This PhD project offers a unique opportunity to work in an internationally recognized research centre and gain valuable research experience at a top-ranked European university. As a PhD candidate, you will develop your own research project in consultation with the supervisory team. You will conduct independent and original academic research and report results via peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and ultimately a PhD dissertation. The PhD thesis is to be completed within four years. You are also requested to teach.
You will work with the following supervisory team:
- Dr. Frank Harbers (co-promoter)
- Dr. Rik Smit (co-promoter)
- Dr. Scott A. Eldridge II (promoter)
The PhD Project
Digital technologies have long shaped the debates on journalism’s future. These debates often emphasize technology as a solution for journalism’s struggles. In doing so, they have also limited the directions in which journalism could actually develop, and elided critical reflections on the complex relationship between journalism and technology. This project addresses these issues by studying sociotechnical imaginaries constructed in the debates about journalism and technology between 1995 and 2025 within the geographical context of Northern Europe. From the introduction of the web, through to our current debates around AI, it studies how journalists, technologists, and other actors have engaged in the introduction, negotiation, and normalization of new technologies. As different actors with diverging interests shape the debate over journalism and technology, the project scrutinizes their competing norms and values concerning journalism and technology. By critically examining how technology has been presented as a necessary and self-evident driver of journalistic change, this research offers a critical history of journalism’s recent past.
Methodologically, the project employs a digital humanities approach, combining computational analyses of metajournalistic discourses with qualitative analyses of debates at critical discourse moments, as well as interviews reconstructing first-person experiences and social networks. The project scrutinizes the blurred boundaries and competing aims we now see between journalism, as a public service institution guided by civic values and democratic norms, and the entrepreneurial and commercial logic of the big tech corporations that journalism has become so reliant on.
At a time when public sector institutions (e.g., universities and governments) embrace technological solutions for social problems, there is an urgent need to better understand the social, historical, and organizational dynamics that got us here. Moreover, we need to understand the tensions between journalism’s public values and functions, especially in the Northern European context, and the futures imagined and promised by ‘Big Tech’. Situated at the intersection of journalism studies, critical historical studies of journalism, and science and technology studies, this project therefore looks critically and closely at journalism’s long-term relationship with technology and how, over time, different actors have shaped the debate on journalism and its future. It explores journalism’s recent past, beginning with the introduction of the web as a decentralized media platform, extending through to our contemporary moment, as news industries wrestle with the role of AI technologies.
You will be asked to:
- Develop your own research project in consultation with the associated supervisors.
- Conduct independent and original academic research.
- Report results via peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and ultimately a PhD dissertation.
- Conduct a total of 0.4 FTE teaching spread over the second, third, and fourth years of your appointment.
- Complete the PhD in the specified timeframe, namely four years.
- Contribute to scientific and public engagement.
Note: The final focus of empirical work will be decided based on the expertise and interest of the PhD candidate in consultation with the supervisory team. Consider this when preparing your research proposal (for further guidance, see the section “Apply”).
Organisation
The University of Groningen
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
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.
Centre for Media and Journalism Studies
The Groningen Centre for Media and Journalism Studies is a internationally recognized research centre, which conducts cutting edge interdisciplinary research in the field of media and journalism studies. It consists of a highly international staff, addressing issues that are essential to understand processes of communication in an increasingly mediatized society.