Academic Staff Member bei Universität Potsdam

Job Announcement

The University of Potsdam was founded in 1991 and has firmly established itself within the scientific landscape and
developed into an outstanding economic factor and growth engine for the region. The University of Potsdam excels
in acquiring third-party funds, has received multiple teaching awards, has a very service-oriented administration,
and has been honored several times for its family-friendly culture. About 22,000 students and 3,000 employees
study and work at three campuses – Am Neuen Palais, Griebnitzsee and Golm – at one of Germany’s most scenic
institutions of higher education.

The Faculty of Human Sciences/Department of Psychology, Developmental Psychology

at the University of Potsdam invites applications for the following position limited to 24

months, which is to be filled at the latest by January 01, 2024:

Academic Staff Member (f/m/d)
ID no. 384/2023

The successful candidate will work 30 hours per week (75 %). The position is classified within
remuneration group 13 of the collective wage agreement among the German states (TV-L).
The fixed term of employment is in accordance with Section 2 subsection 1 of the German Act
on Limited Scientific Contracts (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz or WissZeitVG).

Your Field of Work:

SoMe4Dem has nodes at numerous institutions in Germany and Europe, including the Max-
Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin), the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in
the Natural Sciences (Leipzig), and the University of Potsdam.

The Horizon 2020-funded SoMe4Dem project seeks to understand the causal mechanisms of
digital citizenship. Current diagnoses that democracy is in crisis at the beginning of the 21st
century share a common argumentative reference point: the (implicit) reference to the dysfunc-
tional constitution of the political public sphere which is currently undergoing structural change.
The rise of social media platforms is considered as one of its main constituents. While social
media make the public arena more open and thus more responsive, these platforms also lead
to new mechanisms of fragmentation and exclusion, an erosion of norms in public debate and
a loss of trust in traditional institutions.
The project will reconsider the diagnoses of this crisis by (1) providing better empirical evidence
for the impact of social media on society with respect to political debates, (2) understanding
the main causal mechanisms of this impact and (3) developing tools that improve the capacity
of social media to contribute to the functioning of the public arena in a liberal democracy, i.e.,
deliberation, legitimation and the self-perception of the democratic subject.

The Scope of Your Responsibilities:
We are seeking a highly motivated and ambitious candidate with a strong background in social
media or network science. The person will be trained in computer science, network science,
psychology, or related disciplines studying human behavior in the aggregate with quantitative
methods. Based on the ERC project SoMe4Dem (Social Media for Democracy), the position
is open for a postdoctoral researcher or a graduate with computer science background in an
interdisciplinary and international research environment.
The role of the position is to simulate the effects of recommender systems on people’s infor-
mation consumption based on their known browsing patterns. The objective is to develop a

set of variables that could improve the quality of recommendations of news sources without
decreasing users’ preference satisfaction.

At least one-third of working hours is available for in-depth scientific work.

Your Qualifications:

MS or PhD in Computer Science or related fields (e.g., cognitive science or network sci-
ence)

Extensive programming knowledge in R, Python, or similar

Proven research interest in topics related to recommender systems, algorithms, network
structures and information cascades

Experience with planning, designing, conducting, and analysing simulation studies of rec-
ommender systems

Very good knowledge of English, good German language skills or willingness to acquire
German

What We Offer:

As a university, we combine the developmental strength of a teaching and research institution
with the attractive working conditions of the public sector. The University of Potsdam is a
reliable employer that supports its employees with a variety of offers and benefits:

Develop yourself and your professional as well as interdisciplinary competencies in vari-