[ecrea] PhD Position at UCLouvain (BE) in media literacy in the workplace

PhD Fellowship at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)
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The Groupe de Recherche en Médiation des Savoirs (GReMS, UCLouvain) is 
currently looking for outstanding candidates (m/f) for a four-year PhD 
fellowship on “digital media uses and competences in new work practices” 
as part of LITME@WORK, a larger, multi-university research project (see 
below for description).

Candidates should send a complete CV and a cover letter highlighting 
their skills and motivation to join the project to Pierre Fastrez 
((pierre.fastrez /at/ uclouvain.be)) and Thierry De Smedt 
((thierry.desmedt /at/ uclouvain.be)) before February 6th, 2015.


PROFILE
*******
Master in Information and Communication,
Option: media literacy, or sociology of uses and innovations, or 
human-computer interaction
Otherwise, close academic profile, confirmed by studies and final thesis 
in the above areas.
Academic grade: "magna cum laude" or higher.
Experienced in research methods related to case study analysis and 
qualitative data collection and analysis.
Trilingual: *Dutch (native level)*, English and French.
Driver’s licence.

Duration of commitment: 4 years, most probably from March 2015 to 
February 2019.
Nature of the contract: Doctoral fellowship, full time.
Primary location: Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.


Research Project: LITME@WORK
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Digital and media literacy in teamwork and distance work environments

LITME@WORK is a four-year research project funded by Belspo, coordinated 
by the Université de Namur, with the Université catholique de Louvain, 
the Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles, and the Katholieke Universiteit 
Leuven.

Research area: Digital and media literacy, Science and technology 
studies, Sociology of ICT uses, Organization theory

Keywords: Teamwork, Work at a distance, Competences, Digital and media 
literacy, ICT uses

SUMMARY OF THE OVERALL PROJECT:
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Digital technology has become ubiquitous in the workplace, especially 
for office workers. New ways of working individually and collectively 
gradually emerge, supported by both technological and social evolutions. 
For example, workers have to deal with increasing quantities of 
information and need to develop strategies to avoid information 
overload, teleworking becomes more and more common over the years, 
coordination between several people through (synchronous and 
asynchronous) computer-mediated communication has become commonplace, 
and workers equipped with mobile technologies may be required to perform 
part of their professional activities in mobile contexts. All these 
situations raise questions regarding the evolution of the 
infrastructures provided by organizations, the changing ways through 
which work is achieved by individuals, the new set of competences that 
they need to have, and the now complex relationships between one’s 
professional activity and private life. LITME@WORK will explore those 
questions in relation to office work practices, from clerical work to 
managerial tasks, focusing on ICT-supported teamwork and work at a distance.

Specifically, LITME@WORK will investigate the digital and media literacy 
(DML) competences called for by today’s evolving, technology-supported 
environment of work. These interrelated informational, technical and 
social competences are indeed required for practicing teamwork and work 
at a distance, as visible in activities such as distance collaboration, 
different types of teamwork, personal and shared information management, 
re-creating and maintaining one’s personal work environment throughout 
contexts of work, or managing a team at a distance. As main research 
questions, LITME@WORK will ask (1) how is DML addressed and practiced in 
today’s office work and (2) how can DML be further integrated in 
emerging team/distance work structures and practices in order to support 
efficient, stimulating and meaningful ways of working. Starting from 
these questions, LITME@WORK will pursue four objectives: (i) 
understanding changing work environments and their DML requirements, 
(ii) developing a systemic approach to DML in team/distance office work, 
(iii) providing resources for societal and policy stakeholders, and (iv) 
contributing to research efforts in relevant fields of research (DML 
studies, science and technology studies (STS), sociology of innovation, 
sociology of ICT uses, human-computer interaction studies, organisation 
theory, research on job quality and learning at work).

Relying mainly on qualitative analyses, LITME@WORK will investigate DML 
from three different but complementary perspectives, each corresponding 
to one work package: the social configuration and appropriation of (DML) 
competence frames within and across organizations, the relationship 
between work organization, workplace design and structural conditions 
for (DML) competence utilization and learning, and *the relationship 
between digital media uses and competences in employees’ new work 
practices* (see below). Each approach will use its specific methods, 
related to its focus and theoretical framework, but the overall 
methodological structure will be the same across the work packages, the 
case studies will be tightly coordinated and the final results will be 
integrated.

The project intends to provide an up-to-date, encompassing knowledge of 
DML in teamwork and work at a distance, which will enhance stakeholders’ 
understanding of DML and their capacity to take action. Specifically, 
LITME@WORK will deliver as main research results: a research framework 
for analysing the many aspects of DML in teamwork/distance work 
practices and environments, ranging from the broader context of 
organization structures to the point of view of individual workers 
themselves; an in-depth analysis of the ways in which organizations 
understand and negotiate the “(digitally) competent worker”; an 
up-to-date description of the changing office work competences, 
practices and structures, with a focus on teamwork and distance work 
trends; and a conceptual map and set of measurable indicators for DML 
competences aimed at serving as a resource for societal and policy 
stakeholders in terms of defining, evaluating, monitoring, recognizing 
and supporting DML in office work.

SUMMARY OF THE WORK PACKAGE RELATED TO THE DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Digital Media Uses and Competences In New Work Practices

In order to study the competences called for and developed by 
ICT-supported teamwork and distance work practices, the proposed 
research will veer away from tool-oriented approaches that reduce 
digital competences to technology-related operational skills. Such 
approaches define their unit of analysis based on the use of specific 
software or hardware tools by workers. Instead, we consider the new 
work-related competences under its scrutiny as sets of interrelated 
informational, technical and social competences that form a subset of 
the individual’s digital and media literacy. Hence, the candidate will 
collect and analyse data based on categories of activities involved in 
emerging work practices. Unlike the majority of research works dedicated 
to DML competences, which define such competences a priori before 
attempting to validate their definition, the objective pursued in this 
project is the very definition of these competences, from the 
perspective of workers, based on field observation, along with the 
definition of indicators for these competence.




--
Pierre Fastrez
Chercheur qualifié F.R.S.-FNRS
IL&C > RECOM | ESPO > COMU
Ruelle de la Lanterne Magique, 14 bte 2.03.02 - B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Tél. 32 (0)10 47 29 14 - Fax 32 (0)10 47 30 44

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