Microsoft Research Social Media Collective 2013 Summer Doctoral Internships: Deadline Jan. 30, 2013

Microsoft Research New England (MSRNE) is looking for PhD candidate interns to join the Social Media Collective for Summer 2013. For these positions, we are looking primarily for social science PhD students (including communication, sociology, anthropology, media studies, information studies, etc.).
The Social Media Collective is a collection of scholars at MSRNE who focus on socio-technical questions, primarily from a social science perspective. We are not an applied program; rather, we work on critical research questions that are important to the future of social science scholarship.
MSRNE internships are 12-week paid internships in Cambridge, Massachusetts. PhD interns are expected to be on-site for the duration of their internship.
PhD interns at MSRNE are expected to devise and execute a research project during their internships. The expected outcome of an internship at MSRNE is a publishable scholarly paper for an academic journal or conference of the intern’s choosing. The goal of the internship is to help the intern advance their own career; interns are strongly encouraged to work towards a publication outcome that will help them on the academic job market. Interns are also expected to collaborate with full-time researchers and visitors, give short presentations, and contribute to the life of the community. While this is not an applied program, MSRNE encourages interdisciplinary collaboration with computer scientists, economists, and mathematicians. There are also opportunities to engage with product groups at Microsoft, although this is not a requirement.
The deadline for proposals, is January 30th, 2013. Applicant proposals should focus on one of the following eights areas:
1)    Big data, the politics of algorithms, and/or computational culture
2)    Entertainment and news industries and audiences
3)    Digital inequalities
4)    Mobile media and social movement/civic engagement
5)    Affective, immaterial, and other theoretical frameworks related to digital labor
6)    Urban informatics and critical geography
7)    Personal relationships and digital media
8)    Critical accounts of crisis informatics and disasters
Applicants should have advanced to candidacy in their PhD program by the time they start their internship. (Unfortunately, there are no opportunities for Master’s students or early PhD students at this time.) While this internship opportunity is not strictly limited to social scientists, preference will be given to social scientists and humanists making socio-technical inquiries. (Note: While other branches of Microsoft Research focus primarily on traditional computer science research, this group does no development-driven research and is not looking for people who are focused solely on building systems. We welcome social scientists with technical skills and strongly encourage social scientists to collaborate with computer scientists at MSRNE.) Preference will be given to intern candidates who work to make public and/or policy interventions with their research. Interns will benefit most from this opportunity if there are natural opportunities for collaboration with other researchers or visitors currently working at MSRNE.
Applicants from universities outside of the United States are welcome to apply.
For more information about the Social Media Collective and this opportunity, visit http://socialmediacollective.org/