I am delighted to share that I'll be joining the University of California Berkeley School of Information as a Bellwether Postdoctoral Scholar!
Adam Visokay
@avisokay.bsky.social
interested in science of science, economic sociology, population health bellwether postdoc at uc berkeley uva (ba) and syracuse (ma) and university of washington (phd) i also run. https://avisokay.github.io/ https://www.strava.com/athletes/9804160
I curated some readings for class on "data tensions" and the list felt worth sharing. Come on a tour of datasets, books, the web, and AI with me... We'll start with this piece on the Google Books project: the hopes, dreams, disasters, and aftermath of building a public library on the internet. 1/n
Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria
“Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them.”
theatlantic.com
Excellent thread! This also reminds me of David Bamman's work on films as data, which, if I understand correctly, you *are* legally allowed to use for research, as long as you own and retain a physical copy, and as long as you don't enjoy watching it : ) www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Measuring diversity in Hollywood through the large-scale computational analysis of film | PNAS
Movies are a massively popular and influential form of media, but their computational study at scale has largely been off-limits to researchers in ...
pnas.org
Learning was always about balancing the stress of productive struggle with the temptation to just glance at the answer key and the temptation got ratcheted up intensely. Unsurprisingly, this creates challenges for a lot of people!
Attending #IC2S2!! Will be co-organizing a tutorial on Simulating Human Survey Responses with Large Language Models, today at 1.15PM, and presenting on Friday in the Understanding Large Language Models session, 10.45AM. Looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones!!
Now that all of my dissertation papers have been accepted, I'm making a thread that puts all the papers in the same place! I interviewed local crime journalists to learn more about how the decline of local news, digital publishing, and changing attitudes towards criminal justice affect their work.
There are so many cool research questions but finite time AND its summer. What do?
“The strongest case for AI as a normal technology is history.”
Erika McEntarfer@erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 2w agoWhen I ran BLS, I was asked constantly about the impact of AI on jobs. It's still one of the most common questions I get. So we put together a policy brief - for policymakers, journalists, and anyone trying to sort through what is happening with AI and jobs: siepr.stanford.edu/publications...
Excited to present a tutorial on simulating survey responses with LLMs at @ic2s2.bsky.social next week! ✨ 👉 central themes: analytic flexibility & hybrid samples with @gligoric.bsky.social, @indiiigo.bsky.social, @maximiliankreutner.bsky.social, @jrupprec.bsky.social, and @mstrohm.bsky.social – 🧵
They don't know the men's mile record could fall for the first time in 27 years tomorrow.
We're hiring! Open area search for assistant professor of sociology at UC Berkeley. Come be our colleague! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05416
Assistant Professor - Open Field - Sociology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
This is a big deal. Using ballot level data from Washington State, @scottwallard.bsky.social and I estimated that had SCOTUS ruled the other way, more than 250,000 Washingtonians would be disenfranchised per two-year election cycle
Mark Joseph Stern@mjsdc.bsky.social · last mo.The Supreme Court's first opinion is Watson v. RNC. By a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court UPHOLDS state laws that allow the counting of mail ballots that are sent by Election Day but arrive shortly thereafter. Roberts and Barrett join the liberals. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
Passed my dissertation defense this week! 🎉 Big big thanks to my dream team committee for their guidance and support! Sasha Johfre, Tyler McCormick, @sarahquinn.bsky.social, @bstewart.bsky.social, @aylincaliskan.bsky.social
Having a nice collective effervescence moment at Seattle solstice parade. 🌞
This was fun. Thanks to my committee (Kate Stovel, Sarah Quinn and Jelani Ince), my fellow grad students (a really impressive bunch), and UW Sociology for putting up with me all these years.
Honored to be selected as a 2025–26 Dean’s Medal recipient in UW’s College of Arts & Sciences, representing the Social Sciences. Grateful to the mentors, faculty, and friends who made this journey possible. 💜💛
Happy Pride Month! Check out the events coming up this month to celebrate the historical and current contributions of LGBTQ+ people and communities! 💙💛 , the I School https://bit.ly/4v8xSNL
I’m sure many people are working on this but what are the epistemic implications of these services for our study of online communities? Garbage in garbage out is not a new concept but how do we avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater here?
Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 2mo agoNew from 404 Media: companies are using Reddit manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search. The strategy is to systematically manipulate answers provided by chatbots by manipulating the underlying source material those chatbots scrape—in this case, a popular subreddit www.404media.co/companies-ar...
✨ We are hiring @crestumr.bsky.social ✨ Post-doc position, up to 3 years, in a Horizon project. Profile: at the intersection of NLP & Social Sciences. More information here: shorturl.at/TxDLN 🥰 RT appreciated 🥰
Post-doctoral Position: Computational Analysis of Judicial Decisions (CREST/CNRS-Ecole polytechnique) – CSS @ IP-Paris
Site web de l'axe sciences sociales computationnelles du CREST-CNRS. Cours et tutoriels pour l'analyse des données numériques en sciences sociales.
shorturl.at
“In 2006, we imagined a social media ecosystem that prioritized strengthening connections through media rather than one that replaced connections with media…”
Kate Starbird@katestarbird.bsky.social · 2mo agodanah boyd recently argued that social media (as we knew it) is mostly dead; what we have now is parasocial media: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... I agree. Networked social media is disappearing, replaced by a new logic/structure of content creator, creator-centered community, & algorithm.
Last evening in Germany for a bit. Bratwurst or Döner for dinner?
"In a context where the wealth of nations depends increasingly on knowledge and technology, when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few, without adequate forms of sharing and access, a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods." From Pope Leo, today.
Adam Visokay@avisokay.bsky.social · 3mo ago2/ Joint work with the amazing @marionf.bsky.social @sarahquinn.bsky.social and Tyler McCormick. I’ve learned so much through this collaboration!
Survey response rates are down. The White House cites DoorDash to indicate stable inflation. What is going on with official statistics? In a new preprint, we consider the public and private ways datasets are constructed and explore the implications for state governance. 🧵