Call for candidates for the PhD projects 2025

Call for candidates for the PhD projects 2025

The Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University in Prague calls for candidates for the following PhD projects (each supported by a scholarship), for its English-language PhD programme in Media and Communication Studies:

  1. Post-structuralist Communication Studies

Post-structuralism has slowly entered the field of Communication and Media Studies, offering a series of relevant theoretical frameworks for the theoretical and empirical study of communication. This PhD position is for PhD students who focus on one of the many post-structuralist frameworks, e.g., Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory or Foucauldian discourse theory, to support the research into a particular communication assemblage or into particular representational practices. While in this PhD position the theoretical framework needs to be post-structuralism, the object of study can be freely chosen.

Proposed supervisor: Nico Carpentier, nico.carpentier@fsv.cuni.cz

  1. Analyzing the Impact of Strategic Communication on Public Health in the Czech Republic: A Mixed-Methods Approach

This PhD position aims to investigate the effectiveness of strategic communication in influencing public health behavior in the Czech Republic. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods, the research will examine contemporary communication strategies used in public health campaigns. The project will include a comprehensive survey to quantify public awareness and behavioral changes in response to these campaigns. In-depth interviews and focus groups will qualitatively explore individual perceptions and attitudes towards these communications. Special attention will be given to the role of digital media in disseminating health information. This project, requiring prior consultation with the proposed PhD supervisor, seeks to provide valuable insights into how strategic communication can be optimized for public health promotion in the Czech context. Proficient knowledge of both Czech and English language is a condition for this research project due to the study of local language materials.

Proposed supervisor: Denisa Hejlová, denisa.hejlova@fsv.cuni.cz

  1. Marketing communication and tobacco control

The Department of Marketing Communication and Public Relations welcomes Czech or international scholars focusing on primary research in tobacco control from the standpoint of marketing and strategic communication (e.g. research of new strategies and tactics employed by tobacco companies, targeting customers, online and social media marketing, stealth marketing, lobbying, public affairs, influencer marketing, etc.). Our goal is to analyze and present marketing and communication strategies and tactics by the tobacco industry which prevent consumers from tobacco or nicotine cessation and undermine public health. We especially focus on campaigns or tools aimed at adolescents and youth, incl. new forms of tobacco or nicotine products (HTP, pouches, vapes, etc.). Close cooperation with the Addictology Dept. of 1st Medical Faculty, Charles University, is needed.

Proposed supervisor: Denisa Hejlová, denisa.hejlova@fsv.cuni.cz

  1. The Para-Social Relationships and Experiences of Youth with the Online Engagement in these: Post-Humanist Perspective

Traditional human relationships in the experiences of children and young people experienced during their childhoods, such as youth-adult relationships, have been also complemented by the 'Para-Social Relationships with the media figures. Traditionally, public figures from the media environment (TV, Film, Newspapers) or imaginary figures from books, cartoons and films provided developmental functions for children and young people, such as role-modelling. Recently, the rise of new technologies (ChatGPT) and social media that allow active participation of media users, created a space for a new form of relationships - digital relationships in the online environment, mediated e.g. via the 'digital empathy' (Unay-Gerhard et al., 2022).  Participation in the digital interactions, dynamics and functions of digital relationships and types of these being formed with humans as well as with machines (e.g. chatbots = ChatGPT, social robots) with a focus on current young people (11-18 years) will be the subject of exploration of the PhD. the study, contributing to the emergent line of the research in media the post-humanist perspective.

Proposed supervisor: Tereza Javornícky Brumovská, 93330901@fsv.cuni.cz

  1. Constructing history on social media

The aim of this PhD position is to explore how history is constructed by communication on social media. Examples could be narratives about historical facts or events (also anniversaries of historical events), how they are constructed by different social groups and for which purpose different imaginaries of history are constructed. The research should focus on critical inquiry of online communication from an interdisciplinary perspective. Connected topics, such as how historical places that might have turned to museums or places of remembrance use social media to promote their messages, will also be considered.

Proposed supervisor: Christine Trültzsch-Wijnen, christine.trultzsch-wijnen@fsv.cuni.cz

  1. Domestication of artificial intelligence (AI)

The aim of this PhD position is to explore how people integrate artificial intelligence services in their daily lives. The focus of the research can be on social entities as for example families or on specific age groups like children, adolescents, young adults, elderly people etc. Besides the question of how artificial intelligence is domesticated, this project should also look into whether and how artificial intelligence services are recognised as such and how people understand and address them (e.g. algorithms, issues of privacy etc.). Research should be interdisciplinary in nature and might be grounded in domestication theory, theories of (media) socialization, cultural studies, and beyond.

Proposed supervisor: Christine Trültzsch-Wijnen, christine.trultzsch-wijnen@fsv.cuni.cz

  1. Media genres in the late modern media environment

The evolution of the different genres of actualities in electronic media, since the first radio news broadcast to a contemporary online documentary on a streaming platform, reflects the dynamic adaptation to the continuously changing media environment. In the analogue context, genres were interpreted and categorized “within the boundaries of a single medium” (McQuail, 2014, 374) but because of the recent changes in the media environment, the boundaries of genres are merging and genres may be recognized as multi-platform genres, transcending the boundaries of a single medium. This topic is focused on changes of genres in the converged media environment and its impact on genres in online video journalism and the field of documentary media. We invite applications from candidates interested in researching the evaluation of collective identity of genres in the late modern media environment, examining the boundaries between genres of actualities at film, television and online platforms. The study will deploy methodologies of media content analysis.

Proposed supervisor: Györgyi Rétfalvi, gyorgyi.retfalvi@fsv.cuni.cz

     8. Indexical representation in games and VR

We are seeking two PhD students to work on dissertations aligned with the ERC grant “GAMEINDEX: Politics and aesthetics of indexical representation in digital games and VR.“ The project starts in October 2025, is headed by Dr. Jaroslav Švelch, and is located at Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism within the Prague Game Production Studies research group. GAMEINDEX focuses on indexical representation in games – both as traces of real-life objects or people in the simulated worlds of digital games and VR and as references to physical locations. PhD students will work on the work package that analyzes indexical representation in games and/or VR apps as media artifacts. The applicants will propose a project with the scope of GAMEINDEX, focusing on the representation of a certain region and its locations, culture, and/or history in games and VR apps produced both within and outside that region. We are looking for applicants from a diverse set of regional backgrounds, including locations deemed peripheral by mainstream game culture. The research is expected to involve qualitative content analysis/close reading, discourse analysis, and interviews with developers or stakeholders. For more information about the project, see the project description here. Besides their main focus on in-game representation, the PhD students will also take part in the analysis of discourse about indexical techniques and contribute to a database that is a part of the project’s output. The successful applicants will, upon confirmation by the project’s PI, receive a full-time salary funded by the GAMEINDEX project and are eligible for a relocation fee from the project budget.

Proposed supervisor: Jaroslav Švelch, jaroslav.svelch@fsv.cuni.cz

 

APPLICATION

Interested candidates should submit their applications, using the online application system, which will be open from 1st January to 30th April 2025. Interest in a particular PhD project should be mentioned in the motivation letter, together with a more developed proposal on the PhD project.

All relevant information, including the link to the online application system, can be found at here.

Please download the form for filling your dissertation project proposal.

For general questions, please contact the Centre of PhD Studies, at cds.iksz@fsv.cuni.cz.

For questions about particular projects, please contact the proposed supervisors.

The Open Doors Day for PhD Study in Media and Communication Studies will take place on February 26, 2025 at 12:30 PM CET. It will be organised online. If you wish to participate, please email the Centre of PhD Studies, at cds.iksz@fsv.cuni.cz, asap.