Biography
After obtaining his MA-degree in political sciences at the Free University of Brussels in 1996 Bart Cammaerts worked as a spokesperson and as advisor on information society issues for Elio Di Rupo, the then Belgian vice-Prime Minister and Minister for Economic affairs and Telecommunication. After that he joined SMIT as a doctoral researcher. In 2002 he obtained a PhD in social sciences with a thesis bearing the title: 'Social Policy and the Information Society: on the changing role of the state, social exclusion and the divide between words and deeds'. This was followed by post-doctoral research within the EMTEL2-network |, financed by the 5th framework program of the EU Commission. He analysed the impact of the Internet on the transnationalisation of civil society actors, on direct action and on interactive civic engagement. After that he obtained a Marie Curie research-fellowship, based at the Media and Communication Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he studied the participatory claims and practices of international organisations, involving civil society actors in their decision-making processes and the use of the Internet to facilitate this. Bart Cammaerts is now senior lecturer in the Media and Communications Department of the LSE. His current research interests are centered around the core-concepts of power, participation, resistance and communication rights and include a focus on multi-stakeholder policy processes; media strategies of activists; alternative/community media and the mediated forms of resistance. He is vice-chair of the Communication and Democracy Section of the European Communication and Research Association - ECREA and vice-chair of the Communication, Technology & Policy-section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research- IAMCR |. Beyond academia, Bart Cammaerts is also active within the community radio movement and as a musician and dj.
Research interests
On a more general level, he has been addressing theoretical notions of (participatory) democracy, globalisation/transnationalisation, participation, access, (self-)representation, public sphere, power, social change and counter-hegemonic strategies of resistance. Within these areas, media and communication is considered to have different meanings, as a symbolic arena for the (re-)production of meaning, as a citizenship right, as a political actor, or as a tool for empowerment and activism but also as a tool of propaganda and the dissemination of discourses of hatred. With regard to methodologies he has combined quantitative methods, such as surveys, with qualitative methods, such as interviews and critical discourse analysis. A recurrent theme in his research relates to overcoming rigid dichotomies such as alternative/mainstream, new/old media, public/private and consider the interactions between both ends of these dichotomies. While these dichotomies have a role to play in structuring our way of thinking about the social and the political, reality is often much more messier.
Regarding future research he is working on current activist cultures and how a media and communication saturated environment impacts on activist identities, the nature of protest and more broadly civic cultures; community radio regulation in a digital age and multi-stakeholderism; and the consequences of different patterns of consumption of and value attributed to music for alternative labels and artists.
Recent Publications
Monographs and Edited Collections:
Cammaerts, B., Matoni, A. and McCurdy, P. (eds) (2012) Mediation and Protest Movements. Bristol: Intellect.
Garcia-Blanco, I., Van Bauwel, S. and Cammaerts, B. (eds.) (2009) Media Agoras: : Democracy, Diversity and Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publisher.
Cammaerts, B. (2008) Mind the Gap: Internet-Mediated Practices Beyond the Nation State, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Carpentier, N., Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, P., Nordenstreng, K., Hartmann, M., Vihalemm, P., Cammaerts, B., Nieminen, H. and Olsson, T. (eds) (2008) Democracy, Journalism and Technology. Tartu: University of Tartu Press. (See also URL: http://www.researchingcommunication.eu/
Bailey, O., Cammaerts, B. and Carpentier, N. (2007) Understanding Alternative Media, Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Carpentier, N., Pruulman-Vengerfeldt, P., Nordenstreng, K., Hartmann, M., Vihalemm, P., Cammaerts, B. and Nieminen, H. (Eds.) (2007) Media technologies and democracy in an enlarged Europe, Tartu: Tartu University Press, see URL: http://www.researchingcommunication.eu/reco_book3.pdf |
Cammaerts, B. and Carpentier, N. (Eds.) (2007) Reclaiming the Media: Communication Rights and Democratic Media Roles. Bristol: Intellect. See URL http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/ppbooks.php?isbn=9781841501635 |
Carpentier, N., Pruulman-Vengerfeldt, P., Nordenstreng, K., Hartmann, M. and Cammaerts, B. (Eds.) (2006) Researching Media, Democracy and Participation, Tartu: Tartu University Press, see URL: http://www.researchingcommunication.eu/reco_book1.pdf |
Cammaerts, B., Van Audenhove, L., Nulens, G. and Pauwels, C. (Eds.), (2003) Beyond the Digital Divide: reducing exclusion and fostering inclusion, Brussel: VUBpress.
Recent Book Chapters:
Cammaerts, B. (2011) Power dynamics in multi-stakeholder policy processes and intra-civil society networking. In R. E. Mansell and M. Raboy (eds) The Handbook on Global Media and Communication Policy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 131-46. (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/38473/|)
Cammaerts, B. (2010) Multi-Stakeholderism and Intra-Civil Society Networking: The case of the WSIS IG-working group mailing list and its aftermath. In R. E. Mansell and M. Raboy (eds) The Handbook on Global Media and Communication Policy. Oxford: Blackwell, in press.
Cammaerts, B. (2009) Civil Society Participation in Multi-Stakeholder Processes: In-between Realism and Utopia, in L. Stein, C. Rodriquez and D. Kidd, (eds) Making Our Media: Global Initiatives Toward a Democratic Public Sphere - Volume Two: National and Global Movements for Democratic Communication. Cresshill NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 83-102.
Carpentier, N., De Brabander, L. and Cammaerts, B. (2009) Citizen Journalism and the North Belgian Peace March, in S. Allan and E. Thorsen (eds) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 163-74.
Cammaerts, B. (2007) Political Jamming, in M. Albrow, H. Anheier, M. Glasius, M. E. Price, and M. Kaldor (eds.) Global Civil Society Yearbook 2007/8, London: Sage, p. 214-5.
Cammaerts, B. (2007) 'Media and communication strategies of glocalised activists: beyond media-centric thinking', in B. Cammaerts and N. Carpentier (Eds.) Reclaiming the Media: communication rights and expanding democratic media roles, Bristol: Intellect, pp. 265-88.
Hartmann, M., Carpentier, N. and Cammaerts, B. (2007) 'Learning about Democracy: Familyship and negotiated ICT users' practices', in P. Dahlgren (Ed.) Young Citizens and New Media: Learning for Democratic Participation. London: Routledge, pp. 167-186
Cammaerts, B. and Carpentier, N. (2005) The Unbearable Lightness of Full Participation in a Global Context: WSIS and Civil Society Participation, in J. Servaes and N. Carpentier (Eds.) Towards a Sustainable Information Society: Beyond WSIS. Bristol: Intellect, pp. 17-49.
Cammaerts, B. (2005) ICT-Usage among Transnational Social Movements in the Networked Society - to organise, to mobilise and to debate, in Silverstone, R. (Ed.) 'Media, Technology and Everyday Life in Europe: From Information to Communication', Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 53-72.
Recent Journal Articles:
Cammaerts, B. (2012) Protest Logics and the Mediation Opportunity Structure. European Journal of Communication 27 - forthcoming.
Cammaerts, B. (2011) The hegemonic copyright-regime vs. the sharing copyright users of music?. Media, Culture & Society 33(3): 491-502. (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/32835/|)
Cammaerts, B. and Calabrese, A. (2011) Creative Imagination: a post neo-liberal order in media and communication regulation?, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 25(1): 1-4. (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/32850/|)
Cammaerts, B. (2011) Disruptive Sharing in a Digital Age: Rejecting Neoliberalism?, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 25(1): 47-62. (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/32857/|)
Cammaerts, B. (2009) Community Radio in the West: A Legacy of Struggle for Survival in a State and Capitalist Controlled Media Environment, International Communication Gazette 71(8): 1-20
Cammaerts, B. (2009) Radical Pluralism and Free Speech in Online Public Spaces: The case of North-Belgian extreme right discourses, International Journal for Cultural Studies 12(6): 1-21.
Cammaerts, B. and Carpentier, N. (2009) Blogging the 2003 Iraq War: Challenging the Ideological Model of War and Mainstream Journalism?, Observatorio 3(2): http://www.obs.obercom.pt/ |
Cammaerts, B. (2008) Critiques on the Participatory Potentials of Web 2.0, Communication, Culture & Critique. 1(3): 358-76.
Cammaerts, B. (2007) Jamming the Political: Beyond Counter-hegemonic Practices, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 21(1): 67-86.
Carpentier, N. and Cammaerts, B. (2006) Hegemony, Democracy, Agonism and Journalism : An interview with Chantal Mouffe, Journalism Studies 7(6): 964-75.
Cammaerts, B. (2006) 'The eConvention on the Future of Europe: Assessing the participation of civil society and the use of ICTs in European decision-making processes', Journal for European Integration, 28(3): 225-45.
Padovani, C. and Cammaerts, B. (2006) Il World Summit on the Information Society: esercizi di e-governance fra "spazi di luogo" e "spazi di flusso", Comunicazione Politica 7(1): 113-32.
Cammaerts, B. and Van Audenhove, L. (2005) Online Political Debate, Unbounded Citizenship and the Problematic Nature of a Transnational Public Sphere, Political Communication 22(2): 179-196.
Cammaerts, B. (2005) Through the Looking Glass: Civil Society participation in the WSIS and the dynamics between online/offline interaction, Communications & Strategies, Special Issue - WSIS Tunis: 151-74.
Contact details
Dr. Bart Cammaerts
Room S119b
Department of Media and Communications
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 6649
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7955 7248
Email: b.cammaerts@lse.ac.uk |
Link to Bart Cammaerts CV|