Short bio

Kevin Smets (1986) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication Studies (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and co-director of ECHO: Research group on media, culture and politics. He was trained as a cultural historian (in Brussels, Prague and Leuven) and obtained a PhD in Film Studies and Visual Culture (Antwerp, 2013). He was a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (2013-2017) and has been a visiting scholar at different universities, including Bilgi University Istanbul, SOAS University of London, Freie Universität Berlin and University of Oxford, and a visiting professor at Masaryk University Brno. He is the vice-chair of the European Communication Research & Education Association's Diaspora, Migration & the Media section, and was selected in 2017 as a member of the Young Academy of Flanders (Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts). Since 2021 he is full-time research professor, leading Reel Borders, a 5-year project funded by the European Research Council (Starting Grant).

Teaching
Prof. Smets teaches “Filmgeschiedenis” (“Film history”) to bachelor students at VUB. Prior to becoming full-time research professor, he also taught courses such as “Visual culture”, “Media and Diversity” and “Media, Culture and Globalization Theories”. He regularly gives guest lectures about his research and also supervises master dissertations.

Research topics
Media and migration; cultural media studies; film studies; visual culture; Middle East and Turkey

PhD supervision and research projects
Prof. Smets has been involved in several research projects including notably the ERC-funded project Reel Borders, the BELSPO-funded consortium IM²MEDIATE, the Other Talk program, and several FWO-funded fellowships.

He currently (co-)supervises 8 PhD candidates through different funding channels and collaborations: (in order of starting date): Fatma Orhan Tahrali (at University of Antwerp); Jiyan Faris (joint PhD University of Antwerp & VUB); Rein Demunter (VUB); Paola Condemayta Soto (VUB); Yasemin Karsli (joint PhD Warwick University & VUB); Giacomo Toffano (VUB); Fatima Zahid Ali (VUB); Irene Gutiérrez Torres (VUB). He has supervised one finalized PhD, by Dr. Yazan Badran (VUB, 2021).

Key publications

• 50+ peer-reviewed papers in international journals and edited volumes
• On refugees, media use and media representations: papers in Communications; European Journal of Communication
• On ethnic media, migration and conflict: papers in Media, Culture & Society; International Communication Gazette and Turkish Studies
• On film, geopolitics and conflict: papers in International Journal of Communication and Media, War & Conflict
• Guest editor of 4 special issues: on Kurdish media and culture (with Ali Fuat Sengül) for Middle East Journal of Culture & Communication; on forced migration and digital connectivity (with Koen Leurs) for Social Media + Society; on representations of immigrants and refugees (with Cigdem Bozdag) for Communications and on migration narratives (with Koen Leurs and Irati Agirreazkuanega) for European Journal of Cultural Studies
• Co-editor with Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiou, Saskia Witteborn and Radhika Gajjala of the SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration
• Forthcoming: Film: Een nieuwe geschiedenis (“Film: A new history”) with ASP Editions.

A full list of publications can be found on the VUB research portal and on Google Scholar.