PhD candidate in ‘Effects of Emotional Political Communication’
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences – Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research
- Publication date: 24 January 2018
- Level of education: Master's degree
- Salary indication: €2,222 to €2,840 gross per month
- Closing date: 30 April 2018
- Hours: 38 hours per week
- Vacancy number:18-035
The Department of Political Sciences is one of the departments of the FMG. The College of Social Sciences (CSW) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS) are responsible for the under-graduate and graduate teaching programmes in Political Science. The research within the Department is conducted in research programmes of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). The AISSR unites the social science research of the UvA, and is one of the largest research institutes in Europe.
Project description
You will be working for POLEMIC, a project that analyses the causes and consequences of emotional political communication. The project is highly interdisciplinary combining automated text analyses of politician speeches with individual responses to communication, both at the attitudinal and physiological level. You will be working in a team of 5 people: two PhD students (to be hired), Gijs Schumacher (Principal Investigator) and Bert Bakker. Formally, you will work at the Department of Political Science.The PhD candidate will analyse the attitudinal and physiological responses (heartbeat, skin conductance and facial electromyography) of individuals to emotional appeals by politicians. To do this the PhD candidate needs to conduct a survey experiment and a lab experiment in different countries. The dissertation should focus on explaining who responds (emotionally) to what, and what the consequences are for political attitudes and political behaviour. In addition to that there is also ample space in the project for developing and implementing one’s own ideas, as long as these match with the broader topic of emotions in politics.
The project description of POLEMIC can be found here.
Tasks
- Conduct survey experiments and lab experiments, including physiological measurement (skin conductance, heartbeat, EMG);
- process and analyse survey data, including physiological data;
- write a dissertation consisting of research articles;
- work in a highly interdisciplinary team;
- further develop the project using other data/methods or asking different questions;
- engage in more methodological training, at a summer school and/or an university abroad;
- spend one semester abroad to do a lab study in the United States (specifically Temple University in Philadelphia in the Behavioral Foundations Lab led by Prof Kevin Arceneaux);
Requirements
- Master’s degree in Political Science or a Master’s degree in a discipline relevant to the project such as Psychology or Communication Science (candidates with another Master’s degree may apply, but should motivate why their experience suffices for this project);
- plenty of experience with conducting experiments, preferably also experiments collecting physiological data;
- programming skills in R, Python or another programming language;
- an interest in interdisciplinary work.
Further information
For more information please contact:- Gijs Schumacher, Personal Investigator of the project
For more information please visit: http://www.uva.nl/en/content/vacancies/2018/01/18-035-phd-candidate-in-%E2%80%98effects-of-emotional-political-communication%E2%80%99.html
Source: http://www.uva.nl/en/home (28.02.2018)
