The research fund of Aarhus University (AUFF) has awarded me a starting grant for a research project on journalism for civic communication in urban spaces. The two-year project addresses a gap between journalism studies and smart city research, taking the datafication of urban spaces as an opportunity for journalism to go beyond the “informed citizen” model of its audience. The project shall map and evaluate approaches to how journalists, citizens, cities, data providers and civic tech NGO’s can work together on a local level to shape infrastructures for civic communication in the connected city.

The project is scheduled to start late in 2021 and run for two years. A post-doc position for this period will be advertised soon. Interested applicants and partners are encouraged to inquire about the possibilities of collaboration early. The project is conducted in close collaboration with the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX), Centre for Digital Transformation in Cities and Communities (DITCOM), Center for Digital Social Research DATALAB and Centre for Digital Methods and Media (CDMM). Among its international partners are colleagues at the Utrecht Data School (NL), the Weizenbaum Institute and Bard College in Berlin (DE), as well as University of Massachusetts at Amherst (US).