My scholarly interests are 20th century Nordic and European cultural and media history. My research focus has been Cold War culture, especially media narratives in the postwar era, fiction and feature film of the Cold War, the culture of civil defence and everyday militarization in the atomic age, the material cultural heritage of the Cold War, literary journalism, and transnational broadcasting.

My dissertation Mannen i mitten. Ett spiondrama i svensk kallakrigskultur ("The man in the middle: A spy drama in Swedish Cold War culture", 2004) explored the cultural figure of the spy in Swedish 1950s and 1960s media and popular culture. In a post doc research project "The people's home in the atomic age: Civil defence information and the Swedish narrative of community, 1945–1965" (Swedish Research Council, 2005-2009), I investigated the narratives of fear and safety, warfare and welfare, in Swedish civil defense culture of the 1950s and 1960s.

In the project "Entangled television histories: Media networks and programme exchange between Sweden and the GDR, 1969–1989" (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2015-2019), I investigated the relationship between Swedish and East German television in the 1970s and 1980s. In connection to this project, a research group was formed with two other researchers, Sune Bechmann Pedersen and Laura Saarenmaa. The title of the project was "Transborder television: The Nordic countries and the GDR" (Crafoord foundation, 2016-2018).

In the project "Media knowledge and Cold War preparedness: Mass communication theories and media practices in the service of the Swedish psychological defence, 1953–1985" (Vetenskapsrådet, 2020–2023), I explored the establishment of the Swedish psychological defence and its significance for the circulation of media knowledge and mass communication theories in the postwar era. Together with Rosanna Farbøl I also investigated psychological defence in Denmark and Sweden in a linked project (Crafoord foundation, 2021–2023). Rosanna and I also run the research network "Transnational histories of civil defence", and the network's first edited volume Cold War Civil Defence in Western Europe: Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Preparedness and Survival (eds. Cronqvist, Farbøl & Sylvest) was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022.

Over the years I have edited several other books, among these 1973. En träff med tidsandan ("1973: A date with the Zeitgeist", Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2008); Mediehistoriska vändningar ("Media historical turns", Lund: Mediehistoria, 2014), Återkopplingar ("Reconnections", Lund: Mediehistoria, 2014), and War remains: Mediations of suffering and death in the era of the World Wars (Lund: Nordic Academic Press). My interest in research in higher education, and Ph D education in particular, resulted in the volume Det goda seminariet. Forskarseminariet som lärandemiljö och kollegialt rum ("The good seminar: The research seminar as a learning environment and collegial space", Stockholm/Göteborg: Makadam, 2016).

Since 2014, I am also the main coordinator of the international research network "Entangled media histories (EMHIS)" with members from around 15 countries in Europe and Australia. The network was financed by STINT Institutional Grant 2014-2019, and has arranged about 10 conferences in four countries. The EMHIS blog could be found here: https://emhis.org

Together with Sune Bechmann Pedersen I was the initiator and project leader for the research platform DigitalHistory@Lund, financed by the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology in Lund 2021–2023. At present I am a researcher and board member of the RJ-financed program "At the end of the world: A transdisciplinary approach to the apocalyptic imaginary in the past and the present" (PI: Jayne Svenungsson), which runs 2023-2028.

I am an Honorary Associate at the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Media History at Bournemouth University, UK. In the past, I have been a guest researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy; the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research in Hamburg, and the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University, Sydney. I have served on the board of Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund (The New Society of Letters in Lund), the Centre for Oresund Region Studies (CORS), the editorial board of Lund University Press, and the editorial board of the book series Mediehistoriskt arkiv. I am a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences (KVA), class X humanities, and the Royal Society for the Humanities in Lund. I have served on two review panels at the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), one for Historical Sciences and Archaology, and the other for grants to scientific journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

I write frequently articles in newspapers and magazines, for example in Svenska Dagbladet, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Populär Historia and Respons. Recensionstidskrift för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap.

Between 2013 and 2016, I was the Lund University representative in Humtank, a national think tank for promoting the humanities. My work in Humtank involved taking part in public debates as well as arranging seminars and events, for example at the Gothenburg Book Fair.

Between 2007 and 2010, I worked part-time as a yearbook editor for Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Stockholm, and between 2018 and 2020 I was a deputy director of the academic think tank LU Futura based at Lund University.