English:SMIT (Q176626)

SMIT is a research centre, founded in 1990 at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and is part of IBBT, the newly established Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology. SMIT specialises in social scientific research on media and ICT. ICT and the advent of an information and knowledge society leads to new forms of organising work, education, leisure, social interaction, political participation, health, well-being etc. In this way, ICT do impact on every aspect of the life of the 'networked individual'. The latter being at the core of SMIT's research agenda, projects are articulated under 4 main topics: citizenship, health and well being, media and communication, and culture/leisure. In order to contribute to the rise of a 'user-friendly' Information Society, SMIT indeed has a triple, intertwined research scope. First, the social shaping of technologies must be studied, as well as their 'domestication' (making a technology one's own) in daily practices and routines. By studying user-related aspects of technology appropriation and domestication, SMIT aims at formulating recommendations ex ante technological engineering. Secondly, for a user-friendly information society to emerge, policy and regulatory options and foresights are studied and evaluated on their inherent strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Thirdly, SMIT studies the way ICT influence corporate and institutional behaviour, objectives and output (content, innovation of services). Moreover, SMIT performs in-depth analyses on how ICT affect the overall business modelling of converging multimedia and multiplatform industries. A micro, meso and macro level underlies different research projects.