[Commlist] Job advertisement: Postdoc in Digital Media: Understanding Media Dynamics of Distrust

Marc Tuters is pleased to announce a postdoc opportunity at the 
University of Amsterdam, currently accepting applicants until January 
20th, on "Understanding Media Dynamics of Distrust". The position, based 
at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and Media Studies, 
explores the dynamics of distrust in digital societies, analyzing vast 
social media datasets to develop innovative, medium-centric theories.

Job description
In 1964, in a ground-breaking work entitled 'Understanding Media', which 
first introduced the notion that "the medium is the message", Marshall 
McLuhan argued that the dawning era of electronic networked 
communication would have far-reaching effects on the organization of 
society into a "global village". While this vision of global 
interconnection would later be celebrated in Silicon Valley, it also had 
a darker side of increased "tribal" animosity and distrust - ever more 
evident with the rise of toxic techno-cultures like the "manosphere" and 
online conspiracy theories like "QAnon". Broadly positioned in relation 
to the McLuhanesque tradition, this Postdoc position is concerned with 
1.) collecting and empirically redescribing "dynamics of distrust" 
within (large) social media datasets and 2.) contributing to developing 
a novel (medium-centric) theoretical framework through which to 
understand them. Building on disciplinary approaches that consider 
social media platforms as discrete "environments" with their own 
"affordances", the candidate and the project leader will work together 
to develop an empirically grounded approach to theorize intra- and 
inter-platform dynamics of media message propagation that goes beyond 
the much-used concept of the "meme", as the base unit of cultural 
reproduction. Defined by three main actors (algorithms, influencers, and 
crowds), these media environments both produce and thrive off of 
post-truth pseudo-events that may be better understood as involving 
"ritual" and "multi-directional" communications flows, than in standard 
terms of linear transmission, and top-down misinformation campaigns 
(Bastos & Tuters 2023, Tuters & Noordenbos forthcoming).

The research position combines empirical data collection and analysis 
with theory building. It involves working closely together with the 
project leader and his collaborators, to develop empirically grounded 
theories based on the analysis of existing datasets - e.g. a Twitter 
dataset (n=10M) focussed on the spread of 'conspiracy theories', 
post-covid - as well as potentially collecting and analysing dynamics of 
distrust within and across other social media platforms, using APIs, DSA 
requests, web scraping techniques or through other available archived 
sources. The position is situated in a department world-renowned for 
developing the "digital methods" approach of repurposing platforms 
affordances as the basis of social research - for example, by 
interpreting "hashtags" as "issue spaces". Building on such empirical 
methods, this project opens a dialogue with newer conceptual frameworks 
(including, but not limited to actor-network theory, assemblage theory, 
new materialism and agential realism), to help to understand evolving 
patterns and relations of consistency in social media datasets which may 
not be adequately described with 'off the shelf' concepts from social 
theory.


This is what you will be doing

Required:
- designing and conducting research under the guidance of the project 
leader, resulting in peer-reviewed academic publications in 
international scientific journals, edited volumes, and/or collaborating 
on a monograph with the project leader;
- participating in Trust RPA committee meetings together with PIs and 
post-docs;
- co-organizing expert meetings and a symposium with other post-docs in 
the Trust RPA.

Optional:
- lead small collaborative data-sprints coordinated three times yearly 
by the Digital Methods Initiative;
- contribute to national and European-level funding applications 
intended to extend this line of research
- contribute to the research culture and output of the Open Intelligence 
Lab (oilab.eu <http://oilab.eu>)

The ideal applicant is conversant in both applied 'digital methods' and 
'medium theory'.

Required:
- a PhD in media studies, a related field or equivalent professional 
experience.
- demonstrable interest and skill in combining empirical research with 
theory building.

Optional:
- ability to work new computational social science methods including NLP 
and LLMs, via Python or R
- demonstrable postdoctoral experience in publishing in leading 
international scientific journals;
- demonstrable postdoctoral experience in presenting scientific results 
at international conferences;
- a strong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in 
collaborative research;
enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences;
- excellent social, communication, and organizational skills;
- excellent command of English - working command of Dutch is an asset.


This is what we offer

You will be appointed at the Department of Media Studies of the Faculty 
of Humanities and will conduct the research in ASCA. The employment will 
be for sixteen months, with a 2-month probationary period. The preferred 
starting date is 01 April 2025.
Contingent on a positive performance evaluation and continuation of 
funding, the contract can be extended for 18 more months, at 1,0 fte.


This is where you will be working

You will work in a dynamic interdisciplinary research environment. While 
being based in UvA's New Media program, which has an international 
reputation as a leader in research on 'digital methods' and 
'platformization' studies, you will also be affiliated with the Trust 
RPA, an interdisciplinary research collaboration between the Faculties 
of Law, Humanities, Social Sciences, Economics, and Computer Science on 
the trust dynamics in the digital society which currently includes three 
other postdoctoral researchers. You will have the opportunity to 
collaborate with these leading world renowned researchers and research 
institutes.



You can read more about the job call and all that it offers here, and 
any questions can be directed to Marc Tuters: at m.d.tuters AT uva DOT nl

https://werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies/postdoc-in-digital-media-understanding-media-dynamics-of-distrust-netherlands-13720 



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