[Air-L] Vacancy: 3-year PhD position at ZeMKI, University of Bremen (Computational Communication and Democracy Lab)

[Leif Kramp]

The Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen is offering a 3-year PhD position at the newly established Computational Communication and Democracy (CCD) Lab. The PhD student will work with the lab director, Prof. Yannis Theocharis on the thematic area Digital Media and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities

Description of the position
Duration: 3 years
Starting date: 01 April 2019 or soon as possible thereafter
Remuneration is based on grade E13 TV-L (50% of a full-time position) of the German federal employee scale (an increase to 100% is possible depending on application for external project funding)
General description of the position: 

The PhD student will be embedded in the newly established CCD Lab, a research-oriented environment within the interdisciplinary ZeMKI of the University of Bremen. The research area Digital Media and Democracy: Challenges and Opportunities focuses on explaining how digital media are transforming the quality of democracy, concentrating on issues such as uncivil behaviour, the activities of countercultures, new forms of political participation and representation, misinformation and exposure to news or social media content in general. The PhD student will be actively involved in the research activities of the CCD Lab and assist in the evolution of its research agenda and research output. It is expected that the PhD student will be an active contributor to the interdisciplinary intellectual environment of the ZeMKI. For more information about the Lab and ZeMKI please see below.

Description of research duties. The PhD student will support the Lab director in the development of the research area. This involves providing assistance with data collection and analysis, coordination of existing, and development of new projects for the acquisition of third-party funding, carrying out administrative tasks related to the Lab’s operation (e.g. coordination of student research assistants) and involvement in the Lab’s publication output. The PhD student is expected to develop and carry out her/his own PhD project related to the broader research area.

Description of teaching duties: The position involves 2 hours of teaching per week.

Essential qualifications

Master’s in Media and Communication, Political Science, Computer Science, Sociology, or related disciplines
Skills in quantitative methods
Skills in computational methods (a focus on text-as-data methods – especially automated text analysis and machine-learning – is a plus)
Familiarity with, or willingness to build methodological expertise on, network analysis
Experience with social media data analysis is desirable
Interest in political communication
Command of R (experience with Python is a plus)
Strong command of English

The University of Bremen intends to increase the proportion of women in science and therefore urges women to apply. Handicapped applicants with the same professional and personal suitability are given priority. Applications from people with a migration background are encouraged. Candidates who already hold a PhD degree will not be considered. 

For any questions please contact Prof. Dr. Yannis Theocharis at: yannis.theocharis at uni-bremen.de <mailto:yannis.theocharis at uni-bremen.de> 

Application

The application should include the following documents:
A letter of motivation (no longer than 2 pages) that outlines your substantive research and methodological interests. Please describe why you believe your profile fits with the main objectives and mission of the CCD Lab.
CV.
A copy of your academic certificates.
A writing sample (research paper, publication, or Master’s thesis).
Names of two referees.
Please send your application including the reference number A4/19 until 01/03/2019 to: 

Universität Bremen
Zentrum für Medien-, Kommunikations- und Informationsforschung (ZeMKI)
z.H. Frau Denise Tansel 
Postfach 33 04 40 
28334 Bremen
Germany

or as PDF via Email (single file) at: dtansel at uni-bremen.de <mailto:dtansel at uni-bremen.de>

The employment is fixed-term and serves the scientific qualification, governed by the Act of Academic Fixed-Term Contract, §2 (1) (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz). Therefore, candidates may only be considered for appointment if they still have the respective qualification periods available in accordance with § 2 (1) WissZeitVG.
 
About the Computational Communication and Democracy Lab

The Lab’s substantive research agenda is driven by the idea that the proliferation of digital media opens up new avenues for social and political interaction that have radical effects on democratic processes: participation, organisation, representation. As such, digital communication offers opportunities, but also poses enormous challenges that fundamentally affect the quality of our democracies. Relying on developments in the field of computational social science as a point of departure, the Lab’s is also interested in methods through which new types of digital information can be processed and repurposed for studying a variety of social and political phenomena enabled by digital technologies. The lab has two main goals. First, to lead research on different but interdependent substantive topics for understanding, the social and political impact of digital communication and address methodological and epistemological issues related to conceptualisation, operationalisation, measurement and inference. Second, to offer BA, Masters, and PhD students a path for specialisation in computational and data science methods, with applications to communication and media research.

About the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI)

As an inter-faculty research institute, the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) bundles research activities at the University of Bremen in the area of media and communicative change regarding a broad range of cultural, social, organisational and technological context fields. The research institute is committed to interdisciplinary cooperation, integrating researchers from the areas of media and communication studies, cultural studies, information management and media pedagogics. In addition to their research activities, ZeMKI members are active in the various media related study programmes at the University of Bremen. The ZeMKI oversees the profile-building research group "Communicative figurations of mediatized worlds" of the University of Bremen. The research group has been supported as a "Creative Unit" by the institutional strategy "Ambitious and Agile" of the University of Bremen funded within the frame of the Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments.