PhD Researcher on social media narratives

1 - Working at the VUB

For more than 50 years, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has stood for freedom, equality and solidarity, and this is very much alive on our campuses among students and staff alike. 

At the VUB, you will find a diverse collection of personalities: innovators pur sang, but above all people who are 100% their authentic selves. With some 4,000 employees, we are the largest Dutch-speaking employer, in the private sector, in Brussels; an international city with which we are only too happy to connect and where (around) our 4 campuses are located. 

Add to this our principle of free research - in which self-reflection, a critical attitude and an open, creative mind around scientific and social issues are central - and you have a university that is fundamentally groundbreaking and pioneering in education and research. In short: the VUB all over again. 

Moreover, the VUB is a member of EUTOPIA, an alliance of like-minded European universities, all ready to reinvent themselves.

2 - Position description

The Brussels School of Governance, Department Instituut voor Europese Studies, is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

To apply for this PhD position, you should develop a research proposal on the empirical analysis of narratives and narrative dynamics on social media. Importantly, the envisaged research project should be situated at the intersections of CD2I’s research lines on information distrust and disorder and on innovations in digital research. 

Under the impetus of online disinformation and conspiracy theories, the study of narratives in participatory web environments has developed into an active area of research. On the one hand, the field is marked by approaches that rely on network and transmission models of communication to explain how narratives circulate and propagate online. On the other, critical approaches aim to interpret narratives in relation to wider cultural and political contexts and trends as political expressions, as creative responses, or folk narratives.  

The objective of the envisaged doctoral research project is to bridge gaps between these two paradigms, and to study how narratives, as symbolic forms of expression, take shape in relation to cultural and political contexts, as well as in relation to the social and technical affordances of social media. We are particularly interested in approaches that seek to uncover how social media form idiosyncratic narratives, for instance through recontextualizations of prior knowledge, through distributed forms of storytelling, or by facilitating dynamics of convergence among previously distinct narratives. 

CD2I supports empirical research that connects quantitative methods from data science with interpretative practices from the humanities. The doctoral research project will thus combine theoretical approaches from narratology or related disciplines with methods grounded in natural language processing, web scraping, (social) network analysis, and data visualisation. It is expected that the project will thus make a methodological contribution to the study of narratives on online media.  

The project is carried out within the Centre for Digitalisation, Democracy and Innovation (CD2I) of the Brussels School of Governance (BSoG). 

For this function, our Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene) will serve as your home base. 

3 - Profile

What do we expect from you?

• You hold a Master’s degree in the domain of digital humanities, computational linguistics, media and communication studies, or other relevant fields in human, social or engineering sciences with excellent study results. 

• You have a good knowledge of and hands-on experience with computational methods for text analysis, in particular with applications to corpora scraped from social media;
• You have excellent academic writing skills;
• You know and understand the relevant academic literature;
• You are flexible, self-motivated and perseverant;
• You are able to work independently, with good self-management and planning skills;
• You are fluent and have excellent communications skills in English. Knowledge of additional languages is an asset;
• Having an interdisciplinary profile that combines a background in the humanities or social sciences with computer science or related fields is a plus. 

• You have not performed any works in the execution of a mandate as an assistant, paid from operating resources, over a total (cumulated) period of more than 12 months.

The VUB wants to be a reflection of the society where everyone's talent is valued, regardless of gender, age, religion, skin color, migration background, disability and neurodiversity.

4 - Offer

Are you going to be our new colleague?

You’ll be offered a full-time PhD-scholarship, for 12 months (extendable up to max. 48 months, on condition of the positive evaluation of the PhD activities), with planned starting date 01/10/2024. 

You’ll receive a grant linked to one of the scales set by the government.

IMPORTANT: The effective result of the doctorate scholarship is subject to the condition precedent of your enrolment as a doctorate student at the university.

At the VUB, you’re guaranteed an open, involved and diverse workplace where you are offered opportunities to (further) build on your career.

As well as this, you will also enjoy various other benefits:

• Extensive homeworking options, a telework allowance of 50 euros per month OR an internet fee of 20 euros per month;
• An open and informal working environment where attention is paid to work-life balance, and exceptional holiday arrangements with 35 days of leave (based on a fulltime contract), closure between Christmas and New Year and 3 extra leave days;
• Cost-free hospitalisation insurance;
• Full reimbursement of your home-to-work commute with public transport according to VUB-policy, and/or compensation if you come by bike; 
• A wide selection of meals in our campus restaurants at attractive prices;
• Excellent and affordable facilities for sport and exercise, a range of discounts via Benefits@Work (in  all kinds of shops, on flights, in petrol stations, amusement parks...) and Ecocheques; 
• Nursery near campus, discount on holiday camps; 
• The space to form your job content and to continuously learn through our VUB learning platforms and training courses;
• And finally: great colleagues with a healthy drive.

5 - Interested?

Is this the job you’ve been dreaming of?

Then apply, at the latest on 01/05/2024, via jobs.vub.be, and upload the following documents:

• A one-page motivation letter 
• A curriculum vitae listing all academic qualifications, relevant research experience and previous publications (if any) 
• A project proposal featuring a literature review, a research question and proposed hypotheses/assumptions, a methodological outline and an indicative work plan, condensed into no more than 3,000 words 
• A copy of the highest obtained diploma and transcript of academic grades 
• A copy of a publication (master thesis, academic report or a paper of a university class) 
• Candidates must also provide the names and contact details of two referees. Referees are requested to send their letters of recommendation duly signed directly to jobs_bsog@vub.be

You can start as of 1 October or as soon as possible thereafter.

Do you need a reasonable accommodation? Please inform us via jobs_bsog@vub.be  

Do you have questions about the job content? Contact Tom Willaert or Trisha Meyer at tom.willaert@vub.be or trisha.meyer@vub.be or on +32 2 614 80 01.

Would you like to know what it’s like to work at the VUB? Go to jobs.vub.be, and find all there is to know about our campuses, benefits, strategic goals and your future colleagues.

Would you like more information about EUTOPIA? Go to eutopia-university.eu, and read more about the role of the VUB in the development of the EUTOPIA alliance.