Last week, a powerful coalition—Meta’s #AIforGood, #DirectRelief, #CrisisReady & the #CSSLab at Penn—gathered to explore how AI, open data & mobility insights can support emergency preparedness ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. 🧵 #DisasterResponse #FIFA #WorldCup2026

Belle interface & pipeline pour le Media Bias Detector mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu de @csspenn.bsky.social avec un rappel que l'IA ça marche surtout quand il y a des humains dans la boucle (merci l'armée de Research Assistants)

Welcome to SICSS-Penn 2025! We are excited to have our faculty organizers, @xisong.bsky.social and @dhopkins1776.bsky.social, deliver opening remarks this morning.

New Media Bias Detector 🔎 Blog Post 📝: Parades and Protests in the Midst of Crises mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu/blog/parades...

We are hiring an Engagement & Policy Manager at the Penn Center for Media, Technology & Democracy! Apply+Share! They will lead an event series, run an annual conference, manage research grants and write on the information ecosystem and its impact on society! wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recrui...

🚀 Draft schedule for #IC2S2 2025 (July 21–24) is here. Explore four days packed with inspiration. Review your slot, plan travel, and flag any conflicts—minor tweaks are still possible. See the program here: www.ic2s2-2025.org/program/. The poster scheduling will follow next week!

A team of researchers from @csspenn.bsky.social have found that cable news has increasingly diverged from broadcast news in the topics covered and language used:

🎓 🎉 Congratulations to our 2025 Ph.D. and M.A. graduates!! www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

We are excited to welcome @alexengler.bsky.social as the inaugural Executive Director of the Penn Center for Media, Technology, and Democracy! penntoday.upenn.edu/news/univers...

Research at @csspenn.bsky.social reveals that climate change articles are more persuasive than previously thought, especially among skeptics. Effective communication can help bridge partisan divides in climate discourse. css.seas.upenn.edu/news-on-clim...

Dean Eckles, the William F. Pounds Associate Professor of Management and an Associate Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan, will be a keynote speaker for #IC2S2 2025 in Norrköping, Sweden. 🎙Effect sizes and decisions. Learn more: ic2s2-2025.org/keynotes/

Timothy Dorr & Duncan Watts of @csspenn.bsky.social are uncovering what drives prosocial behavior in online communities—helping platforms go beyond harm reduction to fostering social good. css.seas.upenn.edu/from-cracks-...

On 4/15, as part of Penn Engineering's AI Month 2025, Warren Center faculty affiliate Chris Callison-Burch will speak on a panel on how #AI is reshaping our understanding of intelligence and what it means to be human. Join us! pennengdean.wufoo.co...

Looking forward to this, next week! 'The Impact of AI on (Mis)Information' asc.upenn.edu/cind2025, w/ @ndiakopoulos.bsky.social @hwaight.bsky.social @jolukito.bsky.social @lexipalmer.bsky.social Kaicheng Yang @ekvraga.bsky.social Kiran Garimella & Jennifer Allen + @ylelkes.bsky.social @asc.upenn.edu

Prosocial social media. Gun safety. Dynamic discussions and flattering feedback. These were some of the topics covered last month at Annenberg. Learn more on our website: www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

A new study from @atohidi.bsky.social (of @csspenn.bsky.social) and colleagues shows exposure to articles about climate change significantly increases climate change concerns among skeptics:

Social media has the power to bring people together. In a new paper, doctoral student Timothy Dörr and Professor Duncan Watts present a plan to uncover what encourages prosocial behavior — acts of kindness, support, and cooperation — on social media. Learn more:

🌍 Do climate sceptics change their minds? Climate advocates underestimate how much sceptics shift after reading climate news - while sceptics expect to resist more. In reality, concern increases, showing need for sustained climate communication. 🔗 academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ad... #SciComm 🧪

Brandon Stewart, Associate Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, will be a keynote speaker for #IC2S2 2025 in Norrköping, Sweden. 🎙Design-Based Supervised Learning: A General Framework for Using LLM Annotations and Other Predicted Variables in Downstream Analyses.

Penn’s @csspenn.bsky.social found that media coverage distorts public perception of chronic disease risks, overemphasizing rare cases while downplaying systemic factors. Calvin Isch & Duncan Watts analyzed 200K+ articles, revealing these biases. @asc.upenn.edu css.seas.upenn.edu/how-the-medi...

🚀Here comes the official IC2S2 2025 tutorial session lineup. From LLMs and AI to urban analytics, these sessions will dive into the latest in computational social science. Explore the schedule and start planning your learning journey today: www.ic2s2-2025.org/tutorials/

The application deadline for SICSS-Penn is extended for one week. Submit your application by March 14 to attend our amazing program!

Zelensky's public persona. Distortion of deaths. And #ChristianTikTok. These were some of the topics covered last month at Annenberg. Learn more on our website: www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

One more week until applications are due. Don't miss your chance to attend SICSS-Penn this summer!

🎉Now the IC2S2 2025 abstract submission has officially closed—with over 1,000 submissions received! Thank you for your incredible interest. Next up: the reviewer bidding process. Stay tuned for more updates!

Our submission portal is back up and running. The new deadline for abstracts is February 26 at 23:59 (AoE). Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to receiving your submissions!

Want to learn about computational social science *for free* and launch interdisciplinary research projects? We are so excited to announce there will be *26* Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science this year! Apply to one of them here: sicss.io/locations

Our open review portal is down, but our team is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. In light of this, the submission deadline has been extended to Feb 26, 23:59 AoE. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience caused.

The #IC2S2 2025 abstract submission closes next Monday, Feb 24, at 23:59 (AoE). Don’t miss out—submit your abstract now!

New Media Bias Detector 🔎 Blog Post 📝: Urban Disasters Through the Lens of the Mainstream Media mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu/blog/urban-d... @duncanjwatts.bsky.social

Our paper is out today in @pnas.org! 🎉 In a large-scale experiment on a YouTube-like platform, we find that giving people politically “slanted” video recs doesn’t shift beliefs or viewing behaviors. In other words, online filter bubbles may not be as polarizing as we think…

📣New Paper 📝 in PNAS: Short-term exposure to filter-bubble recommendation systems has limited polarization effects: Naturalistic experiments on YouTube www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A new study by doctoral candidate Calvin Isch reveals how the leading cause of death in the United States — chronic diseases — is underemphasized in media coverage: www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/...

📣HOT OFF THE PRESS is Connections: A Year at Annenberg, our new annual magazine which captures the extensive research, collaborative work, teaching, and community building our school is engaged in: www.asc.upenn.edu/connections-...

A new study by Computational Social Science Lab postdoctoral researcher Amir Tohidi analyzed dialogue from over 166,000 films and found that violent speech in movies is increasing over time, even in non-crime movies. Learn more:

New Media Bias Detector 🔎 Blog Post 📝: Media Coverage (or lack thereof) of Trump’s First Week in Office Part 3: Executive Orders mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu/blog/trump-s... Part 1 and Part 2 are published under the Media Bias Detector Blog: mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu/blog/

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS) at @Penn will be held for the fourth time this year! We welcome Ph.D. students, post-docs and early-career faculty to Philadelphia from June 30 to July 11 2025. Website: sicss.io/2025/penn