Postdoctoral Researcher in Digital Methods and the Creator Economy

The Department of Media and Journalism Studies within the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University invites applications for a postdoctoral position in digital methods and the creator economy. The postdoctoral position is part of the research project ‘PAY4PLAY: Entrepreneurial Organising in the Platform Society,’ led by Assistant Professor Blake Hallinan and funded by the European Research Council (ERC).

The postdoc is a full time, 2.5-year fixed-term position. It begins on 1 February 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The School of Communication and Culture is committed to diversity and encourages all qualified applicants to apply regardless of their personal background.

Project

The PAY4PLAY project is an interdisciplinary, large-scale investigation of organising in the creator economy concerned with how creators and their communities come together and create value. The project is premised on the idea that organising is essential to understand how creators—and people more broadly—both exploit and challenge the growing power of digital platforms. Internally, creators bring together co-producers, volunteers, and audience members into platform-based associations with (1) hierarchical structures, (2) monetised interactions, and (3) asymmetrical relationships. Externally, creators form alliances to shape the conditions of content production. The project approaches creator organising from three perspectives (culture, infrastructure, policy) and compares three industrial sectors (gamers, VTubers, adult content creators). In so doing, the project will map the industrial conditions of the creator economy, develop a new theory of organising and platform power, and provide policy recommendations for platforms and regulators.

The PAY4PLAY team includes the principal investigator Blake Hallinan, three PhD researchers who will each focus on one of the industrial sectors, and this postdoctoral research position, as well as an international network of advisors and collaborators. The project is situated with the Creator Economies Lab, and the working language of the project is English, although data collection will also include Japanese and Spanish. The postdoc will lead a sub-project titled ‘Sociotechnical infrastructures for managing and monetising communities’, using digital methods and social media data to research the influence of platforms and third-party tools. The sub-project is flexible, meaning that the postdoc will have the opportunity to design studies, in coordination with the PI, which align with the researcher’s interests and methodological skillset. The postdoc will also have the opportunity to collaborate with team members working on the sub-projects focused on culture and policy.

Postdoctoral position

The postdoc is research-only and the successful applicant will be expected to:

• Design research, in coordination with PI, which investigates the influence of platforms and third-party tools on the creator economy using social media data and digital methods
• Collect social media data using platform APIs and/or web scraping
• Analyse large-scale data using appropriate digital methods (flexible, but please specify)
• Present research at national and/or international events
• Lead the publication of at least two articles for international journals or conference proceedings
• Participate in the Creator Economy Lab’s collaborative research environment through, for example, attending lab meetings, discussing relevant literature, and co-authoring papers.

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