[Air-L] Job posting: PhD student in media communication / linguistics at Ghent University (Belgium): a Brexit-related project

[cbouko]

The Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in
Society (MULTIPLES) at Ghent University, invites applications for a
full-time position as doctoral researcher. The PhD student will be working
on the project “ Representations of intra-EU mobility and extra-EU
migration in new media and in their readers' comments, in the context of
Brexit”.


*Project description*

The research is situated in the domain of media communication, discourse
analysis and corpus linguistics.
The media are considered partly to blame for the Brexit vote, not least
because of their biased coverage of migration during the campaign. The
project addresses this issue from two angles. Firstly, while most analyses
of media coverage still focus on broadsheets vs. tabloids, increasingly
popular Internet-only media fall within any of these two categories and
remain particularly understudied. Therefore, the project seeks to identify
digital-only practices in news-making, particularly regarding mobility in
the Brexit context. Secondly, the ‘refugee crisis’ has resulted in fears of
the extra-European ‘other’ but intra-European mobility is also instilling
fears that undermine one of the very pillars of the EU, namely freedom of
movement. Contrary to research to date which focuses on extra-EU migration,
this project will analyze the media discourses regarding intra- and
extra-EU mobilities, as well as the reactions these discourses trigger in
readers’ comments.
The news articles published by Buzzfeed UK, The Huffington Post UK and The
Guardian are the subjects of the study, together with the comments posted
by their readers.
By combining the two angles, the project will have scientific impact both
regarding new media and migration discourses.


*Your profile*

- master’s degree in linguistics, communication, or a related discipline,
obtained with excellent grades before the start of the project
- C2 or native-speaker level in English. The applicants’ skills in English
will be tested; applicants below level C2 will not be considered for this
research.
- excellent academic skills in English
- good social and communicative skills
- capacity for autonomous research


*Your tasks*

- analyzing news articles and comments through quantitative and qualitative
methods (the data is already collected).
- preparing a PhD on the basis of the project
- preparing individual and joint publications for national and
international scientific journals
- presenting research at national and international conferences


*We offer*

We offer a 48-month PhD position at Ghent University (Research Centre
MULTIPLES &
Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication).
The position is available from 1 May 2019, but the starting date is
negotiable up to 1 October 2019.


*How to apply?*

Candidates are invited to apply by submitting two types of documents by
e-mail to Prof. Catherine Bouko (catherine.bouko at ugent.be) by 15 March
2019, 23:59 (CET):

1) A single pdf-document with :
- a letter of application
- a CV (including an overview of the applicant’s study results and the
contact details of one person we may contact for a reference)
- a copy of the required Master’s degree

2) a personal piece of (scientific) writing in the form of a student paper
or publication (e.g. Master thesis or article) in English, demonstrating
your academic skills.

On the basis of these documents, candidates will be selected for an
interview (if necessary, interviews can be held via Skype if the applicants
live abroad).


*More information*

For more information, please contact Catherine Bouko:
catherine.bouko at ugent.be
https://www.ugent.be/en/work/vacancies/scientific/phd-student-in-media-communication-linguistics-ifae5

-- 
Catherine Bouko

Ghent University
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Groot-Brittanniëlaan 45
9000 Gent
Belgium
Bureau: B2.06
http://research.flw.ugent.be/en/catherine.bouko