“These findings provide clear evidence that data collected on MTurk simply cannot be trusted.”

🚀 We’re hiring a Postdoc! Our group is looking for a Postdoc to join the team working on computational comm research. If you’re excited about automated content analysis, large text & social-media data, open science, this might be for you. 💡 Sounds like you or someone you know? Please share/boost!

This paper is now out in Artificial Intelligence Review Bottom line: using LLMs to "simulate humans" sits in a no-man’s-land between theory and empirics—too opaque to function as a model, too ungrounded to count as evidence. Validation remains the core challenge. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🚨 New in Nature+Science!🚨 AI chatbots can shift voter attitudes on candidates & policies, often by 10+pp 🔹Exps in US Canada Poland & UK 🔹More “facts”→more persuasion (not psych tricks) 🔹Increasing persuasiveness reduces "fact" accuracy 🔹Right-leaning bots=more inaccurate

My Nieman Lab prediction for 2026: The AI bubble may pop but people’s use of AI for information won’t and it's better if we start taking this seriously.

Unser Highlight am Ende unseres Jubiläumsjahrs zum 75. Geburtstag des Instituts: 💐𝗪𝗶𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗺𝗴𝗲𝘇𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗼𝗰𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗴𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮ß𝗲 𝟯𝟬𝗯 𝘇𝘂 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻! 🏠🗝️ #HBI75 Wir freuen uns auf alles, was wir hier bewegen können! 🚀 leibniz-hbi.de/hbi-news/akt...

After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN! Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

📢 CCR needs a new Editor in Chief! 📢 @vanatteveldt.com is rotating out so we are inviting (self)nominations to lead our journal through its next phase. Deadline 15 January, see link for details: journal.computationalcommunication.org/announcement...

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

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...

🚨 Job Alert! Postdoc in POLITICAL TEXT ANALYSIS in the MULTIREP project You do quant text analysis? You are interested in political representation? Enjoy working in teams? Would like to live in a great city? Consider joining us in Vienna! ⏱️ Apply by 15/12/2025 wratil.eu/files/MULTIR... 1/4 🧵

Interesting and important, thanks for doing this!

Interesting insights that align well with what we found for Germany with 63% having used GenAI in May 2025, up from 44% in 2024.

Join us as postdoc at the Inequality Discourse Observatory at the University of Konstanz: stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/7... We will do epic research between Linguistics and Computational Social Science at the Cluster of Politics of Inequality. Feel free to DM if you have any questions.

This week, we have @lorenzspreen.bsky.social visiting our lab. He presented his work on disinformation classification and toxicity in group discussions on Reddit. He also has a new CSS group, check it out: css-synosys.github.io

Elmo just started #Grokipedia. I took a quick look at the "racism" entry since I was wondering if it might be slightly(!!) biased. I asked #Grok, who would be a fairer judge, to compare the entry with #Wikipedia. The results speak for themselves...

My lab is looking for a Senior Scientist (= PostDoc with option of permanency)! We are looking for someone interested in doing cutting-edge computational social science + helping us with data & software engineering 🤓. See job ad for details jobs.uni-graz.at/en/jobs/7d14...

The Yearbook Quality of the Media 2025 is here! 📊 Focus topic: News deprivation and its consequences for democracy. 👉 Learn more and find additional analyses, including on the sources used by AI chatbots: www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/... 1/3

New paper: LLMs are increasingly used to label data in political science. But how reliable are these annotations, and what are the consequences for scientific findings? What are best practices? Some new findings from a large empirical evaluation. Paper: eddieyang.net/research/llm_annotation.pdf

Work!! 🚨 We are looking for a #postdoc in our AI, media and Democracy Lab @aimediademlab.bsky.social Dynamic position, great team, nice colleagues 💥 Profile: communication/ poli sci/ computational social sci 🗓️ DL November 1 Spread the word 📣 werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

How do people use AI tools for health information? @cward1e.bsky.social & co asked them - through 27 qualitative interviews, they document users' "sophisticated “mix-and-match” behaviors, drawing on multiple tools depending on context, urgency, and familiarity." www.jmir.org/2025/1/e79961

Verschiedene Studien belegen, dass parteipolitische Annäherungen an Rechtsaußen-Parteien in erster Linie diese weiter stärken, z.B.:

🚀 And this marks our launch of the CampAIgn Tracker 🇳🇱! @meinungsfuehrer.bsky.social and I are glad to finally publish our dashboard where we monitor the use of AI imagery in campaign messages, by parties, politicians & other actors during the election #tk2025 See here www.campaigntracker.nl/en/

How do people think different sectors’ use of generative AI will change their experience of interacting with them? More optimists than pessimists for e.g. science and search engines, but more pessimists than optimists for news media, government, and – especially – politicians 1/3

🗞️ 🤖 Weekend reading anyone? For the launch of @transformernews.ai as a standalone publication, they invited me to contribute a piece on what persuasive AI might mean for democracy and elections. Here’s the result… buff.ly/OJsNmpK

Come work with us 🚨 We are looking for a #postdoc in our @aimediademlab.bsky.social lab. Profile: Comm sci / poli sci/ computational social science. Great team, timely topocs, fabulous city, good conditions. DL 🗓️ November 1 werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

📢 We're hiring a Doctoral Student in Research Software Engineering for Digital Behavioral Data! Work at the intersection of computer science and social science, develop innovative tools, and pursue your doctoral degree with us. 👉 Apply here: www.gesis.org/en/institute...

So important! One does not simply use ChatGPT for everything

Proud to congratulate you, @azadekakavand.bsky.social, on your PhD defense – “Technology Affordances, Social Media Platforms & the Networked Far Right.” A remarkable achievement that combines years of hard work & building of skills that you now use at @bredowinstitut.bsky.social. Missing u already🥳

Es gibt kaum einen Bereich, in dem Umverteilung von unten nach oben so unverblümt sichtbar wird wie im Bereich AI: Alle tragen etwas dazu bei, die Trainingsdaten sind von der gesamten Menschheit gemeinsam erstellt worden, den Profit dieser kollektiven Arbeit ernten dann ganz wenige.

HAMBURG CALLING - EINREICHUNGEN MÖGLICH Ab sofort ist das Conftool für unsere FG-Tagung 2026 offen: www.conftool.net/polkomm26/ 4.-6.2.26, Hamburg Tagungsthema: Demokratische Resilienz als Aufgabe für die politische Kommunikation in einer instabilen Welt Alle Infos unter: uhh.de/wiso-polkomm26

#Call #GESISPanel Collect Your Own Linked #WebTracking and #SurveyData with the GESIS Panel.dbd Digital Behavioral Data Sample Panelists participate in repeated surveys and digital behavioral data collections such as web tracking, where participants' web browsing behavior is recorded.

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life? Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social) Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

🚨 PhD Position at the University of Amsterdam 🚨 Join my team as a computer scientist / computational social scientist working on LLMs, social media, and politics. We offer freedom, impact, and an inspiring environment at one of Europe's leading universities. 🔗 werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

My friend and colleague @maxschindler.bsky.social has started a TikTok channel talking about social and communication science (in German). Follow him👇science comm matters! www.tiktok.com/@maksimumsci...

FINALLY 😌 The Delegated Act is here. The Act clarifies rules for data access under the Digital Services Act #DSA #dataaccess #research #eusky #commsky #polisky #csssky digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/d...

Why do people search for individual politicians? Because they (don't) like them. In a new paper we find sympathy/antipathy to be important predictors of political information seeking. We also find searches for female politicians more often concerned with appearance & family. doi.org/10.1177/1461...

🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨 We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community. 🔗 epssnet.org Here’s a thread with everything you need to know. 🧵

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 🧵:

And last, but certainly not least, huge congratulations to Dr. Anke Stoll who received the Best Dissertation Award for her impressive dissertation “Machine learning for automated content analysis of incivility in online discussion” #ICA25 Congratulations!!! 🎉🎉🎉

🎉 Wir feiern 75 Jahre Hans-Bredow-Institut #HBI75! ... jetzt auch auf BlueSky! #firstpost 🎂 75 Jahre Medienforschung – das bedeutet 75 Jahre Forschung über medienvermittelte öffentliche Kommunikation, interdisziplinär & international vernetzt. 🙏 Wir sagen Danke und freuen uns auf alles, was kommt!

Previous studies showed how Republicans share more misinformation. This was disputed by some, blaming fact-checking biases. Enter Community Notes. Guess what: "2.3 times more posts by Republicans are flagged as misleading compared to posts by Democrats." www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A huge congratulations to @nicolaiberk.bsky.social for winning this year's 2025 Kaid Sanders @polcomm.bsky.social article of the year award! #ica25 Having known Nico for a long time, I have seen the gigantic effort that went into this paper and can say it is incredibly well deserved!

This is big and super harmful. YouTube increased the threshold for takedowns: videos can now contain 50% (formerly 25%) misinformation or hate and still stay up if deemed “public interest.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/t...

🚨 Join Our Team We're looking for a PhD / Post-doc in Political Communication with possibility of joining a project on how feelings of being “left behind” shape political info use, focusing on social identity and identity threats. Start: September 1 or by agreement Duration: 3 years Apply now! 🔬✨

10 days left to submit your abstract 😊

US AI Safety Institute reformed into Center for AI Standards and Innovation. Mission: “represent US interests internationally to guard against burdensome & unnecessary regulation of US tech by foreign govs & ensure US dominance of int’l AI standards” www.commerce.gov/news/press-r...

Can think of a dozen or so journalism studies research projects that could be done with these data… (Attn: enterprising grad students looking for a dissertation topic!) www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/proj...

Linda McMahon: "Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish."