Karin Becker

Karin Becker is Professor Emerita in Media Studies. Her career began at Indiana University (Ph.D. 1976) and at the University of Iowa, where she taught photojournalism and visual communication before moving to Sweden in 1987. She joined the faculty at JMK/Stockholm University in 1991, became Professor of Journalism in 2003, and Professor of Media and Communication Studies in 2008. Becker has been Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Communication Science at the University of Munich (1983), and Fulbright Senior Scholar in Ethnology at Stockholm University (1988). She has served as Professor of Visual Culture and Education (Bildpedagogik) at Konstfack in Stockholm (1997-2004) and as Guest Professor of Creative Processes in Culture and Media at Tema Q, Linköping University (2004-2005). During 2012-2014 she was project leader for the Nordic Network of Digital Visuality (NNDV).

Becker’s research centers on visual media forms and practices. Her work has included studies of documentary photography and photojournalism, of vernacular photography as practiced by amateurs, and of artistic and performative practices in public space. Critical visual ethnography has been a central component in much of her research. She has directed research projects on art in city space (‘Konst genom staden,’ VR 2006-2008) and on global media events as mediated through public space ('Changing Places,' VR 2010-2014). Becker’s current work involves analyzing images of protest as mediated in transnational television news broadcasts within the research project ‘Screening protest’. (http://screeningprotest.com/).