New PhD Scholarships in Australia and in Amsterdam

Melbourne, Australia:

A PhD scholarship for research in the field of urban data is available through the Melbourne Networked Society Institute at the University of Melbourne.

Cities around the world increasingly deploy varied and multiple data streams — from apps on user-devices to distributed sensor networks — in order to inform better settings for service provision and resource use. This scholarship is available for a student investigating existing and emergent urban data practices in the context of contemporary smart city agendas. The research will focus on new opportunities for citizen engagement and the development of new models of planning and governance. Additionally, the research will address conceptual and practical challenges concerning practices of data acquisition and utilisation, including growing concerns around the effect of growing surveillance and the impact on privacy.

Details about applying are available at: http://networkedsociety.unimelb.edu.au/research/opportunities/urban-data-phd-scholarship

Callaghan, Australia:

Callaghan, Australia:The University of Newcastle is offering a PhD scholarship, under my supervision, to investigate young Australian adults and their use and understanding of social media at work. The candidate must have at least four years of undergraduate study with a first class honours and high GPA.

Applications close on 31st October and the successful applicant must be able to start before March 2017.

PhD Scholarship – Australian millennials on social media: managing privacy and security in the workplace

Here’s a link for more details:http://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/research-and-innovation/research-degrees/phd-scholarships/phd-scholarship-australian-millennials-on-social-media-managing-privacy-and-security-in-the-workplace

Amsterdam, Netherlands:

The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) of the Faculty of Humanities is looking for a PhD candidate to join the ERC-funded project ‘Data Activism: The Politics of Big Data According to Civil Society’ (DATACTIVE), with Dr. Stefania Milan as Principal Investigator. DATACTIVE investigates citizens’ engagement with massive data collection, seeking to understand how activism evolves in the time of datafication.

As datafication progressively invades all spheres of contemporary society, citizens grow increasingly aware of the critical role of information as the new fabric of social life. This awareness gives rise to new sociotechnical practices taking a critical approach to ‘big data’ and massive data collection, which fall under the rubric of ‘data activism’. Data activism takes at least two forms: re-active data activism, whereby people increasingly resist the threats to civil rights that derive from corporate privacy intrusion and government surveillance (e.g., by means of technical fixes such as encryption); and pro-active data activism, whereby citizens take advantage of the possibilities for campaigning and social change that data availability provides (e.g., data-based advocacy). The DATACTIVE project explores how activism broadly defined evolves in the age of big data. We take a critical look at, among others, citizen empowerment through data; civil society’s privacy practices; surveillance and internet activism; governance of data flows and internet infrastructure; open data and civic tech networks.

You will join an interdisciplinary team working under the leadership of Dr. Stefania Milan (the Principal Investigator; https://stefaniamilan.net <https://stefaniamilan.net/>) and collaboratively examining the emerging dynamics of data activism at the intersection of its social and technological dimensions. We offer a multidisciplinary, interactive and international research environment in a leading department (Communication and Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam currently ranks number 8 in the QS World Rankings).