WIES RUYTERS wies.ruyters@wur.nl
Wies Ruyters

Hello! I am Wies and I study political communication in the multimodality, where visuals and text combined shape the meaning of identity and ideology. My favorite research methods are computational, but I am currently exploring other methods as well. Besides my PhD, I also host workshops on high schools about polarisation and media literacy, and I occasionally publish videos about my research on YouTube. Have a nice scroll :)

Within my PhD, I combine theories and insights from political communication with methods and best practices from data science.

Click on the research areas to see all projects.

Every academic conference presentation is a new chance to rethink my work and communicate it in a way that narrates, inspires, and provokes.

‹ newer     older ›

ECPR

ICA

Friday, June 5th 2026

Cape Town, South Africa

High Density Panel:
Political communication

Project: Modality Matters?!

Download .pdf

NEFCA

Thursday, January 29th 2026

Papendal, the Netherlands

Academic poster presentation

Project: The Populist Gaze

Download .pdf

Thursday, February 3rd 2025

Brugge, Belgium

Panel:
News & Politics

Project: Modality Matters?!

COMP
TEXT

Friday, April 25th 2025

Vienna, Austria

Friday, May 3rd 2024

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

ECREA

Thursday, September 4th 2025

Innsbrück, Austria

Mirror selfie of Wies Ruyters taking a photo with a Fujifilm camera.

ABOUT
ME

I live and work in the Netherlands. Besides being a nerd I greatly enjoy: going outdoors; doing sports (CrossFit, running, cycling); photography (I own a Fujifilm X100S); travelling; writing poetry; cooking; going out; data visualization; graphic design.

Line drawing of a crowd of people.

POLARIZATION
WORKSHOPS

Together with my colleague and fellow PhD Candidate Mariska van Dam, I facilitate workshops on high schools about societal polarization, political communication and media literacy. We have experience with different education levels, in different schools across different parts of the Netherlands. Can we challenge your students the coming season? Send us a message!

A curved list of Wies Ruyters's research interests around a contour: political communication, computational methods, journalism, identity-ideology perceptions, leadership. In the middle: download CV. Around it, balloons linking to LinkedIn, GitHub, YouTube, Google Scholar and Bluesky.