The Centre for Media and Journalism Studies (CMJS) is looking for a PhD student in “Investigative journalism and interpretive “deep” reporting” within the HAICu research project. The HAICu project is a large-scale Dutch research project by universities and cultural-heritage institutions into new forms of Artificial Intelligence-based access to multimodal Cultural-Heritage data, both contemporary and historical. Within HAICu, AI researchers, Digital Humanities researchers and a wide range of public and private partners will co-develop scientific solutions to unlock the true societal potential of the current heterogeneous digital heritage collections. It will provide easier, richer and more reliable data access to citizens, journalists, civic organisations, and various other stakeholders.

HAICu is funded by the NWO National Science Agenda (NWA) and has a budget of about EUR 10 million. HAICu has started in January 2024 and will last 6 years (until Jan 2030).
For more information about HAICu, please see https://www.haicu.science/

The PhD Project
This specific PhD position explores the development of investigative journalism and interpretive “deep” reporting in Dutch news media. It will study recurring critiques of journalism being too much focused on single news events while missing the broader story these are situated within. The focus of the project will be on the development of investigative and interpretive reporting on migration and discrimination that aims to make sense of news events by situating them in longitudinal developments and debates. It will analyse newspaper, television, radio and online reporting on sensitive political issues and debates on that develop over time using multimodal discourse analysis. It will analyse the interrelatedness of these various modalities and study reporting practices through interviews with journalists.

The PhD candidate with work closely with other researchers in WP1 (see below) providing domain-specific knowledge to understand the textual mechanics and journalism practices behind (scattered) evolving news stories, selecting and designing use cases for research and for journalists, and annotating datasets. The WP’s ultimate objective is to help journalists, as brokers of information, use heterogeneous multimodal digital heritage collections to better interpret and contextualise complex news events and issues as they evolve. To this end, we study how large-scale, heterogeneous multimodal digital heritage collections can be opened up, selected, linked, analysed and interpreted for journalism, developing deep learning-based techniques for multimodal search (text, pictures, audio, video) to link news items about a similar topic from different heterogeneous archives and into coherent news stories that develop over time.

The project will be supervised by prof. Marcel Broersma and prof. Yael de Haan at the University of Groningen. This is an interdisciplinary project at the intersection of Journalism Studies and Digital Humanities.

You will be asked to

- Develop a specific research proposal within the proposed theme.
- Review the academic literature relevant to the project’s goals.
- Carry out research, present your results and author scientific articles on the above mentioned topics.
- Collaborate with members of the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen, cultural heritage partners, journalism partners and with the broader Haicu consortium, in particular WP1 (see below).
- Engage and collaborate with other researchers working on the interface of journalism studies and digital humanities research.
- Complete a PhD thesis written in English in the specified timeframe (4 years).
- Collaborate on outreach and public engagement activities.
- Gain teaching experience.

This PhD project offers a unique opportunity to work in an international environment and to acquire valuable research experience: You will be carrying out research in the context of the Journalism Studies group of the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies (CMJS) of the University of Groningen. At the same time you will be involved in collaborations with Dutch cultural heritage institutions and you will be working with Dutch journalists, news organisations and media professionals in the “Deep Journalism” Innovation Lab.

Within the dynamic HAICu team, the PhD researcher will participate in Work Package 1, titled “Multimodal AI Research for Multimodal Heritage and Deep journalism”. In this WP, we will collaborate with Journalism Studies, AI and machine learning experts from the University of Utrecht, the University of Amsterdam, Hogeschool Utrecht as well as a range of cultural heritage partners, such as the Dutch National Library and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.

Organisation
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 34,000 students are encouraged to develop their own individual talents through challenging study- and career paths. The University of Groningen is an international centre 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 specialisations. Our research, which is internationally widely acclaimed, covers Archaeology, Cultural Studies, History, International Relations, Language and Literary Studies, Linguistics and Media and Journalism Studies.

- A Master’s degree in journalism studies, communication science, or related area relevant to the project.
- Excellent analytical skills and capacity to do innovative research.
- Excellent communication and academic writing skills in English.
- Language skills in Dutch, given that most data is in Dutch and you will work with Dutch journalist, news organisations, and cultural heritage partners.
- Team player mindset and aptitude for interdisciplinary research.
- Familiarity with concepts, theories, and debates in relation to (investigative) journalism is a plus.
- Experience with journalism practice is a plus.

Fixed-term contract: 48 months.

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.
- Willingness to move and reside in The Netherlands.

The appointment will commence as soon as possible and before the end of 2024 at the very latest. We allow 3 months from selection in case of VISA applications.