Consultant wanted to produce white paper on diaspora community | $6,000 for research/white paper

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: CENTER FOR MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

Deadline: 17 March 2023

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Our propaganda research lab is looking for a remote consultant. The position is part-time for a three-month period. The consultant will conduct research on a diaspora community and produce a white paper.

CONSULTANT ARRANGEMENT

Location: remote

The Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement (CME) studies how emergent technologies are used in global political communication. The Lab focuses on the use of social media and other digital tools to manipulate public opinion (known as computational propaganda) and to spread misinformation and disinformation. From this perspective, the Propaganda Lab has revealed the many ways in which political groups within the United States and abroad have leveraged digital technologies to control information flows online, with substantial and damaging offline consequences.

One angle of inquiry is looking into how diaspora communities in several states around the US are contending with mis-, and disinformation over encrypted messenger apps like WhatsApp. We are examining how people respond (individually or collectively) as well as how they are affected.

Another angle is to examine this topic area from an international comparative perspective as we've expanded our research into new geographical areas such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa region.

We are looking for two collaborators to work with us and produce some public writing. This would be a part-time, compensated position someone would do on top of their regular day-to-day job. The positions are temporary and cover a period of three months. It is non-renewable. The external consultants will:

• Conduct research on one diaspora community (e.g., Mexican Americans in Texas) or an international case study,
• Assist the team with their research if applicable,
• Produce original writing: one white paper published either with CME or an external organization in collaboration (in English with the option of translating into one other language).

APPLICATION MATERIALS

Interested candidates should send their CV and a short (circa 500 words) statement of interest to inga.trauthig@austin.utexas.edu. The statement should outline the research methods, as well as which community in which state or which international case study the applicant would like to focus on and why. The recruitment will occur on a rolling basis until suitable candidates are found.

RENUMERATION

$6,000 payment that is subject to U.S. federal withholding tax of 30%. Payment may be exempt from withholding only if there is a tax treaty benefit between the United States and the foreign national's country, and if you have a valid Social Security Number (SSN) or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). The payment will be made in two tranches of $3,000 paid half-way through and at the end upon completion of the deliverables.

DEADLINE:

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, but ideally by the end of this week.

CONTACT INFORMATION (please do not share the email address publicly):

Questions/applications: inga.trauthig@austin.utexas.edu

Website: https://mediaengagement.org

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