Postdoctoral contract proposition (duration: eight months) 
Impact LUE OLki
Title: Transparency discourses, from institutions to citizens (DISTIC)
Research coordinators: Centre de recherche sur les médiations (Crem), Anne
Piponnier, François Allard-Huver, Emmanuelle Simon.
Co-coordinator: IECL (Marianne Clausel)
Terms and Venue
This eight-month position will be based at Crem and IECL, Nancy, France
(University of Lorraine). The target start date for the position is January
2021, with some flexibility on the exact start date.
Fellow’s Missions
    • Collect texts and organize corpuses,
    • Analyze these discourses and texts,
    • Contribute to write scientific papers about the topic. 
Selection criteria
    • PhD in Information and Communication Sciences, Language Science or
Linguistics
    • Research experience in language data analysis
    • Very good mastery of the French language
    • Very good written and oral expression skills, in French and in
English
    • Curiosity, open-mindedness
    • Autonomy, teamwork skills
Detailed description of the research project
This position is open as part of the Open Language and Knowledge project
for Citizens (OLKi), carried
out within the IMPACT/Lorraine University of Excellence (LUE) framework.
Context:
With increasing controversies and sanitary crises related to health and the
environment especially regarding the development of new industrial projects
(like “Montagne d’or” in French Guyana), there is a growing consumers
and citizens mistrust regarding institutions and experts in charge of risk
assessment and management. Moreover, in the case of controversial projects,
the environmental impact assessment is often accused to minimize and equip
the risk in order to serve economic or political agendas. This increased
mistrust goes hand in hand with more and more expectations about the
production and circulation of scientific knowledge on these issues. As a
response for this mistrust of expertise and institutional communication
about risks, tools are developed in order to anticipate, evaluate and
control health and environmental risks. The collection of massive data by
such tools poses problems in terms of protection (confidentiality,
competition), use (more or less lawful re-use of data, exploitation for
commercial purposes) and ethics (personal data). Also, with increased media
coverage of scandals, citizens turn their back on the different
"traditional" information and scientific communication actors and demand
more transparency towards complex and sometimes contradictory interests and
issues. Therefore, the complexity of risk assessment systems and the
opacity of some information processes create a "need for pedagogy and
simplification for the general public" among stakeholders in different
sectors (Chanséaume & al., 2015, p.3). A first corpus regarding
institutional discourses about transparency, from a perspective of
historical evolution within national and European Union institutions has
already been created on the topic “endocrine disruptor”.
Scientific scope
The project will create large corpus of text related to health and the
environment. The new corpus will be focused on existing transparency
apparatuses in the management of health and environmental risks framework,
and will be two-fold, especially regarding controversial projects like
Montagne d’or and issues like mercury contamination. These corpuses will
be analyzed to quantify communication biases about transparency and their
evolution, via Sentiment analysis (Dermouche et al., 2014). Moreover, we
will analyze thematic, temporal and discursive correlations between the two
corpuses. Then, we will question the hybridation of discourses and their
circulation in the media and other discursive sphere. 
How to apply:
Applicants are requested to submit the following materials:
    • A cover letter applying for the position
    • Full CV and list of publications
    • Statement of Research (summary of research achievements and
perspectives for upcoming researches)
    • Academic transcripts (diplomas, courses statements, grades, etc.)
(unofficial versions are fine)
    • Recommendation letters are not obligatory but are strongly
recommended.
Deadline for application is December 6, 2020
Applications are only accepted through email. All documents must be sent
to: francois.allard-huver@univ-lorraine.fr
and marianne.clausel@univ-lorraine.fr.
Please use “DISTIC Postdoctoral Application” as the subject line of
your email.
Selected applicants will be interviewed by a Commission in December 2020.