About us:

The Department of Media and Communication at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München is one of the largest and highest-ranked communication science departments in Germany. The Department invites applications for a PhD candidate to work with Professor Neil Thurman and his team.

This PhD position focuses on media audience measurement, understood as the ongoing, industrialised measurement of media audiences that produces television ratings, newspaper and magazine readership and circulation figures, and estimates of websites’ and apps’ unique users and related metrics.

The candidate will investigate audience measurement as a central infrastructure of modern media systems: a set of practices through which audiences are counted, valued, represented, and made actionable for commercial, regulatory, and research purposes.

The topic can be approached from a range of perspectives, including the economics and organisation of the audience measurement industry; its historical development across the twentieth century; its changing forms in the twenty-first century; and the methodological challenges of measuring audiences across multiple platforms, devices, and services.

The candidate may also explore critical debates surrounding audience commodification, surveillance, transparency, and advertising fraud, as well as the disruption created by streaming services, social media platforms, and other digital intermediaries.

The focus is intentionally broad, allowing the successful applicant to develop an original research project on how audience data are produced, governed, contested, and used in practice by media companies, advertisers, policymakers, and researchers.

We are looking for you:

PhD Studentship in Media Audience Measurement: Methods, Institutions, and Power (m/f/x)

in Munich

Your tasks and responsibilities:

• Conduct independent and collaborative research on the above-mentioned topic, including as part of the preparation of a doctoral thesis (either a monograph or a cumulative dissertation)
• Contribute to the development of new research projects (external funding/grant proposals)
• Teach approximately 2.8 contact hours per week per semester (3.75 SWS). One teaching hour (SWS) equates to 45 minutes of contact time
• Contribute to other teaching and administrative activities

Your qualifications:

• Applicants must hold a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline — such as media and communication, sociology, history, economics, management, law, or public policy — and should have a strong academic interest in audience research, media industries, media history, media policy and regulation, media economics, or related work on quantification, platforms, and metrics
• Strong interest in the above mentioned research topic
• Fluency in English (written and oral)
• Working knowledge of German is an advantage

Benefits:

• A funded (75%) PhD position (initially for three years) on the TV-L E13 salary scale
• Annual gross salary of between 44,493 and 63,239 Euros, depending on qualifications and experience
• A pleasant, collegial work environment in one of Germany’s largest and highest-ranked media and communication departments
• A workplace in LMU’s Department of Media and Communications, which occupies a centrally-located building on the edge of Munich’s English Garden park. Munich is an attractive and vibrant city close to the Alps
• Close supervision within a collaborative and supportive research environment
• The opportunity to pursue a Ph.D
• Flexible, family-friendly working model (e. g. Some remote work is possible).

People with disabilities who are equally as qualified as other applicants will receive preferential treatment.

Contact:

Send your application as soon as possible to Prof. Dr. Neil Thurman at neil.thurman@ifkw.lmu.de, and at the latest by 15th July 2026.

Please submit the following materials (in English only), as a single PDF:

• Covering letter describing your suitability for the position.
• CV including publications (if any).
• Academic transcripts and certificates.
• Contact details of two referees.
• Examples (if any) of academic writing in English (publication(s), BA and/or MA theses).

For further inquiries, please contact Prof. Dr. Neil Thurman: neil.thurman@ifkw.lmu.de

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