Vitus Sproten was a PhD candidate at the University of Luxembourg's Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) until November 2020. He studied History and Political Science at University of Trier, Germany, and History at the University of Liège, Belgium. In his master’s thesis, he analyzed the mass media discourse concerning the cultural autonomy of the German-Speaking Community of Belgium in television (RTB, BRT, WDR), radio (BHF, RTB, BRT, WDR) and several German-(speaking) and French speaking newspapers (1965-1974). Since November 2016, Vitus works for the Zentrum für ostbelgische Geschichte (centre for regional history of the German-Speaking Community of Belgium). Furthermore, he worked as a volunteer for the State Archives of Belgium between 2014 and 2016.
Since march 2017, he has been a PhD candidate at the University of Luxembourg. In his PhD thesis, he will analyze under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Fickers the pop-cultural exchange between media in the Meuse-Rhine Region resp. the cities of Aachen, Maastricht and Liège. He will examine the question of how influencing factors – like technical evolutions, organisations, politics, law, audiences, cultural backgrounds and markets – have affected the pop-cultural exchange of media platforms between 1955 and 1990.
Main supervisor: Prof. Dr Andreas Fickers (C²DH, Université du Luxembourg)
Other supervisors: Dr Christoph Brüll (C²DH, Université du Luxembourg), Ass.-prof. Dr Dana Mustata (University of Groningen)