The School of English and Media Studies is currently seeking applicants
for postgraduate scholarships at Massey University (New Zealand) in
Media Studies, Geography or Cultural Studies for a research project that
is externally funded by the Marsden Fund of the New Zealand Royal
Society and entitled, “Geographies of Media Convergence: Spaces of
Democracy, Connectivity and the Reconfiguration of Cultural
Citizenship.”
There are scholarships available at both Masters (one year fulltime) and
PhD (three years fulltime) levels. We welcome applicants who wish to
develop their research interests within our overall project theme. We
welcome applications from indigenous scholars and Latin American(ist)
scholars and scholars working at the intersection of human geography and
media studies.
Master’s Scholarship
This scholarship is for a 1-year fulltime Master’s degree (MA or MPhil)
by thesis (i.e., no coursework is involved). It will be awarded to an
applicant with a high GPA and a Bachelor’s degree in Media Studies,
Cultural Studies, Geography, or a cognate discipline. It covers living
costs as well as the full domestic component of tuition fees. The total
value of the scholarship is NZD $16,000 plus up to $6,000 in fees. It is
open to New Zealand domestic and international students (though
international students would be required to provide their own source of
funding to make up the shortfall between the domestic and international
tuition fees).
PhD Scholarship
This scholarship is for a fulltime 3-year PhD degree (which in New
Zealand is a degree by research that does not include a coursework
component). It will be awarded to an applicant with a high GPA and a
Master’s degree in Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Geography, or a
cognate discipline. It covers living costs as well as full domestic
tuition fees. It is open to New Zealand domestic as well as
international students. The total value of the scholarship is NZD75,000
(NZD25,000 pa) plus fees of up to $6,000 per annum for three years.
Project Summary
We are currently living through a period in which centralized forms of
media, such as national television and mainstream journalism, are
perceived to be in crisis. This crisis is creating new spaces for the
development of alternative ways of knowing, watching and making media.
Along with them, media convergence has emerged as a multidimensional
concept that references expanding interconnections and interactivity
between media technologies, sites, users and production processes, as
well as increasingly interactive relationships between politics and
popular media cultures. Technological development, media convergence,
and attendant transformations of everyday media production, circulation
and consumption practices are giving rise to new forms of political
discourse and involvement. The proposed research seeks to delineate the
possibilities and limitations for contemporary social transformation
within this new media ecology. We will do this by exploring a series of
media forms, discourses, practices and technologies (including
indigenous people’s media as well as contemporary developments in
entertainment television) whereby new kinds of cultural citizenship are
being actively forged. This project is thus designed to advance
incipient dialogues between human geography and media studies by asking
how practices within popular cultures of media convergence can
contribute to the construction or renovation of democratic citizenship.
The researchers involved with this project will analyze processes of
media convergence whereby diverse groups in different parts of the world
are actively fashioning new forms of political engagement, identity
production and cultural citizenship. The research team will thus explore
significant sites of media activity for the production of new political
imaginaries within the current global historical conjuncture, which is
characterized by four key interrelated elements: 1) the appearance and
expansion throughout the world of resurgent and increasingly networked
indigenous social movements; 2) the emergence of a highly elaborated and
complex convergent media ecology marked by rapid technological
development, digitalization, miniaturization and mobilization; 3) the
rise and spread of neoliberalism, which is increasingly subject to
growing contestation, particularly within Latin America; and 4)
increased securitization and militarization organized at multiple levels
of social life particularly since September 11, 2001. Within this broad
historical conjuncture, areas of focus within our project include 1) the
expansion of indigenous television in different parts of the world; and
2) the ongoing transformation of entertainment TV and concomitant
proliferation of new modes of interactive engagement with such media by
digitally empowered citizens. We propose to examine the processes of
convergence culture at work within these phenomena in order to identify
and analyze citizenship and citizen-like practices that are occurring
across different media formats and platforms.
Application Details
• The closing date for applications is Tuesday, 22 February, 2013
• The preferred starting date for the scholarship is 1 April 2013
(though this is negotiable)
• All applications must be submitted in paper form to and must be
postmarked no later than the application closing date. To expedite the
review of applications, we encourage you to also submit an electronic
version of your application to this email address:
j.a.mckenzie@massey.ac.nz
• Your application should include the following:
1. A brief cover letter that contains contact details and your preferred
starting date
2. A 1000-word proposal outlining your proposed thesis research and how
it fits with the aims of the project
3. Your CV
4. A sample of your academic writing (e.g., for PhD applicants, a
published article from an academic journal, Masters thesis chapter, seminar paper, etc.;
for Masters applicants, a paper from an upper division undergraduate or Honours-level course).
• Two letters of recommendation from persons competent to speak about
your academic record at University level must be sent separately to the project
supervisors via the email addresses below.
Further information and instructions on how to apply can be found at:
http://www.massey.ac.nz/?sa17f4846s or J.A.McKenzie@massey.ac.nz
Informal enquiries about the scholarships prior to the deadline can also
be directed to the project supervisors: julie.cupples@ed.ac.uk and
K.T.Glynn@massey.ac.nz
Julie Cupples 