Karin Fast
Biographic Data
| ID | 4449079 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karin Fast |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karin |
| FAMILY NAME | Fast |
| SIGNATURE | FAST K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Karlstad University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4704-5017 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 48 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Connectivity justice
This theoretical commentary introduces the concept of connectivity justice and discusses how it can be utilized in research on mobile, digitally reliant lives. Connectivity justice reframes questions of mobility and data justice for a post-digital world in which digital connections have become both indispensable and intrusive. The concept extends recent work on digital disconnection by examining the institutional and sociotechnical drivers of con…
Making place for disconnection
This study examines how coworking hospitality is produced in times of digitalization critique. • The study illuminates the socio-material impact of the post-digital condition. • “Post-digital hospitality” and “post-digital urbanism” represent key theoretical contributions. • Coworking spaces are identified as prototypical of the post-digital city. • As touristic sites, coworking spaces play a role in social stratification and gentrification
The touristification of work in the post-digital city
This article introduces a special issue on “The touristification of work in the post-digital city”. It outlines how contemporary cities are being reshaped by two intertwined dynamics: the touristification of work and the rise of post-digital urbanism. As mobile technologies and flexible labor practices enable people to blend work with travel, new forms of “touristified work” emerge, including phenomena like “workation”, digital nomadism, and cowo…
The Romantic Workplace
Society and culture are increasingly marked by post-digital developments where the normalization of digital connectivity is challenged both through critical resistance, e.g., digital disconnection practices, and in commercial discourses on, e.g., “digital wellbeing” and “digital detox.” This article seeks to understand such post-digital trends in working life through the lens of romantic ideals. In modern history, the Romantic ethic implied an es…
The coming of the post-digital workplace? A survey of how white-collar workers experience and cope with digital media reliance
The coming of the post-digital workplace? A survey of how white-collar workers experience and cope with digital media reliance. New media technology can both hamper and amplify workers' agency. Much research shows that the ambiguities of digital reliance are accentuated among office workers, especially knowledge workers, who spend most of their working time handling different types of information and data. Thus, in times of constant connectivity,…
From citizen identity to datafied life
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…
Smartphone morality
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…
Bringing the Future to Geomedia Studies
Geomedia, representing an epochal shift in spatial mediations and spatialized media, changes daily life. This future-directed thematic issue advocates for contextualized understandings of geomedia that transcend contemporary hegemonic representations of technology. It recognizes the transformative powers of geomediatization processes and asks what “geomedia futures” such processes might bring about. Bridging critical geomedia studies and critical…
Working in the comfort zone
Coworking spaces are contradictory places. Typically, they are constructed as connected, domestic-like places for hard work and as recreational, aestheticized destinations for individuals in search of work-life balance and opportunities for partial disconnection. This article contributes an immanent critique of coworking spaces through the overarching notion of “coworking space territoriality”. Our point of departure is the concept of post-digita…
Political Solutions or user Responsibilization? How Politicians understand Problems Connected to Digital Overload
Politicians are decision-makers responsible for policy and opinion leaders with unique powers to construct challenges and problems as political. An emerging problematic issue pertains to users’ experiences of digital overload and invasive media (Syvertsen 2020; Lomborg and Ytre-Arne, 2021). Existing studies report that users struggle to self-regulate their digital media use – or ‘disconnect’. This relates to how connectivity platforms develop inc…
I’m here! Conspicuous geomedia practices and the reproduction of social positions on social media
‘Checking in’ at or ‘tagging’ oneself to various places on social media constitute online representations that contribute to the classification, or ‘making’, of places. At the same time, users are also classified based on what they (show that they) do where. In this paper, we deploy Bourdieusian cultural sociology to the realm of place-exposing geomedia practices to understand social reproduction on social media. The study uses multiple correspon…
Who Has the Right to the Coworking Space? Reframing Platformed Workspaces as Elite Territory in the Geomedia City
Current research suggests that coworking spaces (CWS) both respond to and legitimize work precarization. This is an important critique. Less acknowledged, however, is the fact that CWS also (re)produce eliteness. Thus, to the aim of offering perspectives that remain underrepresented in CWS research, I here scrutinize CWS as promotors of class privilege. I build my case on the premise that class privilege has to do with more than merely economic s…
Introduction to geomedia histories
The maturation of mobile, convergent, and place-contingent technologies has inspired researchers from different fields to re-imagine the relationship between geography and media. Recently, the linking of site-specific media and mediatized places culminated in the overarching concept that sits at the midpoint of this special issue: geomedia. While the majority of work within geomedia studies focuses on contemporary developments, thereby offering s…
The disconnection turn
In post-digital capitalism, digital disconnection is not merely a “luxury” but also an obligation. Aiming to re-contextualize digital disconnection outside of digital detox resorts, social media, and elitist activism, this article asks how the ongoing disconnection turn affects how we (think about) work. With cues taken from digital disconnection studies and (digital) work/labour research, I inquire three facets of disconnective work. I elaborate…
Mediatization from Within
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…
Transmedia Work
In Transmedia Work Karin Fast and Andrae Jansson explore several key questions that frame the study of the social and cultural implications of a digital, connected workforce. How might we understand 'privilege' and 'precariousness' in today's digitalized work market? What does it mean to be a privileged worker under the so-called connectivity imperative? What are the social and cultural forces that normalize the appropriation of new media in, and…
On the social construction of geomedia technologies
Geomedia technologies represent an advanced set of digital media devices, hardwares, and softwares. Previous research indicates that these place contingent technologies are currently gaining significant social relevance, and contribute to the shaping of contemporary public lives and spaces. However, research has yet to empirically examine how, and for whom, geomedia technologies are made relevant, as well as the role of these technologies in wide…
A Discursive Approach to Mediatisation
Hitherto, and mainly by way of ethnographic studies, mediatisation research has informed us regarding the relevance, influence, and role of media in various spheres of social life. Less is known, however, about how mediatisation is discursively constructed . The relevance of constructivist approaches to mediatisation has been explicated, e.g., by Krotz (2017), who calls for critical mediatisation studies that consider the economic interests of me…
The Space of Journalistic Work
Attempts to define journalism are often normative in nature but do not add to our theoretical understanding of what journalism is. There is a need for journalism scholarship to recognize explicitly that journalism is a space in which participants are not equal—or even similar—in terms of status, influence, work tasks, and working conditions. This paper offers a theoretical model combining the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu with recent insights f…
Geomedia Studies
This book introduces and develops the concept of geomedia studies as the name of a particular subfield of communication geography. Despite the accelerating societal relevance of 'geomedia' technolo
Metaphors of free labor
Over the last decade, free labor has emerged as a key analytical tool for understanding new or semi-new forms of labor in the contemporary digital economy. This article critiques and develops this concept, with specific reference to work in the media industries, by presenting a historically grounded typology of free labor that also highlights some of the analytical problems with the current use of the concept. Our typology presents seven metaphor…
Transmedia world-building
The study of transmedia storytelling has in recent years turned towards a more historicized understanding of its object of study, and also shifted to a wider perspective on narrative and narrative elements, focusing more on the transmediality of story-worlds and world-building rather than just narratives (‘plots’) in the stricter sense. This article combines these interrelated perspectival shifts in an analysis of story-worlds/world-building in t…
The elastic mobility of business elites – Negotiating the ‘Home’ and ‘Away’ continuum
This study sets out to provide an understanding of internationally mobile elites from a perspective that takes into account the social costs that come with being away from localized, everyday life. We show that mobile elites are often reluctant travellers and employ Bude and Dürrschmidt’s notion of ‘transclusion’ to understand the often-unrecognized ambivalence of mobile lifestyles. One way of coping with the existential dilemma of being away is …
The Space of Journalistic Work
Attempts to define journalism are often normative in nature but do not add to our theoretical understanding of what journalism is. There is a need for journalism scholarship to recognize explicitly that journalism is a space in which participants are not equal—or even similar—in terms of status, influence, work tasks, and working conditions. This paper offers a theoretical model combining the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu with recent insights f…
Mediatization from Within
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…
Metaphors of free labor
Over the last decade, free labor has emerged as a key analytical tool for understanding new or semi-new forms of labor in the contemporary digital economy. This article critiques and develops this concept, with specific reference to work in the media industries, by presenting a historically grounded typology of free labor that also highlights some of the analytical problems with the current use of the concept. Our typology presents seven metaphor…
A Discursive Approach to Mediatisation
Hitherto, and mainly by way of ethnographic studies, mediatisation research has informed us regarding the relevance, influence, and role of media in various spheres of social life. Less is known, however, about how mediatisation is discursively constructed . The relevance of constructivist approaches to mediatisation has been explicated, e.g., by Krotz (2017), who calls for critical mediatisation studies that consider the economic interests of me…
The elastic mobility of business elites – Negotiating the ‘Home’ and ‘Away’ continuum
This study sets out to provide an understanding of internationally mobile elites from a perspective that takes into account the social costs that come with being away from localized, everyday life. We show that mobile elites are often reluctant travellers and employ Bude and Dürrschmidt’s notion of ‘transclusion’ to understand the often-unrecognized ambivalence of mobile lifestyles. One way of coping with the existential dilemma of being away is …
Introduction to geomedia histories
The maturation of mobile, convergent, and place-contingent technologies has inspired researchers from different fields to re-imagine the relationship between geography and media. Recently, the linking of site-specific media and mediatized places culminated in the overarching concept that sits at the midpoint of this special issue: geomedia. While the majority of work within geomedia studies focuses on contemporary developments, thereby offering s…
On the social construction of geomedia technologies
Geomedia technologies represent an advanced set of digital media devices, hardwares, and softwares. Previous research indicates that these place contingent technologies are currently gaining significant social relevance, and contribute to the shaping of contemporary public lives and spaces. However, research has yet to empirically examine how, and for whom, geomedia technologies are made relevant, as well as the role of these technologies in wide…
Transmedia world-building
The study of transmedia storytelling has in recent years turned towards a more historicized understanding of its object of study, and also shifted to a wider perspective on narrative and narrative elements, focusing more on the transmediality of story-worlds and world-building rather than just narratives (‘plots’) in the stricter sense. This article combines these interrelated perspectival shifts in an analysis of story-worlds/world-building in t…
Smartphone morality
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…
Working in the comfort zone
Coworking spaces are contradictory places. Typically, they are constructed as connected, domestic-like places for hard work and as recreational, aestheticized destinations for individuals in search of work-life balance and opportunities for partial disconnection. This article contributes an immanent critique of coworking spaces through the overarching notion of “coworking space territoriality”. Our point of departure is the concept of post-digita…
Who Has the Right to the Coworking Space? Reframing Platformed Workspaces as Elite Territory in the Geomedia City
Current research suggests that coworking spaces (CWS) both respond to and legitimize work precarization. This is an important critique. Less acknowledged, however, is the fact that CWS also (re)produce eliteness. Thus, to the aim of offering perspectives that remain underrepresented in CWS research, I here scrutinize CWS as promotors of class privilege. I build my case on the premise that class privilege has to do with more than merely economic s…
Transmedia world-building
The study of transmedia storytelling has in recent years turned towards a more historicized understanding of its object of study, and also shifted to a wider perspective on narrative and narrative elements, focusing more on the transmediality of story-worlds and world-building rather than just narratives (‘plots’) in the stricter sense. This article combines these interrelated perspectival shifts in an analysis of story-worlds/world-building in t…
The elastic mobility of business elites – Negotiating the ‘Home’ and ‘Away’ continuum
This study sets out to provide an understanding of internationally mobile elites from a perspective that takes into account the social costs that come with being away from localized, everyday life. We show that mobile elites are often reluctant travellers and employ Bude and Dürrschmidt’s notion of ‘transclusion’ to understand the often-unrecognized ambivalence of mobile lifestyles. One way of coping with the existential dilemma of being away is …
Metaphors of free labor
Over the last decade, free labor has emerged as a key analytical tool for understanding new or semi-new forms of labor in the contemporary digital economy. This article critiques and develops this concept, with specific reference to work in the media industries, by presenting a historically grounded typology of free labor that also highlights some of the analytical problems with the current use of the concept. Our typology presents seven metaphor…
Geomedia Studies
This book introduces and develops the concept of geomedia studies as the name of a particular subfield of communication geography. Despite the accelerating societal relevance of 'geomedia' technolo
A Discursive Approach to Mediatisation
Hitherto, and mainly by way of ethnographic studies, mediatisation research has informed us regarding the relevance, influence, and role of media in various spheres of social life. Less is known, however, about how mediatisation is discursively constructed . The relevance of constructivist approaches to mediatisation has been explicated, e.g., by Krotz (2017), who calls for critical mediatisation studies that consider the economic interests of me…
The Space of Journalistic Work
Attempts to define journalism are often normative in nature but do not add to our theoretical understanding of what journalism is. There is a need for journalism scholarship to recognize explicitly that journalism is a space in which participants are not equal—or even similar—in terms of status, influence, work tasks, and working conditions. This paper offers a theoretical model combining the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu with recent insights f…
Transmedia Work
In Transmedia Work Karin Fast and Andrae Jansson explore several key questions that frame the study of the social and cultural implications of a digital, connected workforce. How might we understand 'privilege' and 'precariousness' in today's digitalized work market? What does it mean to be a privileged worker under the so-called connectivity imperative? What are the social and cultural forces that normalize the appropriation of new media in, and…
On the social construction of geomedia technologies
Geomedia technologies represent an advanced set of digital media devices, hardwares, and softwares. Previous research indicates that these place contingent technologies are currently gaining significant social relevance, and contribute to the shaping of contemporary public lives and spaces. However, research has yet to empirically examine how, and for whom, geomedia technologies are made relevant, as well as the role of these technologies in wide…
Mediatization from Within
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…
The disconnection turn
In post-digital capitalism, digital disconnection is not merely a “luxury” but also an obligation. Aiming to re-contextualize digital disconnection outside of digital detox resorts, social media, and elitist activism, this article asks how the ongoing disconnection turn affects how we (think about) work. With cues taken from digital disconnection studies and (digital) work/labour research, I inquire three facets of disconnective work. I elaborate…
I’m here! Conspicuous geomedia practices and the reproduction of social positions on social media
‘Checking in’ at or ‘tagging’ oneself to various places on social media constitute online representations that contribute to the classification, or ‘making’, of places. At the same time, users are also classified based on what they (show that they) do where. In this paper, we deploy Bourdieusian cultural sociology to the realm of place-exposing geomedia practices to understand social reproduction on social media. The study uses multiple correspon…
Who Has the Right to the Coworking Space? Reframing Platformed Workspaces as Elite Territory in the Geomedia City
Current research suggests that coworking spaces (CWS) both respond to and legitimize work precarization. This is an important critique. Less acknowledged, however, is the fact that CWS also (re)produce eliteness. Thus, to the aim of offering perspectives that remain underrepresented in CWS research, I here scrutinize CWS as promotors of class privilege. I build my case on the premise that class privilege has to do with more than merely economic s…
Introduction to geomedia histories
The maturation of mobile, convergent, and place-contingent technologies has inspired researchers from different fields to re-imagine the relationship between geography and media. Recently, the linking of site-specific media and mediatized places culminated in the overarching concept that sits at the midpoint of this special issue: geomedia. While the majority of work within geomedia studies focuses on contemporary developments, thereby offering s…
Political Solutions or user Responsibilization? How Politicians understand Problems Connected to Digital Overload
Politicians are decision-makers responsible for policy and opinion leaders with unique powers to construct challenges and problems as political. An emerging problematic issue pertains to users’ experiences of digital overload and invasive media (Syvertsen 2020; Lomborg and Ytre-Arne, 2021). Existing studies report that users struggle to self-regulate their digital media use – or ‘disconnect’. This relates to how connectivity platforms develop inc…
Bringing the Future to Geomedia Studies
Geomedia, representing an epochal shift in spatial mediations and spatialized media, changes daily life. This future-directed thematic issue advocates for contextualized understandings of geomedia that transcend contemporary hegemonic representations of technology. It recognizes the transformative powers of geomediatization processes and asks what “geomedia futures” such processes might bring about. Bridging critical geomedia studies and critical…
Working in the comfort zone
Coworking spaces are contradictory places. Typically, they are constructed as connected, domestic-like places for hard work and as recreational, aestheticized destinations for individuals in search of work-life balance and opportunities for partial disconnection. This article contributes an immanent critique of coworking spaces through the overarching notion of “coworking space territoriality”. Our point of departure is the concept of post-digita…
The Romantic Workplace
Society and culture are increasingly marked by post-digital developments where the normalization of digital connectivity is challenged both through critical resistance, e.g., digital disconnection practices, and in commercial discourses on, e.g., “digital wellbeing” and “digital detox.” This article seeks to understand such post-digital trends in working life through the lens of romantic ideals. In modern history, the Romantic ethic implied an es…
The coming of the post-digital workplace? A survey of how white-collar workers experience and cope with digital media reliance
The coming of the post-digital workplace? A survey of how white-collar workers experience and cope with digital media reliance. New media technology can both hamper and amplify workers' agency. Much research shows that the ambiguities of digital reliance are accentuated among office workers, especially knowledge workers, who spend most of their working time handling different types of information and data. Thus, in times of constant connectivity,…
From citizen identity to datafied life
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…
Smartphone morality
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…
Connectivity justice
This theoretical commentary introduces the concept of connectivity justice and discusses how it can be utilized in research on mobile, digitally reliant lives. Connectivity justice reframes questions of mobility and data justice for a post-digital world in which digital connections have become both indispensable and intrusive. The concept extends recent work on digital disconnection by examining the institutional and sociotechnical drivers of con…
Making place for disconnection
This study examines how coworking hospitality is produced in times of digitalization critique. • The study illuminates the socio-material impact of the post-digital condition. • “Post-digital hospitality” and “post-digital urbanism” represent key theoretical contributions. • Coworking spaces are identified as prototypical of the post-digital city. • As touristic sites, coworking spaces play a role in social stratification and gentrification
The touristification of work in the post-digital city
This article introduces a special issue on “The touristification of work in the post-digital city”. It outlines how contemporary cities are being reshaped by two intertwined dynamics: the touristification of work and the rise of post-digital urbanism. As mobile technologies and flexible labor practices enable people to blend work with travel, new forms of “touristified work” emerge, including phenomena like “workation”, digital nomadism, and cowo…
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (13 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Digital Games and Media (5 works) · Engineering (5 works)