Missions

The FOCALE project aims to study the visual dimension of tensions surrounding controversial issues in contemporary French political life, where competing definitions of democratic citizenship are at stake. The scientific program aims to update Frame Analysis by adding visualization repertoires and to develop an analytical framework that will enable political scientists to more systematically integrate the visual approach into various political science research agendas. The FOCALE team has chosen to focus its analysis on three issues related to the struggle for political visibility in contemporary France:
- Demonstrative citizenship: controversies surrounding the use of police violence and its denunciations/justifications.
- School citizenship: controversies surrounding the management of secularism in schools.
- Ecological citizenship: controversies surrounding the direction of environmental preservation policies.
The project combines socio-historical, quantitative, and qualitative methods to document the genesis of a “visual turn” in conflictual processes, its social drivers, and its political expressions. In particular, it will focus on building a database of the most significant controversies related to the three issues identified, by collecting media content produced by controversial figures from the 1980s to the present day. The postdoctoral researcher (M/F) will assist the pilot team in developing the corpus policy on one of the three issues of the project (protest, school, or environmental citizenship) and will collect the necessary data.

Activités

- Inventory of controversies related to one of the thematic issues. This inventory will be carried out from a longitudinal perspective linked to the following three media regimes: television regime (1980s-1990s), digital regime (2000s-2010s), and algorithmic regime (2020s). It will be compiled using accessible databases (INA archives, BNF, web archives, etc.).
- Identification of peaks in media coverage of these controversies (identification by keyword clusters)
- Identification of groups formed around the prioritized thematic issue and the controversies identified
- Mapping of controversies and creation of a database of associated visual and audiovisual materials (MANIFESTE database).
Once this data has been produced, the postdoctoral researcher (M/F) may be involved in targeted field surveys to analyze and understand the role played by images in mobilization and by the actors who produce and disseminate these images (survey through qualitative interviews, use of video elicitation, etc.). The aim will therefore be to contribute to the analysis of the configurations of actors mobilized around controversies selected on the basis of the issues at stake. In this capacity, the postdoctoral researcher (M/F) will work with the pilot team to design research tools (interview grids, observation protocols), conduct interviews (particularly through photo/video elicitation), and carry out ethnographic observations. The postdoctoral researcher (M/F) will also be invited to participate in methodological workshops and inter-team meetings (travel expenses will be covered if meetings are held at locations other than the postdoc's location), to present results at national and international conferences, and to contribute to scientific publications and the production of audiovisual deliverables.

Compétences

The call is open to candidates who have defended a thesis related to political social sciences. Required skills:
- Quality of the scientific record and relevance of the thesis work to the FOCALE program
- Methodological agility and significant knowledge of at least one of the three issues addressed in the project (police violence and law enforcement / secularism and school policies / ecological mobilizations)
Welcome skills:
- Proficiency in social network analysis and data harvesting
- Experience in documentary production and/or image analysis
- Experience in conducting photo/video elicitation interviews
- Experience with audiovisual corpus analysis tools
- Interest in visual approaches to political processes
- Ability to integrate into collective and multidisciplinary research teams

Contexte de travail

Part of the social sciences field, the ART-Dev joint research unit is multidisciplinary: it combines geography, economics, sociology, politics, agronomy, land use planning, urban planning, architecture, and anthropology. Art-Dev has 130 members, 4 research areas, and 5 supervisory bodies. The postdoctoral researcher (M/F) will have a workspace within the host laboratory and will be jointly supervised by the project managers and the thematic co-managers identified at the sites of the three laboratories involved. Audio-visual equipment will be made available as part of the project.