AAA Data Science Postdoctoral researcher in Bias and Engagement in Political Social Media

Informatics Institute (UvA) & The Amsterdam School of Communication Research (UvA)

Amsterdam Data Science, an initiative of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), VU University Amsterdam (VU), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is looking for 14 researchers at the postdoctoral/PhD level. These positions are funded by the Amsterdam Academic Alliance (AAA), a joint initiative of the UvA and VU aimed at intensifying collaboration with each other and knowledge institutions in the region, to cement Amsterdam's position as a hub of academic excellence. These positions are partially co-funded by CWI, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the UvA, HvA, ORTEC, Spinoza fund of Prof. Vossen, and VUmc.

Amsterdam Data Science provides a network in which some 300 Amsterdam based scientists exchange Data Science knowledge and forge partnerships within and outside the academic community. This comprises the foundations of data science and data science for the life sciences, social analytics, business analytics, and digital humanities.

This advertisement concerns one of the 14 positions. This postdoctoral researcher position is with Prof. De Rijke of the Informatics Institute, University of Amsterdam, and Prof De Vreese of the Amsterdam School of Communication Research ASCoR, University of Amsterdam.

The Informatics Institute is one of the research institutes within the Faculty of Science. Data science is a strategic direction for the institute and it is responsible for research, teaching and innovation activities in data science. 

The Amsterdam School of Communication Research ASCoR is the research institute in communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. It is the largest research institute of its kind in Europe and is among the largest worldwide. More than 50 senior researchers are permanently associated with ASCoR, and its English-language PhD program has more than 40 students.

Project description

The project is aimed at addressing the challenges associated with large-scale content analysis on social media, especially concerning bias, controversies, and engagement. Previous data-driven work in this area work has mostly examined ideological slant of news outlets in English, and mostly at relatively small scale. The project studies these phenomena, both from an informatics and communication science perspective, at scale and on social media. 

Tasks

• Conduct research at the interface of computer science and communication science, with a focus on social media analysis;
• publish in top tier journals and conferences at the interface of computer science and communication science;
• develop and contribute to teaching in the interface of computer science and communication science;
• supervision of student projects in the interface of computer science and communication science.

Requirements

To be able to make a flying start and succeed, candidates for this position should have considerable academic experience at the PhD-level in large-scale content analysis of social media. Candidates are expected to have demonstrable algorithmic, theoretical and experimental experience, ideally combining quantitative and qualitative expertise. 

In addition, a successful candidate should have:

• a PhD degree in computer science;
• active research knowledge of, and expertise in, modern search and text mining methods (specific knowledge of such methods in the context of social media is a definite plus);
• knowledge about communication science theories, and preferably about social media;
• experience programming in at least one of the following languages: C, C++, Java, Python, or Perl;
• teaching and supervision experience;
• excellent oral and written communication skills. 

Further information 

• Prof. M. de Rijke
• Prof. C.H. de Vreese 

Appointment

The appointment will be on a temporary basis for a period of three years. Based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week) the gross monthly salary will range from €2,476 to €3,908 (scale 10) depending on expertise and previous experience. The salary is supplemented with a holiday allowance of 8% and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%. The Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities is applicable.

Job application

Applications may only be submitted via application-science@uva.nl. To process your application immediately, please quote vacancy number 15-112 and the position you are applying for in the subject-line. Applications must include a detailed curriculum vitae, a motivation letter explaining why you are the right candidate, list of projects you have worked on with brief descriptions of your contributions and the names and contact addresses of two academic references from which information about the candidate can be obtained. All these should be grouped in one PDF attachment.

Applications will be accepted until 10 May 2015.

No agencies please