[Air-l] Position Announcement: Program Officer, Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere, SSRC

[Rik Panganiban]

Program Officer Position
Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere Program
Social Science Research Council
April 2007

The SSRC seeks a program officer to support the 'Necessary Knowledge for
a Democratic Public Sphere' program and related work in the Public
Spheres program area. The Necessary Knowledge program fosters
collaboration between academic and advocacy communities on media and
communications issues, ranging from media policy to media reform and
media justice. It operates both domestically and internationally.

The program officer will have responsibility for several aspects of the
program, including administration of our two-tiered grants competition
for research-advocacy collaboration. This work is supplemented by
efforts to facilitate and coordinate collaboration in the field, ranging
from managing working groups, to organizing conferences, to information
brokering via online tools. The latter responsibilities vary widely, and
are developed in dialogue with research and advocacy partners.

Public representation and evaluation of the program is an important part
of the program officer role. This program needs to speak in distinctive
ways to academic, NGO and funder constituencies. Experience across these
lines is highly desirable. Program officers also play an important part
in project development at the SSRC, with responsibilities for project
design, outreach, and fundraising.

The ideal candidate will have substantive grounding in an area of
domestic (US) media or communications policy, while also being a strong
generalist in the field who can quickly learn new issues. Organizational
and writing skills are crucial. Web skills, NGO experience, and
international expertise are a plus. A complete or near-complete PhD in a
relevant field or comparable research experience outside the academy is
a requirement. This is not primarily a research position, although SSRC
program staff are active researchers in their respective fields. It is a
position of intellectual entrepreneurship, and offers a unique
perspective on and capacity to effect change within the field.

The new program officer will work with the program director and program
assistant for the Necessary Knowledge program, as well as with partners
engaged in other aspects of the work, such as activist outreach and
grant monitoring. 

Program information can be found here: http://programs.ssrc.org/media .
 
Interested applicants should send a letter describing their background
and reasons for interest in this position, recent curriculum vitae,
relevant writing samples and the names of at least three professional
colleagues who can serve as references. 

Salary is negotiable and will be commensurate with relevant experience
and qualifications.
Applications may be submitted by e-mail to applications at ssrc.org .
Please put 'Public Spheres position' in the subject line.