HISTORY

The Centre for Studies on Media and Culture is part of the Department of Communication Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In 1987 the research centre CSNMIT (Centre for New Media and Information Technology Studies) was established by Prof. Dr. H. Verstraeten and Prof. Dr. J.C. Burgelman. Due to its success and growth in 1990 CSNMIT was divided into two new research centres: SMIT (Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication) with Jean-Claude Burgelman as director and Cemeso (Centre for Media Sociology) with Hans Verstraeten as director.

In its first years, Cemeso has placed its main theoretical and research focus on the role of the media within a democratic public sphere, with a specific emphasis on the media's role in the transformation of the public sphere. This resulted in a number of (empirical) projects on signification processes and public sphere, journalism and public sphere, ideology and public sphere and intercultural communication.

Since 2002 Katia Segers is director of Cemeso and Nico Carpentier joined her as co-director in 2005. Within the three domains of economy, culture and politics/political, three focal points guide Cemeso's actual research agenda: media, politics & citizenship, cultural and creative industries and policy and content, meaning and audiences.