[Commlist] Vacancy: PhD fellowship on VTubers within the PAY4PLAY project at Aarhus University, Denmark

The Graduate School at Arts, Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, in 
collaboration with the European Research Council and the School of 
Communication and Culture, invites applications for a fully funded PhD 
fellowship in PAY4PLAY: Entrepreneurial Organizing in the Platform 
Society provided the necessary funding is available. This PhD fellowship 
is available as of 1 February 2027 for a period of up to three years (5+3).

It is expected that candidate awarded the PhD fellowship will be able to 
commence the PhD degree programme on 1 February 2027.

The PhD fellowship is part of project “PAY4PLAY: Entrepreneurial 
Organizing in the Platform Society,” led by Associate Professor Blake 
Hallinan and funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research 
Council (ERC).

 >>> Project description
PAY4PLAY is an interdisciplinary, large-scale investigation of 
organizing in the creator economy concerned with how creators and their 
communities come together and create value. The project is premised on 
the idea that organizing is essential to understand how creators - and 
people more broadly - both exploit and challenge the growing power of 
digital platforms. The project approaches creator organizing from three 
perspectives (culture, infrastructure, policy) and compares three 
industrial sectors (gamers, VTubers, adult content creators). In so 
doing, the project will map the industrial conditions of the creator 
economy, develop a new theory of organizing and platform power, and 
provide policy recommendations for platforms and regulators.

The PAY4PLAY team includes the principal investigator Blake Hallinan, 
postdoctoral researcher Emilija Jokubauskaitė, and three PhD fellows 
working on the sub-project “Cultures of Participation within and among 
Creator Communities.” This PhD fellowship focuses on VTubers, or virtual 
content creators. We are particularly interested in proposals that 
compare Japanese and English-language VTuber communities, but we are 
also open to proposals that focus on other significant VTuber 
communities (e.g., Chinese VTubers, LBGTQ VTubers).

The project design is flexible but should investigate organizing within 
(i.e., how creators, co-producers, volunteers, and audience members 
relate to each other) and among creator communities (i.e., how creator 
communities form alliances to shape industrial conditions). The PhD 
fellow will also have the opportunity to collaborate with team members 
working in other sectors and in the projects focused on infrastructure 
and policy, as well as with an international network of advisors and 
collaborators.

The PhD fellowship will be supervised by Blake Hallinan, Associate 
Professor in the Department of Media and Journalism Studies, and Anja 
Bechmann, Professor in the Department of Media and Journalism Studies.

 >>> Tasks and responsibilities
The candidate will:

  *
    Design and conduct studies of organizing within and among VTuber
    communities across social media platforms (e.g., Twitch, YouTube,
    Discord, Patreon, TikTok)
  * Conduct interviews with members of VTuber communities
  * Observe creator community organizing at industry events (e.g.,
    TwitchCon, OffKai Expo)
  * Observe creator community organizing online using relevant methods
    (e.g., digital ethnography, digital methods analysis of social media
    data)
  * Collaborate closely with supervisors, the postdoctoral researcher,
    and fellow PhD researchers on the PAY4PLAY project
  * Present research at international conferences
  * Publish PhD research in international publication venues

 >>> Requirements

  * Master’s degree (120 ECTS) in a relevant field (e.g., media studies,
    communication, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies)
  * Experience with studying digital platforms and/or online communities
  * Ability to speak and write in English at an academic level

 >>> Desirable assets

  * Ability to conduct research in Japanese (reading documents,
    interviewing participants)
  * Domain expertise in the creator economy
  * Theoretical sophistication, as reflected in the project description
  * Experience with collaborative, interdisciplinary, and/or
    international research projects

 >>> More information
Application deadline is 1 November 2026.

For details about the application process, see: 
https://phd.arts.au.dk/applicants/open-and-specific-calls/phd-call-2026-11 
<https://phd.arts.au.dk/applicants/open-and-specific-calls/phd-call-2026-11>

For details about the PAY4PLAY project, see: www.pay4play.eu 
<http://www.pay4play.eu>

Please contact Blake Hallinan at (bhallinan /at/ cc.au.dk) for any additional 
questions.

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