Join Us!

Integrating online news, including websites, social media, and digital newspapers in a way that allows researchers across the SSH field answer crucial research questions about the digital challenge is a major challenge. In this project, you will create a longitudinal dataset containing the media and web consumption patterns of individuals, linking content data with its consumers, and bridging between meso-level public debate (e.g., news coverage, social media posts, online discussions) and micro-level individual behavior and attitudes. You will work and advance a wide range of state-of-the-art methods, ranging from citizen science – working with individuals willing to donate their data for academic research – to the curation of collections of media content, and the linkage of micro-, meso- and macro-level data, creating FAIR, secure and sustainable datasets.

What are you going to do

You will:

Design, implement and maintain the Media & Web Diets Observatory (MWDO) following FAIR principles and ensuring full compatibility with the existing collections of media within the Dutch national infrastructure
Identify relevant platforms and sources for Media & Web Diets individual behavior (including media exposure data)
Develop and deploy all relevant data donation scripts for these sources
Coordinate the development and implementation of the questionnaires (self-reports) for the MWDO, extending the existing data within the LISS panel [da1]
Work with stakeholders across the SSH field in the Netherlands to ensure that the data is useful and relevant for a broad range of research projects
Initiate and support pilot studies using the MWDO, ensuring a broad range of SSH disciplines can run test cases and/or pilots within this infrastructure
Conduct your own research, together with members of the broader SSH research community, on how web & media diets influence (and are influenced by) individual characteristic, attitudes and behavior.

What do you have to offer

You are independent, responsible, and motivated, with the ability to work flexibly as part of a team.
You hold a PhD in communication science, computation social science (or related discipline) - or are expected to obtain it soon.
Strong skills and experience with the design, maintenance and implementation of longitudinal data collection combining self-reports (surveys) and digital trace data (data donation)
A strong interest in methodological work, and demonstrated experience in quantitative methods, including natural language processing, automated content analysis and handling panel data
Web development skills, including familiarity with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and/or TypeScript, as well as experience with frameworks such as React or Vue.js are a plus.
DevOps skills, including deploying applications, using automation tools, and working with command-line tools, and experience with Git
Advanced analytical/statistical skills using R and Python, with a special focus on longitudinal data analysis, automated multimodal content analysis and data linkage
Experience coordinating and/or interfacing with technical teams, external partners, developers and researchers in an academic or research context.
You are well organized, adaptable and willing to apply yourself to a wide range of new skills.
You have knowledge of and experience in the academic field and/or research infrastructures in the social sciences.
You are well organized and have attention to detail. You can communicate well and have professional oral and written command of English (C1-level CEFR or equivalent).
Dutch proficiency is not required but is a plus.

What else do we offer you

The planned starting date for this project is 1 June 2026 (to be negotiated). The position concerns temporary employment of 30,4 hours for an initial term of 2 years including a probation period of two months. Depending on the specific needs from the Department of Communication Science, the contract may in some instances be extended to include teaching at the Graduate School of Communication or the College of Communication. This is determined after the interview

process.

Your salary will range from €4.412 to €5.705 based on your experience, fulltime employment and in line with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. We additionally offer an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The job profile “Researcher 4” or “Researcher 3” applies. In case of equal suitability, the internal candidate is preferred over the external candidate.

You will have the opportunity to attend training courses and both national and international events and become part of the ODISSEI network.

You will work here

This position is embedded within the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam. ASCoR is the research institute for Communication Science, structured around four program groups: Persuasive Communication, Communication, Organizations and Society, Political Communication & Journalism, and Youth & Media Entertainment. For more information, see the ASCoR website.

This position is supervised by prof. dr. Theo Araujo and by prof. Dr. Jessica Piotrowski, as part of the broader research project Macroscope. The Macroscope is a collaborative initiative by two major Dutch research infrastructures: ODISSEI, focused on social science and economic data, and CLARIAH, which houses cultural and linguistic archives. The Macroscope will allow researchers to securely link and analyse massive datasets spanning social, cultural, and digital domains across the entire Dutch population. The project unites 14 Dutch universities with leading institutes, including Statistics Netherlands (CBS), Centerdata, SURF, the Netherlands eScience Center, the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, DANS, the National Library (KB), the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (B&G), and the KNAW Humanities Cluster".

Are you curious about how individuals use media and the internet more broadly in their daily lives and what content they read, watch, and interact with? Are you motivated to establish the foundations of a large-scale, longitudinal dataset to be used by a growing interdisciplinary network of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) researchers? Do you want to help answer crucial research questions about digital society? Are you interested in conducting both methodological and substantive work about (digital) media exposure? Then this postdoc position is right for you.

Join Us!

What are you going to do

You will:

Design, implement and maintain the Media & Web Diets Observatory (MWDO) following FAIR principles and ensuring full compatibility with the existing collections of media within the Dutch national infrastructure
Identify relevant platforms and sources for Media & Web Diets individual behavior (including media exposure data)
Develop and deploy all relevant data donation scripts for these sources
Coordinate the development and implementation of the questionnaires (self-reports) for the MWDO, extending the existing data within the LISS panel [da1]
Work with stakeholders across the SSH field in the Netherlands to ensure that the data is useful and relevant for a broad range of research projects
Initiate and support pilot studies using the MWDO, ensuring a broad range of SSH disciplines can run test cases and/or pilots within this infrastructure
Conduct your own research, together with members of the broader SSH research community, on how web & media diets influence (and are influenced by) individual characteristic, attitudes and behavior.

What do you have to offer

You are independent, responsible, and motivated, with the ability to work flexibly as part of a team.
You hold a PhD in communication science, computation social science (or related discipline) - or are expected to obtain it soon.
Strong skills and experience with the design, maintenance and implementation of longitudinal data collection combining self-reports (surveys) and digital trace data (data donation)
A strong interest in methodological work, and demonstrated experience in quantitative methods, including natural language processing, automated content analysis and handling panel data
Web development skills, including familiarity with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and/or TypeScript, as well as experience with frameworks such as React or Vue.js are a plus.
DevOps skills, including deploying applications, using automation tools, and working with command-line tools, and experience with Git
Advanced analytical/statistical skills using R and Python, with a special focus on longitudinal data analysis, automated multimodal content analysis and data linkage
Experience coordinating and/or interfacing with technical teams, external partners, developers and researchers in an academic or research context.
You are well organized, adaptable and willing to apply yourself to a wide range of new skills.
You have knowledge of and experience in the academic field and/or research infrastructures in the social sciences.
You are well organized and have attention to detail. You can communicate well and have professional oral and written command of English (C1-level CEFR or equivalent).
Dutch proficiency is not required but is a plus.

What else do we offer you

process.

You will have the opportunity to attend training courses and both national and international events and become part of the ODISSEI network.

You will work here

If you recognize yourself in this profile and are interested in the role, we look forward to receiving your motivation letter and CV by 10 April 2026.

Please submit your application as a single .pdf file, including:

Curriculum vitae, with grade transcripts from your (research) master’s studies; and potentially your PhD diploma
Letter of motivation: Outline your fit to this topic, your readiness for the Postdoc project, and how you meet the selection criteria. If any criteria are not yet fully met, explain how you plan to develop the necessary skills. Optionally, include contact details of two academic referees familiar with your work;
Writing sample in English, such as a recent article.
Coding sample, such as a GitHub repository, accompanied by a short (max 1 page) description of the code/project, and an explanation as to how (parts of the code/project) may be relevant to what you would do in this position.

Interviews will take place in April. In case of equal qualifications, internal candidates will be given preference over external candidates. In addition, those with a PhD in communication science will be preferred to allow for teaching possibilities within the Department.

For questions about the vacancy, you can contact: prof. dr. Theo Araujo (t.b.araujo@uva.nl)

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Postdoctoral Researcher: Media & Web Diets Observatory