Dr. Rebekah Larsen, a current Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, is hiring a Research Assistant to support various projects on exploring alternative media ecosystems.
Main tasks would likely include:
– Mapping alternative media ecosystems in terms of actors, influences (including policy and regulation), and topics such as electoral (mis)information.
– Review and analysis of radio broadcasts and interview transcripts with journalists, station owners, and editors.
– Literature reviews around such diverse topics as: media and identity (e.g., class, race, religion, rural/urban); contemporary digital platform and broadcast media dependencies (US); platform policy exportation in connection to colonialism (globally); and more!
– Attending and note-taking at relevant events (academic and public-facing)
Depending on the candidate’s interests and skills, other work could potentially include:
– Working with and analyzing largescale audio datasets, pulled nationally from thousands of talk radio streams. This could include sentiment analysis using NLP.
– Archival work at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (in Boston)
– Helping plan and run an event about on-the-ground research in polarizing environments
About you:
Below are some preferences, but you do not need to fulfill every qualification to apply.
– Familiarity with and/or interest in (conservative and broadcast) media and social change—this can be from your own academics or life experience!
– Familiarity with qualitative coding platforms such as NVivo or Atlas.ti.
Eligibility/Other information
· This position is currently hybrid (remote and in-person meetings are both possible, though with preference for in-person during the semester.)
· To be eligible for this position, you must be a currently enrolled student at Harvard University.
· The time commitment would range between 5 – 15 hours per week, but with some flexibility as to when you wish to frontload hours.
· The period of work would be through the rest of the academic year, with potential to carry on into the summer (depending on funding).
· Unless otherwise noted, the hourly wage for the above positions is $21 per hour.
· No other benefits are provided.
· We do not have the ability to provide authorization to work in the U.S.
To Apply: Please send your current CV or resume and a cover letter summarizing your interest and experience to Rebekah Larsen (rlarsen@law.harvard.edu) with the subject line “Research Assistant – Alternative Media Ecosystems”
About BKC: Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a University-wide research center and one of the largest and most influential conveners and accelerators of scholars, technologists, activists and makers working on cyberspace and related law and public policy matters in the public interest.