(06/12/2020) Job Market – PostDoc (8 mois) : discours de la transparence

Title: Transparency discourses, from institutions to citizens (DISTIC)

Research coordinators: Centre de recherche sur les médiations (Crem), Anne Piponnier, François Allard-Huver, Emmanuelle Simon.

Co-coordinator: IECL (Marianne Clausel)

Terms and Venue

This eight-month position will be based at Crem and IECL, Nancy, France (University of Lorraine). The target start date for the position is January 2021, with some flexibility on the exact start date.

Fellow’s Missions

• Collect texts and organize corpuses,
• Analyze these discourses and texts,
• Contribute to write scientific papers about the topic. 

Selection criteria

• PhD in Information and Communication Sciences, Language Science or Linguistics
• Research experience in language data analysis
• Very good mastery of the French language
• Very good written and oral expression skills, in French and in English
• Curiosity, open-mindedness
• Autonomy, teamwork skills

Detailed description of the research project

This position is open as part of the Open Language and Knowledge project for Citizens (OLKi), carried

out within the IMPACT/Lorraine University of Excellence (LUE) framework.

Context:

With increasing controversies and sanitary crises related to health and the environment especially regarding the development of new industrial projects (like “Montagne d’or” in French Guyana), there is a growing consumers and citizens mistrust regarding institutions and experts in charge of risk assessment and management. Moreover, in the case of controversial projects, the environmental impact assessment is often accused to minimize and equip the risk in order to serve economic or political agendas. This increased mistrust goes hand in hand with more and more expectations about the production and circulation of scientific knowledge on these issues. As a response for this mistrust of expertise and institutional communication about risks, tools are developed in order to anticipate, evaluate and control health and environmental risks. The collection of massive data by such tools poses problems in terms of protection (confidentiality, competition), use (more or less lawful re-use of data, exploitation for commercial purposes) and ethics (personal data). Also, with increased media coverage of scandals, citizens turn their back on the different « traditional » information and scientific communication actors and demand more transparency towards complex and sometimes contradictory interests and issues. Therefore, the complexity of risk assessment systems and the opacity of some information processes create a « need for pedagogy and simplification for the general public » among stakeholders in different sectors (Chanséaume & al., 2015, p.3). A first corpus regarding institutional discourses about transparency, from a perspective of historical evolution within national and European Union institutions has already been created on the topic “endocrine disruptor”.

Scientific scope

The project will create large corpus of text related to health and the environment. The new corpus will be focused on existing transparency apparatuses in the management of health and environmental risks framework, and will be two-fold, especially regarding controversial projects like Montagne d’or and issues like mercury contamination. These corpuses will be analyzed to quantify communication biases about transparency and their evolution, via Sentiment analysis (Dermouche et al., 2014). Moreover, we will analyze thematic, temporal and discursive correlations between the two corpuses. Then, we will question the hybridation of discourses and their circulation in the media and other discursive sphere. 

How to apply:

Applicants are requested to submit the following materials:

1. A cover letter applying for the position
2. Full CV and list of publications
3. Statement of Research (summary of research achievements and perspectives for upcoming researches)
4. Academic transcripts (diplomas, courses statements, grades, etc.) (unofficial versions are fine)
5. Recommendation letters are not obligatory but are strongly recommended.

Deadline for application is December 6, 2020

Applications are only accepted through email. All documents must be sent to: francois.allard-huver@univ-lorraine.fr and marianne.clausel@univ-lorraine.fr. Please use “DISTIC Postdoctoral Application” as the subject line of your email.

Selected applicants will be interviewed by a Commission in December 2020.