Scholarship details
Study levels
Research and PhD
Student type
Future students
Study area
Creative industries, Information technology, Science, technology and engineering and mathematics
Eligibility criteria
Academic performance
Citizenship
Australian or New Zealand and International
What you'll receive
- A stipend scholarship of $33,637 per annum for a maximum duration of 3.5 years while undertaking a QUT PhD. The duration includes an extension of up to 6 months if approved for your candidature. This is the full-time, tax-exempt rate which will index annually.
- You will receive a fee offset/sponsorship, covering the cost of your tuition fees for the first 4 full-time equivalent years of your doctoral studies.
- As the scholarship recipient, you will have the opportunity to work with a team of leading researchers, to undertake your own innovative research in and across the field.
Eligibility
You need to meet the entry requirements for QUT's Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) including any English language requirements.
You must:
- enrol in Semester 1, 2025, as a full-time, internal student
- have a background in a relevant humanities and social science discipline, such as communication and media studies, internet studies, computer science, generative AI, or critical technology studies
- have recently completed a first-class honours degree, a research master degree, or a coursework master degree with a significant research component from a recognised institution and in a cognate discipline, or can demonstrate equivalent industry research experience
- have a strong interest in undertaking a three-year research project analysing the patterns and processes of targeted advertising in search recommendations and social media feeds
- have demonstrated excellent capacity and potential for research.
Students with interdisciplinary backgrounds (e.g. combining media studies and generative AI experience) are especially encouraged to apply.
How to apply
Prior to submitting an application for admission to QUT's Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program, you need to:
- email Professor Daniel Angus and Professor Axel Bruns, details of
your academic and research background, your motivation to research in this field and your interest in this scholarship. Also attach: your CV full academic transcripts details of three referees including email and contact number
There is no need to formulate a stand-alone research project at this stage as the PhD project will be aligned with the Australian Ad Observatory and Australian Search Experience 2.0 project within ADM+S.
Allow extra time to complete the necessary steps. It is recommended to send your email as soon as possible, as the closing date varies based on your citizenship status.
What happens next?
Applications will be reviewed, followed by:
shortlisted applicants being invited to an online interview with members of the supervisory team if your application is supported, you will be invited to submit an expression of interest (EOI) following the advice at how to apply for a research degree in your EOI, nominate Professor Daniel Angus as your proposed principal supervisor, and copy the link to this scholarship website into question 2 of the financial details section.
Your formal expression of interest (EOI) application needs to be submitted via QUT's online application portal by:
- international applicants: 31 July 2024
- domestic applicants: 31 August 2024.
About the scholarship
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) is a cross-disciplinary, national research centre, which aims to create the knowledge and strategies necessary for responsible, ethical, and inclusive automated decision-making. The Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) hosts the QUT node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for ADM+S.
The successful candidate will undertake an independent project aligned with the larger, multi-institutional Australian Ad Observatory and Australian Search Experience 2.0 projects within the ADM+S Centre. These projects will generate large-scale observational data on the advertising content displayed to users as they browse their social media feeds or receive search engine results, alongside limited information on how and why specific users were targeted by particular ads. Depending on how newer Generative AI systems are integrated into search and social media it may be that we also see advertising content woven into GenAI prompt responses, and this would present an additional use case for analysis.
The PhD project will work with a chosen subset of these data to investigate and critique the accuracy, relevance, appropriateness, transparency, and/or ethics of such targeted advertising, and thereby critique the algorithmic processes that drive such targeting. Approaches may include large-scale quantitative analysis and/or close qualitative evaluation of ad targeting data, critical algorithm studies of advertising systems, and/or the normative assessment of advertising transparency and ethics, in general or as applied to a particular field of advertising (e.g. advertising particular types of products or targeting specific groups of consumers).
The candidate will be supervised by Professors Daniel Angus and/or Axel Bruns, with external supervisors drawn from other ADM+S partner universities and will have the opportunity to engage in a dynamic environment with members of the QUT School of Communication and Digital Media Research Centre, as well as the national ADM+S Centre of Excellence.