Description du sujet de thèse

This PhD contract Ukraine: What freedom of the press in times of war?, supervised by Ioulia Shukan, Director of Studies at EHESS, will enable in-depth research to be conducted on information production and media coverage of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, in a context of multiple sources of information (citizen journalism, citizen documentation, satellite images and data, amateur videos, OSINT), and tensions between information and security needs. This research will be conducted using mixed research methods, combining a study of Ukrainian legislation on press and internet freedom in times of war, observation of journalistic and citizen production, and remote interviews with media actors. The research will pay close attention to new forms of cooperation emerging through the war, at the local, national, and transnational levels, between peers (consortia of international journalists), but also with other actors, such as human rights defenders and national and international criminal justice actors. This research requires prior qualification (Master's degree) in sociology or political studies and full command of the Ukrainian language.

Contexte de travail

This 36-month PhD contract requires international mobility. The PhD student will spend 18 months at the Centre for Russian, Caucasian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies (CERCEC-EHESS) on the Condorcet campus in Aubervilliers and another 18 months at IRECA, a joint research unit abroad (UMIFRE) specializing in the former USSR and based in Warsaw. This contract fits perfectly with one of the CERCEC's research areas, which focuses on “Wars and Empires: Discourse, Experiences, and Politics of Domination” and questions the seminal nature of the experience of war in imperial systems of domination. This focus also fully reintegrates Eastern Europe into the collective discussion, affirming the long duration and contemporary nature of these experiences and making dialogue between historians and sociologists an essential forum for scientific reflection on wars and forms of imperial domination. Staying with IRECA will enable the successful applicant to establish a dialogue with Polish researchers specializing in the sociology of journalism and media at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and the University of Warsaw, and to benefit from the training courses offered by these two institutions. It will also give the contract holder the opportunity to meet many Ukrainian information professionals for whom Warsaw has become a place of passage, as well as foreign journalists covering the Russian-Ukrainian war and even international news agencies such as AFP, which has made Warsaw its fallback location.