Fully Funded Position as Postdoc in Datafication and Journalism Studies

The Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, invites applications for a fully funded position as postdoc in datafication and journalism studies from November 1, 2020 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position is limited to a period of 2 years.

The postdoc is part of the research project DataPublics funded by the Velux Foundation Denmark. The project is located at Roskilde University, and the successful applicant will be associated with the research groups Journalism and Democracy and Audiences and Mediated Life at the Department of Communication and Arts. The successful applicant will work in close collaboration with the project leader Associate Professor Jannie Møller Hartley and the Velux-research group around the project DataPublics, assistant professor Mette Bengtsson and PhD student Morten Fisher Sivertsen.

The research project Data Publics examines what the ever-increasing amount of data available in our society means to Journalism, and thus sheds light on the changes in the relations between the news media and the news users. In recent few years, big tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon have taken on an increasing role in news distribution, and their increased importance is changing not only the journalism as we know it today, but also the news media ecosystem itself. At the same time, news organizations have big data sets about the behavior of the news user, just as the news user can partly personalize his news consumption through filters and partly subject to filtering through various algorithms. In other words, the data affirmation has fundamentally changed the news journalism, and this project examines what it means and what consequences it has for the democratic conversation and public connection.

The ideal candidate is an excellent media studies scholar, who has experience in digital infrastructure studies – particularly the new empirical and methodological developments in social and digital media. The candidate should be familiar with or have a strong interest in a transdisciplinary methodological approach, and experience with the field of media production studies. The ideal candidate will also have a strong interest and experience in audience studies and journalism studies.