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
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.
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, accepted). Datafying citizens. Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure. Nordicom Review.
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
Mooseder, A., Brantner, C., Zamith, R., & Pfeffer, J. (2023). (Social) media logics and visualizing climate change: 10 years of #climatechange images on Twitter. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231164310
Pfeffer, J., Matter, D., Jaidka, K., Varol, O., Mashhadi, A., Lasser, J., Assenmacher, D., Wu, Siqi, Yang, D., Brantner, C., Romero, D. M., Otterbacher, J., Schwemmer, C., Joseph, K., Garcia, D., & Morstatter, F. (2023). Just another day on Twitter: A complete 24 hours of Twitter data. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 17, 1073-1081. https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/22215/21994
Brantner, C., & Saurwein, F. (2021). Covering technology risks and responsibilities: Automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, and algorithms in the media. International Journal of Communication, 15, 5074–5098. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17054
Brantner, C., Rodriguez-Amat, J. R., & Belinskaya, Y. (2021). Structures of the public sphere: Contested spaces as assembled interfaces. Media and Communication, 9(2), 16–27. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v9i3.3932
Brantner, C., & Stehle, H. (2021). Visibility in the digital age. Introduction. Studies in Communication Sciences, 21(2), 93–98. https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2021.01.006
Recent edited books and 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
Autenrieth, U., & Brantner, C. (Eds.). (2022). It’s all about Video. Visuelle Kommunikation im Bann bewegter Bilder. Herbert von Halem.
Brantner, C., & Stehle, H. (Eds.). (2021). Visibility in the digital age: Theoretical and empirical perspectives [Special issue]. Studies in Communication Sciences, 21(2), 93-98. https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2021.01.006
Recent book chapters and other journal articles
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.
Brantner, C. (2023). Die vernachlässigte Produzent*innenethik [The neglected producer ethics]: Drumwrigth & Murphy „How advertising practitioners view ethics: Moral muteness, moral myopia, and moral imagination.“ In T. G. K. Meitz, N. S. Borchers, & B. Naderer (Eds.), Schlüsselwerke der Werbeforschung (pp. 235–2745). Springer Nature.
Autenrieth, U., & Brantner, C. (2022). It’s all about Video. Visuelle Kommunikation im Bann bewegter Bilder [Introduction to the edited book]. In U. Autenrieth & C. Brantner (Eds.), It’s all about Video. Visuelle Kommunikation im Bann bewegter Bilder (pp. 9–20). Herbert von Halem.
Lobinger, K., & Brantner, C. (2022). „Niemand muss diese Videos zeigen“. Der medienethische Diskurs über die visuelle Berichterstattung zum Terroranschlag 2020 in Wien. [“Nobody has to show these videos.” The media-ethical discourse on the visual coverage of the 2020 terrorist attack in Vienna]. In U. Autenrieth & C. Brantner (Eds.), It’s all about Video. Visuelle Kommunikation im Bann bewegter Bilder (pp. 253–277). Herbert von Halem.
Schwarzenegger, C., Wagner, A. J. M., Brantner, C., & Lobinger, K. (2022). Hitler, Stalin, LOL – Geschichte als Ressource “grenzwertiger Komik” in Memes linker und rechter Aktivist*innen in Social Media [History as a resource of “borderline humor” in left- and right-wing activists’ memes in social media]. In C. Schwarzenegger, E. Koenen, C. Pentzold, T. Birkner, & C. Katzenbach (Eds.), Digitale Kommunikation und Kommunikationsgeschichte. Perspektiven, Potentiale, Problemfelder. Digital Communication Research.