[Air-L] PhD position at University of Manchester

[João C. Magalhães]

Hello all

Luke Yates and I are recruiting a researcher to work on a doctoral project exploring how the emergence of GenAI is reshaping relationships among Big Tech and state and non-state political actors (parties, social movements, NGOs, media). The project will investigate attempts by companies to influence individual politicians, political organisations, and communities on AI-related subjects, as well as how these individuals and organisations understand and negotiate these attempts.

The aim is to help explain when, how, and why Big Tech succeeds or fails in pushing diverse political actors to trust their products and materialise their interests.

This is a four-year, fully funded position (no fees + stipend) financed by the AI Trust and Security Cluster at the Centre for Digital Trust and Society.

The successful candidate will be based in the Sociology Department (https://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/sociology/), a leading research centre.

Applications are restricted to UK candidates and should be submitted by 13 February.

More details at https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/the-politics-of-genai/?p193099

Best,

Joao

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João C. Magalhães

Senior Lecturer in AI Trust and Security | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

Head of the AI Trust and Security Cluster | Centre for Digital Trust and Society

University of Manchester

https://jcmagalhaes.com/



Selected publications: Socially blind engineering in Facebook's foundational technologies, 2025<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-025-00971-9> (Philosophy & Technology, w/ Nick Couldry) | Open-ended technological inevitability in journalistic discourses about AI, 2025<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2025.2522281#d1e238> (Digital Journalism, w/ Rik Smit) | The emergence of platform illiberalism, 2025 <https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6grbc_v1> (pre-print, w/ Clara Iglesias Keller and Rob Gorwa) | A history of objectionability in Twitter’s moderation practices, 2023<https://academic.oup.com/joc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/joc/jqad015/7204763?utm_source=authortollfreelink&utm_campaign=joc&utm_medium=email&guestAccessKey=fe630b65-d137-4378-bfb2-44026df942a7&login=false> (Journal of Communication, w/ Emillie de Keulenaar, Bharath Ganesh) | Social media, social unfreedom, 2022 <https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/commun-2022-0040/html> (Communications, w/ Jun Yu) | Big Tech, data colonialism and the reconfiguration of social good, 2021<https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/15995> (International Journal of Communication, w/ Nick Couldry) | Considering algorithmic ethical subjectivation, 2018<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305118768301> (Social Media + Society)