Oscar Westlund

Oscar Westlund (PhD) is a cross-disciplinary researcher with an academic background in journalism, media and communication (M.Sc.) and theory of science (M.Sc.). His research focuses the interplay of old and new media, primarily from the perspective of users and organizations. Westlund is based at the Department for Journalism, Media and Communication at University of Gothenburg since 2005, where he has worked as a lecturer and researcher in numerous national and international research projects. In 2012 he holds a joint appointment with the IT University of Copenhagen.Westlund studies of transforming media usage has predominantly focused news accessing, but has also involved studies on the use of communication, search and social media with computers and mobile devices. For his studies of media usage he has had a long-term engagement in the Newspaper Research Program at University of Gothenburg, for which he has studied transforming cross media usage and attitude patterns related to journalism in print, digital and mobile. Among other national research partners have been the Swedish Newspaper Association, Swedish Media Council in the Ministry of Culture as well as Chalmers University of Technology. Among international research partners are NTT DoCoMo (Japan), University of Central Lancashire and the EU-commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) in Seville (Spain). His research on media usage has been published widely both nationally (Sweden) and internationally. Recently published articles have figured in international journals such as New Media and Society; Behaviour & Information Technology, International Journal on Media Management, International Journal of Communication; Canadian Journal of Communication and Palabra Clave. During 2008 to 2011 Westlund conducted a PhD project on the shaping of contemporary news media institutions over time. The dissertation monograph called "Cross-media News Work – Sensemaking of the Mobile Media (R)evolution," is a longitudinal qualitative case-study focusing sensemaking of mobile media among news media workers at editorial-, IT- and business departments. The study makes an in-depth investigation into how tensions between these three groups have come to play, through their interpretations and actions. The study also focuses how tensions come into play between humans and machines, between producers and (prod-)users, as well as between old and new. This area of research is also seen in a special issue of Northern Lights with an article titled "Producer-centric vs. Participation-centric: On the Shaping of Mobile Media.: This article focuses how tensions came into play in the processes of developing an iPhone application. Related to these tensions, Westlund is currently guest editing a special issue for Information, Communication & Society (iCS) scheduled for publication in September 2012. The special issue will involve articles related to the changing role of journalism and news media institutions from leading international academics. As a visiting fellow at Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism from October to December of 2011, Westlund worked on a conceptualization of a model for dynamic innovation and organizational learning together with Robert G Picard.