Communications Studies - Digital Media in Europe Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Overview

The Communications Studies - Digital Media in Europe MSc program from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) key facts:

How do new media affect our lives as citizens and consumers? How are European businesses impacted? Do they really suffer from the domination of American platform giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple? Can policy makers protect our privacy as citizens? How do media and new media affect democratic processes? These are just a few of the questions that we'll tackle in our 5 mandatory courses.

• Theories on media, technology and society: What is the impact of technology on media and society? And what is the impact of society on technology?

• European media and communication policies: How do both national and European policies contribute or fail to contribute to quality of media, diversity, trust, freedom of expression, etc.? We explore the policies that impact Europe’s media and communications sectors in lectures by Prof. Tim Raats and group discussions.

• Critical issues in media economics: Topics such as innovation and diversity in media, advertising, competition and bottlenecks in new media markets, future networks for new media and net neutrality are part of this course, preparing you to go into strategy departments of media companies, management and interest groups.

• Users and innovation in digital media: Prof. Jo Pierson explains how different people use digital media differently (e.g. young and old) and how new technologies shape user behaviour.
• Brussels Talking: Europe, Media and Society: A prestigious lecture series, organised by Prof. Luciano Morganti, in which invited guest speakers from the European Institutions, companies such as Discovery Communications, Google and Politico, Facebook, civil society actors and top media professionals share their newest insights on economic, political, technical, legal and societal aspects of new media and society in Europe.

Accreditation

All degree programs offered by VUB are accredited by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (NVAO), ensuring that they meet the highest predefined quality standards. Alongside this official quality control system, VUB has an internal Quality Control Commission in charge of permanently monitoring the quality of education.