This position comes with the possibility of continuing as a post-doctoral researcher for another term and as an associate professor (permanently) after post-doctoral terms if the candidate successfully passes all the assessments and external reviews.
The Department of Social Sciences at the LUT School of Engineering Sciences is looking for a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science or Data Social Scienceto strengthen and work on its global communications, soft power, strategic narratives and propaganda research area and projects.
The ideal candidate will have a track record of internationally excellent publications or a trajectory for achieving this. Specifically, we are looking for a curious mind who is interested in a longer-term academic career and is passionate about constant learning and making the world a better place to live through science.
The newly appointed post-doctoral researcher will have the opportunity to be part of the creation of a new faculty, thereby strengthening LUT University’s research in the social and communication sciences. With a significant public donation, LUT is building a school of social sciences to house 1,000 students and 100 researchers by the 2030s. Its research in the social and communication sciences is based on understanding society and human activities in relation to global sustainability problems. We believe that by engaging individuals and communities at the start of problem-solving, we can bring about changes more quickly.
Candidate requirements (mandatory)
- You must have a PhD degree in a relevant field (e.g., computational social science, computational communication studies, data science, computer science and media and communications/journalism studies).
- Alternatively, you may hold a degree in another social science field, such as sociology, political science, social psychology or international relations, and have significant academic knowledge in computer science, and want to use that knowledge to contribute to communication sciences, particularly to the study of soft power, disinformation, propaganda and strategic narratives research. You might also hold multiple degrees, with one in computer or data science.
- You must be fluent in English (both written and spoken). Knowledge of other languages is seen as a plus.
- You must have experience working with computational text analytics or image analysis/computer vision using either R or Python. We expect you to be very familiar with word embedding methods, topic modelling, network analysis and large language models, such as BERT, and have experience in PyTorch/Keras/TensorFlow.
- You should have previous experience in analysing news, social media or other media data, and preferably publications (published or in process) drawing on these analyses.
- You want to write journal articles (in English) and publish in international top-tier academic journals in the field of media and communication studies while drawing on computational methods/computer science (such as Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication Methods and Measures, Digital Journalism, International Journal of Press/Politics, Political Communication, Big Data & Society).
- You are committed to a high standard of research ethics, as defined by LUT, national Finnish guidelines and EU directives.
- You must have the ability to cooperate in teams and groups because you will work as a member of a research group.
- You should have the ability and motivation to complete articles and projects on time; thus, time management skills are appreciated.
- You have already published in good or preferably top journals and conferences in the field of media and communications and/or conferences focusing on natural language processing and other forums on computational methods, such as ACL and related conference publications (e.g., NAACL, EACL, EMNLP or COLING). You wish to publish more in top-tier journals and work internationally.
- You must have extensive knowledge of quantitative research methods.
- You may have (not obligatory) also some teaching experience using computational social science methods (such as machine learning, natural language processing) to study global media and communications, particularly disinformation, propaganda or strategic narrative-related issues. The post-doc is responsible for teaching a course/s related to these themes. Previous teaching experience, pedagogic training and BSc and MSC supervision are a plus, albeit the position is research-focused.
- The ideal candidate has excellent knowledge of scientific writing, computational research methods and analysis and strong research ethics. Previous scientific publications in the field are a strong plus. Global perspective and experience are strong merits, and applicants with international academic experience are especially encouraged to apply.
Research areas of interest
LUT Communication Sciences takes a global, interdisciplinary social science approach to the study of communication and media; therefore, we are looking for a candidate with an interest in global communication approaches to soft power, strategic narratives, propaganda and AI, democracy, news, technological platforms and social media.
The post-doctoral research will be closely linked to research projects on propaganda and news. The candidate should be interested in conducting research and writing top-tier journal articles on propaganda in the context of news and the changing landscape of AI. The position draws upon the field of computational social sciences and data social science, specializing in e.g., textual data analysis (text mining), with a focus on machine learning-based methods for analysing large media datasets, such as news or social media data. You have experience working with computational text analytics or image analysis/computer vision using either R or Python. These methods will enable, for example, the analysis of climate change-related information and disinformation in various media.
According to LUT university guidelines, a post-doctoral researcher is required to have a doctoral degree, the ability for independent scientific work, and teaching skills needed in the performance of the duties. The new faculty member will be expected to provide intellectual contributions within the university in their areas of expertise. The aimed employment start date is as soon as possible but is negotiable, so please state the preferred starting date in your application.