PhD scholarship on corpus-assisted multimodal argumentation with a focus on hate speech (V24.0426)

The Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Philosophy (both at the University of Groningen, NL) offer a four year studentship to complete a PhD within a joint interdisciplinary project led by Dr Dimitris Serafis (Faculty of Arts), Dr Janina Wildfeuer (Faculty of Arts) and Dr Jan Albert van Laar (Faculty of Philosophy). The proposed PhD research project will be embedded in the Department of Communication and Information Studies at the Faculty of Arts.

This PhD project offers a unique opportunity to work in an international environment and to acquire valuable research experience.

Visual argumentative inferences and soft hate speech online: A corpus-based multimodal argumentative perspective to raise critical awareness (funded by the Ubbo Emmius Foundation).

The PhD project lies at the intersection of corpus-assisted multimodality research and argumentation theory. It focuses on the analysis of subtle forms of hate speech (soft hate speech) through an examination of the interplay of headlines, captions and press photos in online media communication. By combining the aforementioned methodologies, this project aims at providing evidence on the multimodal realization of soft hate speech in online media and, most importantly, the rationalization of the phenomenon in large corpora of online news portals articles. In doing so, the project aims to offer new proposals for raising critical awareness among the general public.

Possible research questions are the following:

• How to identify, analyze and evaluate soft hate speech?
• What are the main verbal and visual patterns realized in online news portals that can convey, invoke or sustain implicit forms of hate?
• What are the main argument schemes that emerge on the basis of these patterns?
• How to create awareness of soft hate speech and of options for dealing with it?

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has established an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative university offering high-quality teaching and research. Its 27,000 students are encouraged to develop their own individual talents through challenging study- and career paths. The University of Groningen is an international center of knowledge: It belongs to the best research universities in Europe and is allied with prestigious partner universities and networks worldwide.

The Faculty of Arts is a large, dynamic faculty in the heart of the city of Groningen. It has more than 5000 students and 700 staff members, who are working at the frontiers of knowledge every day. The Faculty offers a wide range of degree programmes: 15 Bachelor's programmes and over 35 Master's specializations. Our research, which is internationally widely acclaimed, covers Archaeology, Cultural Studies, History, International Relations, Language and Literary Studies, Linguistics and Media and Journalism Studies.

• Research Master’s or Master’s degree in any area related to the project, ideally with a background in linguistics and/or multimodal analysis and a clear interest in argumentation theory, or else a background in argumentation theory with a clear interest in linguistic and multimodal issues. If you are not yet finished with your Master’s, you need to give evidence of your records and confirm that you can finish before the position starts.
• Special interest in interdisciplinarity and willingness to bridge between multimodality, linguistics, particularly discourse analysis, and argumentation theory.
• Introductory training in multimodal analysis, ideally with interest in corpus analysis.
• Excellent academic writing skills in English.
• Willingness to work in an interdisciplinary environment.
• Skills in planning, taking initiative.
• Skills in academic writing and ambition to publish.

In accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, the University of Groningen offers you:

• A salary of € 2.872 gross per month in the first year, up to a maximum of € 3.670 gross per month in the final year, based on a full-time position.
• A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income.
• An 8.3% end-of-the-year allowance.
• A temporary 1.0 FTE appointment for a specified period of four years. The candidate will first be appointed for twelve months. After six months, an assessment will take place of the candidate’s results and the progress of the PhD project, in order to decide whether employment will be continued.
• The PhD candidate is expected to conduct a total of 0.4 fte teaching spread over the second, third and fourth year of their appointment.
• The PhD candidate is expected to complete the PhD in 4 years.
• Excellent work-life balance.
• Willingness to move and reside in the Netherlands.

The appointment will commence in February 2025 at the very latest. We allow 3 months from selection in case of VISA applications.

Applications should be made in English and contain the following materials:

• A short statement (c. 1,000 words), explaining your motivation for applying.
• A curriculum vitae.
• Copies of MA diploma and list of grades.
• A writing sample of no more than 5,000 words, such as an essay or part of a Master’s thesis or a paper published in or submitted to an academic journal.
• Contact details of two academic referees (no letters of recommendation are needed for the application process).

Please send in your application as two PDF files (one for the writing sample, and one for all other documents). You may apply for this position until 2 October 2024, 23.59 Dutch local time (CEST) / before 3 October 2024 by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

Interviews with selected candidates will be held online on 28 October 2024.

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

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