8 September 2025
We are looking for a talented and motivated PhD candidate who cares about journalism and documentary-making, has an experience with qualitative research methods, and wants to investigate the emotional and bodily dimensions of media work. The ideal candidate also likes nature and enjoys outdoor activities.
As a PhD candidate, you will conduct research within a larger project looking into the epistemic value of emotions and bodies in journalism and documentary-making. The project seeks to empirically, theoretically, and practically integrate emotions and bodies in journalism and documentary work, and involves ethnographic research across Central and Eastern Europe and an experiment with nature retreats for media professionals. You will be responsible for conducting ethnographic research among media professionals covering politics, conflict, or culture – for example, investigative journalists and documentary makers, OSINT researchers, war reporters, or cultural journalists – in two countries of Central and Eastern Europe (either Slovakia and Hungary or Czechia and Poland or Ukraine and Georgia). You will closely collaborate with Johana Kotišová as the principal investigator of the project and two postdoctoral researchers working on the other CEE countries.
Your daily job will involve theoretical and methodological preparations, independent ethnographic fieldwork in the two countries (including observations, digital ethnography, interviewing, shadowing), data management, data analysis, theory-building, and (co)authoring academic articles for leading journals in the field of communication.
The deadline for applications is 5 October 2025.