Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Communication University

Your responsibilities

• Interest in advancing communication research on the role of political social media influencers
• Take a leading role in the project's work package on the influence of PSMIs on political discourse and engagement. This includes applying computational social science methods using large multi-lingual and multi-modal social media datasets, and working with donated social media data.
• Develop your own research agenda within the broader scope of the project
• Conduct and publish high‑quality research in leading communication journals and at presentations at international conferences
• Collaborate with other project members and research assistants
• Provide support for project‑related management and administrative tasks

• A very good doctoral degree in communication science (or close to completing) or an adjacent field (e.g., political science, sociology, social computing) with an interest in political communication and computational social science.
• Experience with computational text analysis methods, including large language models. Experience or interest in computer vision and / or network analysis is an additional asset.
• Strong programming skills in R and / or Python
• Analytical skills and capacity for independent, internationally visible research
• Enthusiasm for working in teams
• Willingness to move to Zurich and willingness to travel internationally to engage with project‑relevant scientific communities
• Strong command of English. Knowledge of a language related to the project's regional focus (German, Polish) is an additional asset

• Participation in a cutting‑edge research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
• Opportunity to develop your own research agenda within the framework of the project
• Funding for conferences, additional training, and research activities
• 3 years of employment, with a possible extension of 1 year. The position's employment rate is 80%.
• An internationally competitive salary (ca. 5,000 CHF / month after taxes)
• A supportive, well connected, research‑oriented team
• An attractive work environment : the University of Zurich is Switzerland's largest university. Zurich is a vibrant, cosmopolitan city that regularly ranks as one of the cities with the highest quality of life in the world