How does the internet affect young people's lives? What is the role of media and communication in political participation and citizenship? What are the effects of health communication, advertising, and PR campaigns? 

Research

Research in communication science is organised in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) in four programme groups:

1. Corporate Communication: with a focus on the development, execution and especially the effects of communication strategies towards internal and external stakeholders of organisations.
2. Persuasive Communication: addressing communication that is intended to achieve specific persuasive goals, as is the case in, for instance, marketing communication, health education, and public information campaigns.
3. Political Communication and Journalism: addressuing the information function of communication. The research studies how, and under which conditions, news and other communication with informational purposes is produced.
4. Youth and Media Entertainment: addressing the entertaining role of communication and information with a focus on traditional lean-back entertainment, such as television shows, films, and reality television, as well as on lean-forward entertainment, such as web games, instant messaging, and friend networking sites.

Research Priority Areas 

Research Priority Area Communication

The Research Priority Area Communication and its Digital Communication Methods Lab focuses on innovative research and bringing together existing and new projects with digital communication methods as its cornerstone. It aims at expanding innovative work on methods, analyses, and scientific practices critical to Communication Science, including work on media exposure, mobile communication and AI, not only as research topics, but also as data collection modes.

Communication in the Digital Society Initiative

The Communication in the Digital Society Initiative addresses the most urgent issues of today’s society regarding the impact of digitalization for the way we learn, work, enjoy and connect with others. It invests on, expands and accelerates teaching and research about the Digital Society, explicitly considering those to be strongly interconnected. The teaching activities will integrate the latest knowledge generated by our Communication Science research, while also enabling students to critically evaluate digitalization in this context and to apply computational methods. The research activities address an ambitious agenda on digitalization as an object and as a method of study, exploring the antecedents, causes and consequences of communication within the Digital Society.

Education

The University of Amsterdam offers various Bachelor's and Master's programs in Communication Science:

Bachelor's

• Bachelor Communicatiewetenschap (Dutch)
• Bachelor Communication Science (English)

Master's 

• Communication Science: Corporate Communication
• Communication Science: Entertainment Communication
• Communication Science: Persuasive Communication
• Communication Science: Political Communication

Research Master

• Research Master Communication Science (Academic)
• Research Master Communication Science (Professional)

Joint Programme

A 2-year Master’s programme offered in collaboration with the University of Aarhus, University of Hamburg, City University London, and the University of Swansea. 

• Journalism, Media and Globalisation (Erasmus Mundus)

PhD programme

For PhD students, carrying out a research project is central to ASCoR's PhD programme.

Contact

Amsterdam Roeterseilandcampus, gebouw C
Nieuwe Achtergracht 166
1018 WV  Amsterdam
Phone: +31 (0)20 525 3906 / 5733
Email: afdelingssecretariaat-cw-fmg@uva.nl

Note for (prospective) students: please contact our Education Desk for questions and inquiries.
Tel: 020 525 3003
Email: educationdesk-cs@uva.nl  

Scientific staff