Media vacancies
PhD Position: The Bright Side and Dark Side of Emerging Technologies in the Media Industry
Erasmus University Rotterdam
We are in an increasing need to access personalized, adaptive, and dynamic information in real time. Advanced enabling technologies for Metaverse, such as AI, AR/VR, Web3.0, IoT, NFT, and edge computing, provide us ample possibilities by embedding the information in an appropriate time and space, which provides users new ways to interact with both the physical and the virtual world. These emerging technologies are changing the landscape of news organizations and media industries. On the one hand, emerging technologies create new opportunities for news organizations. For example, VR allows users to have a deeper level of interaction, connectedness and empathy with news stories. Robot journalism (i.e., automated journalism) allows news organizations to test headlines, source information and identify trending stories. Wearable journalism, using AR smart glasses or contact lenses, allows instant update and composition of stories. On the other hand, technologies such as image manipulation, deep fakes, fake news certainly speed up the spread of misinformation and pose threats to authentic media. This project will investigate both the bright side and the dark side that emerging technologies play in the media sector.
This position will be hosted by the Erasmus Initiative ‘Societal Impact of AI’ (AiPact).
Profile of the candidate
The candidate for this position has a (research) master degree in economics, business administration, econometrics, statistics, (computational) social science, computer science or a related discipline. The candidate has a strong affinity with the above topics and in working together with a team of people from different disciplines including an interest to learn and work with empirical and computational social science or digital methods.
Furthermore you have:
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Proven academic interest in questions regarding algorithmic applications and digital society;
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Interest in working in a very interdisciplinary, cross-university environment;
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Interest in contributing to and helping to create the broader algosoc research community;
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An excellent written and spoken command of English (written and spoken command of other languages, including Dutch, French, and/or German is a plus);
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Affinity with organising workshops, lecture series, and similar events.
If the vacancy appeals to you, but you are doubting whether you might be THE person we are looking for, please do apply. We encourage all qualified applicants, including minorities, women, people with disabilities, and members of other groups underrepresented in academia to apply. We wish to create a consortium that consists of persons who each contribute in their unique way to the team. Complementarity and not homogeneity is what we are looking for.
Developing a societal vision on automated decision making concerns us all. We believe that a diversity of perspectives in our consortium will be important in developing an inclusive societal vision and strive therefore also in our hiring policy for encouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds. We are committed to creating an environment of mutual respect, inclusiveness, equal opportunities with room for situated experiences, diverse perspectives, and ideas to flourish. This commitment applies to our research, organisation, room for flexibility, training, and community activities as well as our hiring strategy.