Peter Kerkhof is full professor in Social Media at the department of Communication Science and vice dean of education at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He holds a PhD (1997) in (social) psychology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Over the course of his academic career, dr. Kerkhof has published extensively on both the individual use of online media and the relation between individuals and organizations in online environments.
From 2010 to 2014, Peter Kerkhof was appointed special chair of content marketing at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR, University of Amsterdam). Content marketing refers to non-ad, customer centric marketing communications in which the goal is to inform and entertain rather than to explicitly persuade consumers. Since his appointment as full professor in Social Media at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2014, his research focuses on the use of social media by organizations and individuals, particularly on the question how online information and interactions shape impressions of organizations and their products, services or policies. Peter Kerkhof has published his work in leading journals like Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Human Communication Research, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and Tourism Management.
Peter Kerkhof has held many administrative positions. Currenly he serves as teh vice dean of education of Faculty of Social Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has been the chair of the department of Communication Science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 2010 until 2018. From 2007 until 2010 he served on the faculty board of the Faculty of Social Sciences and was responsible for all of the faculty’s bachelor and master programs. Before 2007 he was chair of the department of Communication Science and program director of the bachelor and master program in Communication Science.
