AHRC PhD Studentship - Redesigning Civic Media: Exploring the power of modern media to mobilise public participation
The University of Edinburgh, in partnership with AHRC, SGSAH and the BBC are offering a 3.5-year full-time / 7 year part-time funded PhD.
Background
A flourishing, balanced and active media is the cornerstone of our contemporary political system. Within Europe, this role is most reliably performed by Public Service Media (PSM), and in the UK this function is performed by the BBC. However, the media climate is broad and we have seen a substantial decline in quality of information, public media literacy, nuance of debate, and agonism (the positive facets of political disagreement) all of which dramatically influence participation.
Fierce competition within the attention economy, the rise of misinformation and the proliferation of dark design have become core influences in public opinion and strongly influence the nature of participation, by design. All of these factors coalesce to create a climate within which PSM is both critically needed but also tightly limited.
In the current climate of disinformation, public judgement is filtered through a network of complex design patterns, opaque algorithmic rankings and direct misinformation, and all of this is designed in ways to appear seamless and legitimate to the user. This trend sits in direct opposition to the tenets of PSM, which seek to present balanced and verified information.
The Project
This project will explore new models of civic media and participation in order to promote public good. Specifically, it will ask questions such as; How can Public Service Media be leveraged to create new models of public participation, by design? Working with the BBC, we anticipate that this will be addressed through (a) a qualitative study of UK PSM values and practices, (b) the co-development and iteration of a range of participation prototypes, and (c) deployment and evaluation of prototypes in context. These are indicative methods. The successful applicant will be expected to tailor the methodology to their research questions and skillset.
The PhD will be based in the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art in the University of Edinburgh. The student will be supervised by Dr Ewa Luger at Edinburgh College of Art and Prof John Vines from the School of Informatics (University of Edinburgh) in addition to supervision from Drs Rhianne Jones and Michael Evans at BBC Research and Development in Salford. The student will have the opportunity to be based at a BBC site for 6 months of the studentship.
Funding is available for home and international applicants.
Tuition fees are covered, plus £15,609 stipend.
More information and applying
For more information on this PhD and how to apply, please visit our website.
Timetable
· Closing date for applications: Friday 21st May 2021
· Interviews are provisionally scheduled: Tuesday 1st June 2021 (date/time to be confirmed)
· Start date: September 2021