related to a sense of threat – and a culture gone wrong – Mein Kampf also con…
Mediatization from Within: A Plea for Emic Approaches to Media-Related Social Change
Based on a literature review, this article shows that current mediatization scholarship is characterized by what Pike (1967) refers to as etic accounts. These accounts forward theoretical categories on media-related social change to conclude that our age is characterized by deepened and expanded media reliance. However, such theoretical extrapolation takes place not from, but at the expense of, people’s lived experiences, that is, emic accounts o…
A phenomenology of news: Understanding news in digital culture
Digital media transform news. First, we see this in changing use patterns. Young people today show a decline in interest in traditional news formats and practices, such as watching the evening news on TV or reading a daily newspaper. But digital media also transform production and distribution of news, leading to new ways to conceptualise and understand news. In the light of these profound transformations in audience behaviour many have started t…
Activation measures through the lens of governmentality
This article focuses on young unemployed people in Sweden involved in two activation measures. Using the analytical framework of governmentality, it analyses how the participants perceive and value activation measures as government-driven interventions aimed at bringing young people into the labour market based on a neoliberal discourse of the welfare state. The article highlights that the welfare system tries to not only promote behavioural chan…
The Meanings of Social Media Use in Everyday Life: Filling Empty Slots, Everyday Transformations, and Mood Management
Since their emergence in the early 2000s, social media have continued to increase in popularity, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Even though they have been studied in relation to a wide range of topics, including their role in politics, social relationships, activism, identity construction, and youth cultures, the rise of social media is also connected to a number of less dramatic, yet pervasive, shifts relating to their integrat…
Reflections in Case-Based Learning: Experiences of Computer-Based Simulations in Social Work Education
Case-based learning has a long history in social work education, but has been relatively unaffected by the advances of information and computer technology. The aim of this study is to discuss new, and perhaps more rewarding, forms of decision case learning by using a computer-based simulation, SimChild, that puts the student in the position of a professional social worker assessing a child protection case. Aggregated statistics from the SimChild …
Classics in Media Theory
The Relevance of Digital News: Themes, Scales and Temporalities
In news research, news relevance was for long synonymous with how journalists constructed it. But recently, scholars have questioned the assumption that journalists’ preferences correspond with their audiences’. Several studies have approached news relevance from the audience point of view, showing audiences’ news relevance is constructed as an everyday practice, through assessments of topics and brands, and at the backdrop of users’ earlier expe…
Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Swedish adolescents’ mental well-being: The role of impulsivity, sleep, spirituality, and self-esteem
Generally, there are multiple pathways through which COVID-19 pandemic affects the well-being of adolescents. Therefore, there may be a need for psychoeducation and/or counseling on different coping strategies during infectious pandemics with a high risk of mortality to enhance mental well-being
From citizen identity to datafied life: Rethinking media reliance in times of pervasive connectivity
Whereas media reliance is one of the classical concepts in media and communication studies, this article argues that deep mediatization imposes a renewed relevance of the term, as well as a need to develop a more nuanced framework for studying its social implications. Traditionally, media reliance was used to explain how people develop a citizen identity. Today, while connective media, datafication and AI have transformed what it means to be reli…
Circles of Recognition: Deaf Identity, Sign Language, and Social Justice in Turn-of-the-Century Sweden
Sociology (19 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Social Media and Politics (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works)