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[Filled position] Postdoctoral position on online scientific misinformation

The Sciences Po médialab is hiring a postdoctoral for the WebClim project (2 years position).

Notice, Job

Deadline:

This position is part of the Make Our Planet Great Again grant “Influence of web platform practices and algorithmic decisions on public access to climate information”.

Key objectives of the position

The primary goal of this position will be to analyze the data WebClim collected to determine whether platforms policies have a measurable impact on the volume of misinformation circulating and on users’ understanding of climate change.

The proposed approach is to rely on the development of qualitative and quantitative methods to: 

  • document pages or content recommended by platforms’ algorithms in response to popular users queries on climate change; 
  • analyze the messages shared in these contents and the potential presence of misinformation;
  • test the influence these information have on users using online questionnaires.

The WebClim team currently consists of a lead scientist and a research engineer who work in close collaboration with social science researchers and numerical methods experts at the Sciences Po médialab. The post-doc will complement the lab, and contribute to its research activities including:

  • Collection and analysis of online data, notably networks of information sharing;
  • Design of online questionnaires to test users’ takeaway from content they might read online (we are typically using tools such as Mechanical Turk or equivalent);
  • Qualitative and quantitative text analysis (natural language processing);
  • Data visualization;
  • Writing scientific articles.

Experience required

  • Doctorate in numerical humanities, data scientist or equivalent.
  • A postdoctoral experience would be a plus.
  • Experience writing and leading online questionnaires or citizen science experiments would be a plus.
  • Excellent mastery of English and experience writing scientific articles.

Technical skills 

  • Data collection and statistical data processing, analysis and data visualization (preferably using Python, which is used by the rest of our team)
  • Capacity to use natural language processing toolswould be a plus.

The position / Compensation

The candidate will join the médialab SciencesPo in Paris and work with its team of researchers, software engineers and data scientists.

This is a 2-year position, starting in the fall 2020. Proposed gross salary is 35k€/year and the position includes full health care coverage, 45 days of paid holidays per year along with 50% funding of public transportation and lunch tickets.

Remote work is possible one day per week maximum normally, which might change depending on the COVID-19 context.

To apply

Send a CV and cover letter detailing your motivation and relevant skills for the position as well as a link to your recent scientific publications (published or in prep.) by 30 Sept. 2020 to this email address: recrutement.medialab@sciencespo.fr

Review of applications will begin as they arrive until the position is filled.