We've got ISSUES. Literally. We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do? arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563 A 🧵 1/n

Well, this is what I ended up with. Somewhat fitting as I gave up my professorship in Zurich for my husband's love of these (according to family legend, at least)

I take no leave of you, 2025. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

Call for Applications for the Data Quality #Academy Certificate Program 2026 The call for applications for the #KODAQS Academy’s certificate program is open: www.gesis.org/en/ges...#Academy#KODAQSThe program is aimed at early-career researchers from various disciplines who work with social science data.

The Call for Papers and Panels for #COMPTEXT2026 in Birmingham (23-25 April) is out; feel free to circulate: shorturl.at/gRg0p! Deadline: January 16!

Here's a peek at our new Social Media Research Toolkit, a curated collection of more than 50 social media research tools. This toolkit is unique in that it only features tried and tested tools that have been used in peer-reviewed academic studies. (ETA Jan 5, 2026) #academicsky #comsky

Ban the Business Model, Not the Child. Read these wise (research based) words from colleague @jesstpiotrowski.bsky.social on the social media ban in Australia @ascor.bsky.social @antmandan.bsky.social www.jessicataylorpiotrowski.com/2025/12/11/b...

Mitten in der Pandemie startete BILD den Versuch eines eigenen Fernsehsenders. Warum das Experiment scheiterte, habe ich u. a. auf Basis von 43 Interviews rekonstruiert. Jetzt Open Access in Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft [@bredowinstitut.bsky.social] erschienen. www.inlibra.com/de/document/...

"Die Analyse enthält auch einen 20-seitigen internen Evaluationsbericht der Armee (...) Die Militärexperten kommen zu dem Schluss, dass ein Abfluss von Daten aus den #Palantir Systemen technisch nicht verhindert werden könne." #Schweiz 🇨🇭

We're looking for a colleague (postdoc) 📢 @politikuhh.bsky.social 3+3 years Doing your own research while teaching 2.5 courses per semester Research agenda with links to our team (democracy, digital politics, political competition/behaviour) DL 🗓️ 05/01 stellen.uni-hamburg.de/jobposting/6...

Ist denn schln Weihnachten? Hatte ein FETTES BROT in der Post!!

Happy to announce the 2nd edition of our Summer School in Computational Social Science that will take place in the beautiful Villa del Grumello on Lake Como between June 22-26, 2026! *** DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: February 15, 2026 (firm deadline) *** More details here: css2.lakecomoschool.org

1. Pausing new submissions about AI topics for 90 days. That is, papers about AI models, testing AI models, proposing AI models, theories about the future of AI, etc. We will make exceptions for papers that are already accepted for publication (or published) in peer-reviewed scholarly journals /2

This chimes with our new open-access @polcommjournal.bsky.social study of French-language immigration posts, which shows how far-right users flood feeds with hyper-partisan sources for political purposes: doi.org/10.1080/1058...

Google AI overviews now reach over 2B users worldwide. But how reliable are they on high stakes topics - for instance, pregnancy and baby care? We have a new paper - led by Desheng Hu, now accepted at @icwsm.bsky.social - exploring that and finding many issues Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2511.12920 🧵👇

Super important and dear to my heart! Also a good opportunity to remind people of the super helpful systematic list of open science/access media and communication research journals by Moritz Büchi and @tobiasdienlin.com here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

📢Fantastic job-opportunity at the #UZH department for communication and media research @ikmz.bsky.social: Professorship in Communication Studies with a focus on Change and Innovation in Communication 100% 😍 Deadline for applications: December 17, 2025. jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stell...

🎓 We’re hiring! Two researcher / PhD positions in the ERC project DANCE – Dark Nerd Communities at the University of Münster 🇪🇺 🧮 Quantitative: survey, lab + field experiments 🎙️ Qualitative: ethnography, focus groups, interviews Apply by 28 Nov 2025 👇 #AcademicJobs #ERC #PhD #CommunicationResearch

Here is the first piece in a series of short articles I'm doing about the DSA and researcher access to publicly available information. It focuses on categories of researchers under the DSA, and what data they are each authorized to use. 1/ verfassungsblog.de/dsa-platform...

Noch drei Tage! Wir freuen uns über Eure Einreichungen zu Demokratischer Resilienz - auf bald in Hamburg!

Vorbildliche Darstellung des NDR. Klimawandelfolgen auf Regionen heruntergebrochen, die dort beschriebenen Entwicklungen in größeren Kontext gesetzt und vermeintliche Widersprüche aufgelöst. Liebe Norddeutsche, hier habt ihr was zum Teilen www.ndr.de/nachrichten/...

So, now it's official: for the next four years, I'll be researching "Defensive Publics and their Imagined Security Communities in the Digital Realm" (with @lauraliebig.bsky.social) as part of the new DFG research group "The Promise of Security in Catastrophic Times"!!

Studie "How to sell democracy online (fast)" ist ein Brett 🛹. Superspannend und extrem hilfreich, da sie erklärt: - Wie junge Menschen Plattformen nutzen - Was sie sich wünschen - Was funktioniert? 📝 www.progressives-zentrum.org/publication/... Inklusive 13 konkreter Handlungsempfehlungen. 💯

Populismus & Polarisierung funktionieren super auf #TikTok & Insta #Reels. Aber wie können Demokraten vertikale Videos nutzen, um junge Zielgruppen zu erreichen & Impact zu erzielen? Neue Studie von @dpzberlin.bsky.social & @bertelsmannst.bsky.social hat 30.000 Videos analysiert & gibt Tipps 👇

Now out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social. In our new article, @denis-cohen.bsky.social @thmskrr.bsky.social and I show that where local rent prices increase more, residents with lower incomes become more likely to support the radical right AfD. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

"Die Veränderung der Welt durch Internetkultur betrifft mittlerweile nicht mehr nur Einzelersonen, die einfach mal Gras anfassen sollten. Internetkultur ist keine Nische mehr, die man wahlweise ignorieren oder als obskuren Quatsch verlachen kann..."

Diese Annäherung an Trumps Politik finanzieren US-Stiftungen, oft unterstützt von der fossilen Industrie, sowie marktradikale Denkfabriken aus Ungarn und Deutschland. Viele CDU-Urgesteine fürchten diese Trumpisierung zutiefst. Text mit @gabrielakeller.bsky.social correctiv.org/aktuelles/tr...

Die Reaktionen auf den Mord an Kirk zeigen klar, wie deutsche Konservative den Trumpschen Stil aus Halbwahrheiten, wilden Beschuldigungen und Hass kopieren. Das ist keine spontane Gefühlswallung, sondern Strategie. Millionenschwere (US-)Stiftungen und rechtskonservative Netzwerke arbeiten daran 🧵

Our study on the strategic narratives about the Russian-Ukrainian war in 7 EU countries, co-authored with @eddahumprecht.bsky.social, is out in the IJoC. We trace pro-Russian messages across countries, platforms, and actor types ahead of the 2024 EP election. Check it out: ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

🚨 New paper alert 🚨 Using LLMs as data annotators, you can produce any scientific result you want. We call this **LLM Hacking**. Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.08825

Wenn Sozialdemokrat:innen rechte Zuwanderungs-Rhetorik übernehmen, wirkt die Partei rechter. Zugewinne? Keine. Ganz im Gegenteil. Strategie: Selbstschädigung. Sozialdemokratische Grundwerte und Immigrationsfeindlichkeit passen einfach nicht zusammen.

Noch (fast) eine Woche / One week left ⤵️ Wir beantworten gerne Fragen und freuen uns übers Teilen👋 #polscijobs #PoliSky

As a polcom scholar, research currently feels like staring into an ever-expanding abyss. Teaching has become my saviour: Discussing journalism and politics in the digital age with students from all disciplines in my intro lecture gave me a clear sense that democracy is worth fighting for

The field of political communication is incredibly exciting to teach and research. But the context is horrible. Aptly put by @davekarpf.bsky.social the overwhelming sense that I have is that things are getting worse. The water level rises. The center holds, but only barely, and not for much longer

@deeesharp.bsky.social & I are looking for a collaborator on a project w/ @offenegesellschaft.bsky.social on empathy-based interventions against affective polarization @uni-hamburg.de j0b.de/veca 75% PhD position, 1st yr project funded & can be converted to a position w/ teaching afterwards 📆31/08

🚩🏡 Zwischenmiete in Zürich gesucht! Ich bin von Ende Sept. bis Anfang Dez. als visiting scholar am @ipz.bsky.social und suche daher für Okt+Nov eine Bleibe in Zürich. Falls ihr zufällig in dem Zeitraum eine Wohnung untervermietet oder jemanden kennt würde ich mich über eine DM sehr freuen :)

🚀 New postdoc position for Platform Data & Computational Social Science Join us to drive @gesis.org' efforts around the Digital Services Act (DSA) and conduct research with online platform data 💼 TV-L EG 14 | Location: Cologne 📌 Apply now: www.gesis.org/en/institute... #DSA #CSS #DataScience

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... We conclude that the role of “soft” factors in motivating information seeking on political actors remains underexplored.

Finally :) Preprint of Susanne Baumgartner and my paper Short but still valid: Validating Single-Item Measures for Key Communication Science Constructs for Experience Sampling Research. In a 5-Study procedure, we assess the validity of in total 21 constructs osf.io/preprints/ps...

Very much enjoyed the panel on the rise of the illiberal public sphere at #IPSA2025, organised by the Political Communication section, as well as the panel on "destructive polarization" covened by @kathaesa.bsky.social - thanks for the opportunity to promote our work with @sabinamihelj.bsky.social!

How harmful is GenAI around elections? Will it trigger a misinformation apocalypse and upend elections? I am happy to finally be able to share @sachaltay.bsky.social & my answers to these and other questions on which we have been working for a year and which is now out via @knightcolumbia.org

Ich liebe alles in diesem Thread. Außerordentlich informativ, räumt mit vielen AI-/Misinfo-/Mythen auf ... und das alles ohne komplett zu verharmlosen, was gerade in der Welt passiert. Lohnt sich.

#computationalsocialsciences, #jobsjobsjobs, #textasdata, für mein DFG-Projekt zur Fragmentierung digitaler Nachrichtenpublika mit Frank Mangold @gesis.org suche ich eine*n Doktorand*in mit Interesse an den neuesten (KI-gestützten) Methoden der Inhaltsanalyse www.uni-hamburg.de/stellenangeb...

vitals, an R package for LLM evaluation, is now on #rstats CRAN!🧸 Specifically aimed at folks building with ellmer, the package will help you engineer prompts, choose models, and measure cost/latency/performance rigorously. www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/06...

Want to easily scrape data from news media sites? There's an R package for that! paperboy "paperboy offers writers of web scrap[ers] a clear path to publish their code & earn co-authorship on the package, while deliver[ing] news media data from many websites in a consistent format."

The regressinator: A simulation tool for teaching regression assumptions and diagnostics in #Rstats www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... It looks like a useful package for covering the basics of a range of models cran.r-project.org/web/packages... Article illustrates how students can work with 1/

Want to easily scrape data from TikTok? There's an R package for that! traktok "While it is neither the first nor only tool to do so ... the [package provides] ... an easy-to-understand consistent syntax [meant] to encourage TikTok research" osf.io/preprints/so...

❓Interested in populism in power? Ever wondered how privileged actors construct anti-elitism? Looking for a systematic approach to studying anti-elitism? 🚨Check out our new Open Access publication in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies: 👉 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New publication out in Social Science Computer Review, with @mikefarjam.bsky.social (lead) and Meike Lohkamp: “A Practical Guide and Case Study on How to Instruct LLMs for Automated Coding During Content Analysis.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... A thread 🧵: