Research, projects
The departmental research hubs reflect the three main foci of research at the Department:
- Visual Culture Research Hub (led by Andrea Kárpáti);
- Digitalization & Media Communication Research Hub (led by Tamás Bokor);
- Communication & Cognition Research Hub (led by Réka Benczes).
The objectives of these research hubs are twofold. On the one hand, they pull together research projects at both the departmental and the doctoral level to enhance research potential; on the other hand, they contribute to making departmental research more visible to both the academia and the general public. Research projects can belong to more than one research hub (and some fall necessarily outside of the hubs).
Visual Culture Research Hub
The Visual Culture Research Hub focuses on the development and assessment of visual language use for professional and personal communication. Current research areas include:
- visual language use of children, adolescents and young adults through process-portfolio documentation and analysis of signs, symbols, narratives, and multimedia pieces (e.g., development of media iconographies on Instagram).
- new media and the visual communication of culture: the potentials of social media and AR/VR technologies in exhibition communication; Museum 3.0: transforming the museum experience into a more inclusive, fair, and enjoyable edutainment space.
- fashion communication: self-expression through dressing, accessorizing and make-up of adolescents and adults: cultural (historical) analysis and current case studies of iconic “style tribes” (dress codes of generations); integration of arts and social issues in fashion branding.
Benefits of research activities: all three areas perform both fundamental and applied research. The description of “new child / adolescent art” has been changing educational concepts of how young generations enter the emerging Age of the Image. Our skills development studies influenced curricula and textbooks in public education. Exposition communication is an important area of media and marketing practice, and our results support more effective transmission of cultural messages through current (and relevant for younger audiences) technology. As fashion strives to integrate “high art” and thematise social problems, our results may be used to improve education in and practice of fashion communication.
Collaboration with research hubs at the Department of Media and Communication: our expertise and interests overlap with the Digitalisation and Media Communication hub through the study of social media, and the Communication and Cognition research hub through the interpretation of the synergies of verbal and visual communication.
Digitalisation and Media Communication Research Hub
One significant research area of the Department of Communication and Media Science can be summarised as digitalisation and media communication. This research area rests on three main pillars. The research capacity and expertise of the colleagues cover the following:
- Digital (media) competencies, their enhancement potential and trans-generational observation in relation to disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and deepfake.
- Digital learning in terms of education, arts, and rhetoric, seeking for answers to effective learning, enhancement of argumentative capacity, or participation and understanding of arts.
- Media representations and their impact on the ways of thinking, studying how media frames, taboos and conceptualisations work and how they influence the attitudes and mental frameworks of media consumers.
These pillars provide a stable framework in communication and media science both on the level of fundamental and applied research. Such studies in digitalisation and media communication can bear fruits –among others – in digital journalism, in the education of children and adults, in the communication of technological innovations, museum pedagogy, healthcare-related social communication, marketing communication of different sectors, in the creation of policy strategies, and in the research of applied behavioural psychology.
Digital Innovations for Alternative Dispute Resolution in V4 Countries and Ukraine (DIGARD V4U)
In September 2024, SET University in partnership with 4 Visegrad countries have been awarded a grant from International Visegrad Fund to implement a project titled “Digital Innovations for Alternative Dispute Resolution in V4 Countries and Ukraine (DIGARD V4U)”, planned for 2024–2026. The project aims to develop a ready-to-apply awareness on digital innovations of the V4 and Ukrainian actors of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) via analysis of the existing practices, benchmarking necessary competencies and designing and pilot-testing of the online course in English and Ukrainian. It will support Ukraine in its judicial transformations, will share and enrich V4 experience via developing a set of research-based educational tools and materials and their wide promotion. It is a cross-sectoral effort of ADR, digital innovations and educational professionals towards the unique and up-to-date topic relevant for each partner country. The lack of understanding of best practices and availability of suitable technology impacts the scope of collaboration between ADR and IT sectors.
The implementing consortium consists of the following parties:
- Ukraine: Project coordinator: Science Entrepreneurship Technology University (SET) Science Entrepreneurship Technology University – Erasmus projects (teacheracademy.eu)
- Slovakia: European Information Society Institute, o. z. (EISI) EISI (eisionline.org)
- Poland: European Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ECADR) European Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution | An International Coalition to Facilitate a Fair and Bright Future for Ukraine (ecadr.com)
- Czech Republic: Center for Higher Education Studies (CHES) Home – Centre for Higher Education Studies (ches.vic.edu.au)
- Hungary: Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB)
Hungarian participants:
Tamás Bokor Ph.D., associate professor, Institute of Marketing and Communication Sciences
Zsanett Adámi-Rózsa, doctoral student, Doctoral School of Sociology and Communication
Project context:
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), as mediation, arbitration, and negotiation, has significantly progressed in V4 with technological advancements. ICT, big data, or AI brings opportunities, while the conditions in each country and sector on adoption, diffusion and advancement of digital innovation significantly vary. The ADR professionals need advancement of digital capabilities, e.g. skilled operation and exploitation of the digitized knowledge to ease/support their entrepreneurship, networking, and services for clients. Innovative formats of communication between the arbitration institution and the parties, cybersecurity, speeding up and simplification of procedural rules, use of online platforms do not come into use easily. Professionals face digital literacy, privacy concerns, and the digital divide.
The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
Communication and Cognition Research Hub
The Communication and Cognition Research Hub concentrates on the cognitive aspects of communication. Broadly speaking, it aims to describe and explain how the human mind makes sense of incoming messages and how new messages are generated by the mind. The hub contributes to a number of subfields within Communication Science, such as political communication, health communication, cross-cultural communication and organizational communication. Major research questions include the following:
- How do communicative messages reflect our conceptualizations and thus our knowledge of the world?
- How does figurative language in the form of metaphor/metonymy/etc. contribute to the efficiency of messages?
- How is meaning constructed/communicated via different frames and across different platforms?
Current research projects include both international collaborations with top-ranking universities, such as Monash University, as well as partnerships with national research centres, such as the Eötvös Loránd Research Network. The hub works closely together with the Corvinus Metaphor Workshop, which has been established with the aim to disseminate results of applied metaphor research carried out by Corvinus faculty and students.