Biography
Susanne Janssen is full professor of Sociology of Media and Culture and research director of the Department of Media and Communication at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC). In 2021, she was appointed a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2024, she joined the Dutch Research Council (NWO) as a board member of the Social Sciences and Humanities domain.
Janssen’s research and teaching activities lie in the fields of cultural sociology, media and communication research, and the sociology of the arts and literature. Her publications cover various themes in the field of culture, media, and society, such as the impact of globalization and commercialization in the cultural field, the role of cultural mediators in the recognition of cultural expressions and products, and the social and cultural significance of popular music heritage. Her ongoing research focuses on the implications of diversity and digitalization in the media and cultural sectors, socio-cultural differences in media use and cultural participation, and the relationship between cultural participation and well-being.
Susanne Janssen currently leads a large-scale Horizon 2020 research project, entitled INVENT: European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture as a Basis for Inclusive Cultural Policies in the Globalizing World. This EU-funded international collaborative project (2020-2024) involves leading scholars and research institutions based in nine different countries. She also co-directs the Doing Diversity project which examines diversity practices in the educational, cultural, and sports sectors in the City of Rotterdam (2022-2024). As a (co)supervisor, she is involved in multiple PhD projects and thus far nineteen PhD dissertations have been completed under her supervision (cf. her full CV).
Janssen was awarded the prestigious VICI grant (2003) for her Cultural Classification Systems in Transition project from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). From 2010 to 2014, she directed another large-scale international collaborative research project: Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory, and Cultural Identity which was funded as part of the HERA Joint Research Programme Cultural Dynamics: Inheritance and Identity. Janssen also received several other major project grants, including an Erasmus Research Excellence grant (REI), four NWO PhD in the Humanities grants, a HERA Knowledge Exchange grant, and funding from the Erasmus Initiative Vital Cities and Citizens.
Janssen was appointed an Honorary Professor (2010-2016) in the Centre for Cultural Research at Griffith University, Australia, a member of the Royal Dutch Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) in 2015, a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 2021, and a member of the Council for the Humanities (RGW) in 2023.
Susanne Janssen is the founding chair of the Department of Media and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam, which she headed from its inception in 2008 until 2020. She is the founding co-director of the MA in Media Studies and the research master in the Sociology of Culture, Media and the Arts (top-rated programme 2014, 2016 and 2017) and the founding Dean of the International Bachelor in Communication and Media (IBCoM) which was awarded the NVAO Distinctive Quality Feature for Internationalisation and the European Certificate for Quality in Programme Internationalisation (2014; re-accredited in 2019).
She was also the founding academic director of ERMeCC, the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication, and Culture (2008-2023), which was in 2023 transformed into the faculty-wide Erasmus Research Institute for Media, Culture, History and Society (ERMeCHS). ERMeCHS unites more than 100 researchers and over fifty Ph.D. candidates from a variety of international and disciplinary backgrounds and is home to one of the largest research groups focusing on the social dimensions of media, culture, and the arts worldwide.
Susanne Janssen performed manifold executive and advisory services in academia and the cultural sector. She served, among other things, on the Dutch Council for Culture in the Netherlands, the founding committee of the Netherlands-Flemish Communication Association (NEFCA), and the NWO Cultural Dynamics program board and as chair-elect of the European Research Network for the Sociology of the Arts (ESA). From 2010-2012, Janssen was co-editor-in-chief of Poetics, the premier journal for empirical research on culture, media, and the arts, and a leading journal in sociology, for which she continues to serve as an advisory editor.
Current memberships include the academic executive board of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) Centre for the Governance of Migration and Diversity, the executive board of the Netherlands School of Media Studies (RMES), the Council for the Humanities (RGW) and the Board of the NWO Social Sciences and Humanities domain.
Susanne Janssen holds an MA degree in General Language and Literature Studies and received her Ph.D. from the University of Tilburg (1994). Her dissertation research on processes of reputation formation and the role of reviewing and criticism in the field of literature was funded by NWO (Open Competition). She moved to the Faculty of History and Arts – now called the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC) - of Erasmus University Rotterdam at the start of the Department of Arts and Culture Studies in 1989, where she was appointed Associate Professor in 1999, endowed Professor in 2003, and Full Professor in 2007.
View Susanne Janssen's full CV.
Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication
- s.janssen@eshcc.eur.nl
More information
Work
- Susanne Janssen, Nete Kristensen, Marc Verboord, Franziska Marquart & Giuseppe Lamberti (2024) - Europeans’ digital cultural participation: Diversification, democratization, barriers, and affordances - International Journal of Communication, 18, 4031-4096 - [link]
- Ossi Sirkka, Simon Walo, Semi Purhonen, Marc Verboord, Susanne Janssen & Philippe Bonnet (2024) - Understandings of culture: A European bottom-up study using structural topic modelling - Socius, 10 - doi: 10.1177/23780231241278524 - [link]
- Bartosz G. Żerebecki, Suzanna J. Opree, Joep Hofhuis & Susanne Janssen (2024) - Beyond Perceived Similarity: Development and Validation of the Character Recognizability Scale (CRS) - Mass Communication and Society, 27 (5), 1220-1251 - doi: 10.1080/15205436.2024.2366224 - [link]
- Susanne Janssen, Nete Kristensen & Marc Verboord (2024) - Engagement with Culture in Transformative Times: Mapping the societal drivers and impacts of cultural understandings, practices, perceptions, and values across Europe
- Bartosz G. Żerebecki, Suzanna J. Opree, Joep Hofhuis & Susanne Janssen (2024) - Recognizing the Similarities and Appreciating the Differences?: Content Choices and Perceived (Dis)similarity With TV Show Characters Among Youth - Psychology of Popular Media, 13 (2), 210-218 - doi: 10.1037/ppm0000465 - [link]
- B. G. Żerebecki, S. J. Opree, J. Hofhuis & S. Janssen (2024) - Successful Minority Representations on TV Count: A Quantitative Content Analysis Approach - Journal of Homosexuality, 71 (7), 1703-1726 - doi: 10.1080/00918369.2023.2191287 - [link]
- Semi Purhonen, Marc Verboord, Ossi Sirkka, Nete Nørgaard Kristensen & Susanne Janssen (2023) - Definitely (not) belonging to culture: Europeans’ evaluations of the contents and limits of culture - Poetics, 101 - doi: 10.1016/j.poetic.2023.101840 - [link]
- Alysa Karels, Susanne Janssen & Sylvia Maria Holla (2023) - INVENT Newsletter III - [link]
- Susanne Janssen, Nete Kristensen & Marc Verboord (2023) - INVENT Policy Brief III – Digitalization and culture - [link]
- Rian Koreman, Marc Verboord & Susanne Janssen (2023) - Constructing authority in the digital age: Comparing book reviews of professional and amateur critics - European Journal of Cultural Studies, 27 (4), 1-18 - doi: 10.1177/13675494231187472
- Marc Verboord, Susanne Janssen, Nete Kristensen & Franziska Marquart (2023) - Institutional trust and media use in times of cultural backlash: A cross-national study in nine European countries. - International Journal of Press/Politics, 1-23 - doi: 10.1177/19401612231187568
- Susanne Janssen & Sylvia Maria Holla (2023) - INVENT Policy Brief II – Culture’s contribution to health and wellbeing - [link]
- Tally Katz-Gerro, Susanne Janssen, Neta Yodovich, Marc Verboord & Joan Llonch-Andreu (2023) - Cosmopolitanism in contemporary European societies: Mapping and comparing different types of openness across Europe - Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 32 (1), 1-16 - doi: 10.1080/14782804.2023.2211531 - [link]
- Semi Purhonen, Marc Verboord, Nete Kristensen, Susanne Janssen, Višnja Kisić, Goran Tomka & Philippe Bonnet (2023) - Diverse understandings of culture and their social correlates - [link]
- Sylvia Maria Holla & Susanne Janssen (2023) - Benefitting from culture for well-being and positive health: A case study of working elements in cultural interventions in The Netherlands - [link]
- Alysa Karels & Susanne Janssen (2023) - Citylab010: A case study investigating the inclusive, participatory, and democratic nature of a citizen initiative platform - [link]
- Sylvia Maria Holla & Susanne Janssen (2022) - Cultuur in turbulente tijden. Online petities en burger initiatieven tijdens Corona - [link]
- Susanne Janssen, Nete Kristensen, Marc Verboord & Riie Heikkila (2022) - Cultural participation in a digitized society: Comparing repertoires of online and offline cultural participation and their social correlates across Europe
- Susanne Janssen (2024) - Jury for the Ammodo Science Award for Fundamental Research (Social Sciences) (External organisation)
- Susanne Janssen (2024) - Keynote speaker, European Seminar on the Future Challenges for Cultural, Youth, Sport and Media Policies
- Susanne Janssen (2024) - Board NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (Dutch Research Council) (External organisation)
- Susanne Janssen (2024) - Jury Jan Brouwer Thesis prize Language and Communication Sciences (KHMW) (External organisation)
- Mark van Ostaijen, Laura Westerveen & Susanne Janssen (2023) - Doing Diversity Lab
- Susanne Janssen (2023) - Jury for the Boekman Dissertation prize for Arts, Culture and Policy (External organisation)
- Susanne Janssen (2023) - Jury Humanities Domain KNAW (External organisation)
- Susanne Janssen (2023) - RGW-Raad voor de Geesteswetenschappen (Council for the Humanities) (External organisation)
- Susanne Janssen (2023) - INVENT Stakeholder Meeting on Digitalization and Cultural Participation
- Susanne Janssen & Marc Verboord (2023) - Key findings about Europeans’ digital cultural participation and potential implications for cultural policy
- Susanne Janssen (2021) - Appointed lifelong member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)
- Susanne Janssen (2015) - Elected as member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW-Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen)
- Susanne Janssen (2010) - Honorary Professorship at the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Griffith University (2010-2016)
NWO
- Start date approval
- april 2024
- End date approval
- maart 2027
- Place
- DEN HAAG
- Description
- Lidmaatschap NWO Domeinbestuur SGW
Globalisation, Digitalisation and Cult.
- Level
- MA-1
- Year Level
- MA-1
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CS5009
Research Master Seminar I
- Level
- MA-1
- Year Level
- MA-1
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CS5016
Master Thesis
- Level
- MA-2
- Year Level
- MA-2
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CS5050
Master Thesis
- Year Level
- MA, MA, MA, MA, MA
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CM5000
Master Thesis Project
- Year Level
- MA, MA, MA, MA, MA
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- CM5050