Dr Tom Van Hout

Bio

I’m interested in how people do things with media and discourse. Key sites for studying such communicative contexts include popular culture, museums and news media. Three social practices anchor my current research interests:

Performing expertise: how people express intimacy with culturally valuable things such as wine, fashion, or fitness

Anticipating audiences: how organizations and institutions attract, maintain and position audiences semiotically

Representing social events: how migration, politics, capitalism and other social events of scale are mediated and mediatized across platforms and mediascapes.

Expertise

My background is in discourse studies. That means I study how meaning is produced (as well contested, altered, amplified, distorted and so on) in a range of communicative contexts.  

Teaching

I teach BA and MA courses on the Online Culture tracks. I have more than 20 years of experience in (re)designing, delivering, and assessing courses at undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels. 

Courses

• Media Provocateurs
• Introduction to Online Culture - 1
• Introduction to Online Culture - 2
• Digital Futures

Collaboration

I'm currently collaborating with law scholars from the University of Antwerp. The research project is funded by a FWO Senior Research Grant and is concerned with we call trojan horse discourse. The project is interdisciplinary in nature: it pairs legal analysis and discourse analysis to examine how authoritarian regimes (ab)use constitutional concepts to undermine fundamental rights protection.

I have previously collaborated with colleagues at Eindhoven University of Technology, Ghent University, Leiden University, and Queen Mary, University of London.

Recent publications

1. ‘Here in the US’: Identity narratives, national beliefs and corporate…

   Beekmans, I., Maly, I., & Van Hout, T. (2023). ‘Here in the US’: Identity narratives, national beliefs and corporate governance values in Big Tech Hearing discourse. First Monday, 28(5).

2. Een pleidooi voor taalbewustzijn in interculturele samenwerkingen

   De Maeijer, E., Weggeman, M. C. D. P., & Van Hout, T. (2023). Een pleidooi voor taalbewustzijn in interculturele samenwerkingen. Holland Management Review: Best of Business Schools, 206.

3. Complicity in Discourse and Practice

   Van Hout, T. (2023). Complicity in Discourse and Practice. Discourse & society. Advance online publication.

4. The Transcontinental: Benign sousveillance across Europe's other spac…

   Van Hout, T. (2023). The Transcontinental: Benign sousveillance across Europe's other spaces. Diggit Magazine. https://www.diggitmagazine.com/column/transcontinental-surveillance

5. Wealthy woman's total linguistic facts

   Van Hout, T., & Backus, A. (2023). Wealthy woman's total linguistic facts. Diggit Magazine. https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/total-linguistic-fact