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

Sun Jan 18 10:49:45 GMT 2015




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
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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:
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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.




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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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