Thomas Tufte
Professor

Contact
E-mail: ttufte@ruc.dk
Phone: 4674 3204

Address:
Communication Studies, Building 42-3
Dept. of Communication,
Business and Information Technologies
Kommunikationsvej
Box 260
DK-4000 Roskilde

Teaching Publications CV

Coming with an MA in Cultural Sociology (1989) and a Ph.D in Communication (1995), I started my job as a professor in communication at RUC in May 2004. I had previously worked as both a Ph.D-student, assistant and associate professor at University of Copenhagen.

Currently, I am the principal investigator of a Danida-funded research project called ‘People Speaking Back? Media, Empowerment and Social Change’ (abbreviated MEDIeA). It runs from 2009-2012 and explores questions of participatory governance around civil society driven media platforms in Kenya and Tanzania. Read more on: http://orecomm.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/mediea.pdf. ‘Ørecomm – A Research Consortium on Communication and Glocal Change’ (http://orecomm.net) is a bi-national research platform I am the co-founder of. We launched it at the IAMCR conference in Stockholm in 2008.

The areas I teach cover communication for development and social change, audience studies (reception analysis and media ethnography), health communication, edutainment, citizen media, participatory communication, globalisation, development and strategic communication.

My background reflects a constant interaction between theory and practice, having always mixed my academic pathway with jobs in organisations. I started my professional career as a full time youth and information officer in Danchurchaid (Folkekirkens Nødhjælp) from 1990-1993, worked full time as a Junior Professional Officer in UNDP in Paraguay 1994-1996, and have since worked regularly as a consultant for organisations as Danida, SIDA, UNESCO, World Bank, USAID, etc. My geographical focus area was Latin America for many years and for the past decade also Southern Africa. More recently, it has become East Africa, particularly Tanzania.

My research areas include communication for development and social change, health communication, participatory communication, qualitative audience studies (reception analysis and audience ethnography), media sociology, media and cultural globalisation, media and ethnicity. Main research projects have dealt with: Telenovelas, culture and development in Latin America (1989-1994); Media uses, new technology and cultural identity in Brazil (1996-1999); Media uses, everyday life and identity formation amongst young ethnic minorities in Copenhagen (1999-2001) and 'HIV/AIDS Communication in South Africa - a Critique of the Dominant Paradigm' (2001-2005). A lot of my more recent time has been spent on co-editing an enormous anthology 'The Communication for Social Change Anthology - Historical and Contemporary Readings' (1070 pages, 200 contributions) which was published in English in late 2006 and in Spanish in late 2008 (1413 pages!). The Spanish edition especially is being very well received in Latin America, with national book presentations in many countries in the region.

In addition to the MEDIeA research project, I am currently engaged in writing a book on edutainment and have also recently completed co-editing the Yearbook 2009 for the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media.