The Smart Family Institute of Communications
The Smart Family Institute of Communications was founded in 1987 as the research and outreach arm of communication studies at the Hebrew University.
The Institute is dedicated to enhancing the role of communication scholars in shaping Israel’s media environment, and to facilitating constructive political and cultural participation. To that end, the Institute promotes the development of meaningful links between academia and media professionals working in the field, as well as with policy and decision makers in the public sector.
The Institute also addresses itself to the public at large through its outreach activities. These aim to heighten awareness of the implications of media consumption, of the social and cultural potentials of increased media presence; and most generally, to promote a vibrant and responsible public sphere. Within this framework, the activities of the Smart Family Institute include: supporting research projects in communication and media studies including individual research and ongoing research groups, conducting international conferences, workshops and seminars open to the academic community at large as well as to the wider public, facilitating collaborative research projects with other top ranking communication schools, and enabling the publication of books that are products of the institute's research projects and academic conferences.
The institute also acts as a framework for hosting post-doctoral fellows who are involved in its activities.
The Smart Family Institute of Communications is proud to support the second international conference marking 50 years of communication research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The conference ‘Regenerating Communication - Ethics, Culture and History: New Media, Communication Technology, Visual Culture and Cinema’, pays tribute to the pioneering role of the Department of Communications and Journalism and the Smart Family Institute in establishing communication studies in Israel. The conferences' chairs are Prof. Paul Frosh and Prof. Ifat Maoz. While paying homage to the past, the conference foregrounds the work of current faculty and students, promoting the achievements of outstanding younger researchers through the Smart Doctoral Students Awards for Excellence, to be awarded by Mrs. Mary Smart at the opening of the conference.