[Air-L] PhD scholarship in internet research - with a focus on the United States

[Klaus Bruhn Jensen]

PhD scholarship in internet research with a focus on the United States (re-advertisement)

The Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, invites applications for a 3-year PhD scholarship. The successful candidate will be affiliated with the Peoples’ Internet (PIN) project sponsored by the Carlsberg Foundation. The scholarship is expected to begin November 1, 2016, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Description of the project

“The Peoples’ Internet – Market, state, and civil society in China, Europe, and the United States” will undertake a comparative study of the internet in different world regions. Digital networks are among the most flexible and universally applicable technologies ever invented by humans. But the many significant variations in the social uses of the internet around the world remain poorly understood. The PIN project compares the current state and future potential of the internet in three centers of the global economy and world politics – China, Europe, and the United States – focusing on the interplay of civil society with the other two key sectors of modern societies: market and state.

The PhD candidate will be an integral part of the PIN research group. The PhD candidate will participate both in formal project events and in informal deliberations throughout the candidate’s affiliation with the project; will have the opportunity both to pursue personal research interests and to contribute to the overall theoretical and methodological framework of PIN; and will join a wider interdisciplinary research environment centered in the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Communication and Computing and its research group on Digital Communication and Aesthetics. In addition to coursework and other institutional obligations, the PhD candidate will undertake the following main activities:

• six months of ethnographic fieldwork in the USA
• review of regulatory regimes and cultural traditions in the fieldwork area
• participation in analyses of population surveys
• contributions to the dissemination of project findings and other outreach.

The successful PhD candidate must be fluent in spoken and written academic English. Prior experience with cross-cultural studies and/or survey research within media and communication studies will be considered an advantage, but is not a requirement. It is expected that the successful candidate will be present, part of the research group, and engaged in the activities of PIN on a daily basis. Departing from the PIN project framework, the PhD project description must include:

• a main section outlining preliminary research questions, methodological considerations, and a time schedule for a six-month ethnographic fieldwork in the United States of America
• a section identifying preliminary issues to be addressed in a review of regulatory regimes and cultural traditions in the U.S.
• a section discussing how insights from the fieldwork may inform and complement the survey component of the PIN project.

Please notice that this position is advertised in parallel with a similar position where the focus is on Europe, please see: http://phd.humanities.ku.dk/how_to_apply/calls/phd-scholarship-in-internet-research-with-a-focus-on-europe/

The project proposal must lie within the overall framework of PIN. For further information, including a copy of the project framework, please contact the Principal Investigator of PIN, Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen kbj at hum.ku.dk

Application deadline: September 15, 2016 at 23.59 (CET), http://phd.humanities.ku.dk/how_to_apply/calls/phd-scholarship-in-internet-research-with-a-focus-on-the-united-states/

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Klaus Bruhn Jensen
Professor, dr.phil.

Head of Centre for Communication and Computing

Section of Film, Media, and Communication
Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication
University of Copenhagen
Karen Blixens Vej 4
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark

kbj at hum.ku.dk
www.media.ku.dk

Tel +45-35328100
Fax +45-35328110

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*New publication*

Special section of the International Journal of Communication: Audiences across Media (2015), http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc