PhD candidates/new grads: Postdoc opportunity with me focused on political economy and tech. See details here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/32502

📢 Excited to share that our paper w/, @yinizhang.bsky.social “From Mass Media and Social Media to AI: A Multilevel Framework for Understanding Trust in Generative AI," is now out in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, as part of the special issue on Trust in Generative AI.

I'm happy to report that the mini-book I co-authored with an outstanding team, is now published online in the Cambridge Elements series: "American Presidential Campaigns in the Attention Economy." It combines our original polling data and media content data to look at how Trump dominates attention

American Presidential Campaigns in the Attention Economy

Cambridge Core - American Government, Politics and Policy - American Presidential Campaigns in the Attention Economy

cambridge.org

The White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s

White House seeks to tighten political oversight of grantmaking

Sweeping proposed rule, now open for comments, would also restrict foreign collaborations and remove federal funding for open-access fees

scim.ag

The sky is not falling; high-quality platforms (Prolific, Verasight, CR Connect) have low rates of apparent bots. osf.io/preprints/ps... But also not zero; vigilance is very much needed!

New post: Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? (No. No it can't. Come on, now.) davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers?

No. No it can't. Come on, now.

davekarpf.beehiiv.com

🧵on my new paper "Synthetic personas distort the structure of human belief systems" w Roberto Cerina I'm v excited about... 🚨 Do synthetic samples look like human samples? We compare 28 LLMs to the 2024 General Social Survey (GSS) to find out + develop host of diagnostics...

New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Pretti Shooting www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

Video: New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Shooting of Pretti

A frame-by-frame assessment of actions by Alex Pretti and the two officers who fired 10 times shows how lethal force came to be used against a target who didn’t pose a threat.

nytimes.com

Everybody should watch this and see this woman, who has a baby in her arms and is thrust into basically a standoff, develop courage in real time.

From the minnesota community on Reddit: ST. PAUL, MN: A sobbing resident calls 911 as federal agents force their way into her home to chase down a DoorDash driver who was just trying to deliver food.

Explore this post and more from the minnesota community

reddit.com

Using facts to provide clarity. This is what good journalism is all about. “Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

Video: Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

An analysis of footage from three camera angles shows that the motorist was driving away from — not toward — a federal officer when he opened fire.

nytimes.com

Remember when “authentic” was the word of the year in 2023? That was also the first full year generative AI became a household term, and the last year authenticity still meant “human,” not “well-prompted.” #PostAuthentic #DigitalShift

‘Authentic’ Is the Word of the Year. You Read That Right

In a year dominated by artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and disingenuity, “authentic” has somehow emerged as Merriam-Webster’s word for 2023.

wired.com

After 3 years and 5,322 emails (and counting) our Encyclopedia of Political Communication is finally out at @elgarpublishing.bsky.social 📚 Three volumes ⭐ 431 entries 🎓 581 wonderful authors from across the world A very short 🧵

IC2S2 2026 registration is open! Explore the 2026 conference here ➡️ ic2s2-2026.org ✔️ Submissions open December 15th ✔️ Keynotes will be announced between now and February ✔️ Full program of selected talks and tutorials will be available in late April

🚨New pub alert!🚨 Now available open-access in @journal-of-comm.bsky.social, we (w/ @dkreiss.bsky.social, @danlane.bsky.social, & @shannimcg.bsky.social) critique political communication's "Identity Turn" and offer instead a foundation for studying #polcomm from a *group* perspective. 🧵

🔍 Insightful piece debunking some of the "mythology” behind Big Data: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #commsky #polsky #bigdata

Rethinking Scaling Up Content Analysis: A Reappraisal of Justifications and Practices for Large-Scale Content Analysis - Maximilian Linde, Chung-hong Chan, Paul Balluff, 2025

The use of automated coding procedures to scale up content analysis has risen over the last years. Using a mixed-method approach, we examine researchers’ justif...

journals.sagepub.com

Our latest paper on how #metoo got entangled in partisan discourse, explained in a two-minute AI generated video!

Jiyoun Suk@jiyoun-suk.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🚨 New paper drop! How does a social movement once started out powerful somehow turn into a partisan battle? In our new publication in @icsjournal.bsky.social, we answer this question by analyzing 83 million #MeToo tweets from 2017–2020. 1/

Timely research on news creators and their influence across the globe!

Reuters Institute@reutersinstitute.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We've just published the most comprehensive study of news creators to date covering 24 countries. Authored by Nic Newman @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social @mitalilive.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social, it identifies the most mentioned in each country 📱Report buff.ly/bL6y8Hj 🧵6 findings in thread

Open Research (OpenAI-linked research outfit) just put out a new report on using LLMs for public opinion polling that suggests they may improve response rates substantially: www.openresearchlab.org/findings/ai-...

Can Conversational AI Improve Survey Research? | Findings

Early Insights from Testing a Chat-Based Survey

openresearchlab.org

”It’s a lot easier to blame food dyes, vaccines, or lack of exercise for every health issue your family faces… It makes you think if you eliminate or do that one thing, or take a supplement instead, it will all be fine. It gives you control — a false sense of control.”

Life is Messy

Holding space for complexity in a world that loves certainty

open.substack.com

🚨New publication in Social Media + Society🚨 Candidates Be Posting: Multi-Platform Strategies and Partisan Preferences in the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections And it's open access! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Candidates Be Posting: Multi-Platform Strategies and Partisan Preferences in the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections - Josephine Lukito, Maggie Macdonald, Bin Chen, Megan A. Brown, Stephen Prochaska, Yunkang ...

In this multi-platform, comparative study, we analyze social media messages from political candidates (N = 1,517) running for Congress during the 2022 U.S. Midt...

journals.sagepub.com

🚨New Pub🚨 Media-bashing became an identity. When Trump attacked the news media on social media, how did political influencers on the left and right amplify his rhetoric? Check out our new article (w/ @yinizhang.bsky.social): www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Z8NQW...

How political influencers amplified Trump’s media-bashing rhetoric on Twitter: from synergistic echoing to strategic avoidance, countering, and retooling

Extending existing research on right-wing populism and how the news media handles right-wing populists and their media-bashing rhetoric, this study examines how such rhetoric is amplified by politi...

tandfonline.com

📣Call for Papers: CCR Special Issue on Computational Approaches to Researching Short Videos co-edited by Jing Zeng, @lrossi.bsky.social, and @rupertkiddle.com Abstract deadline: 25-Jul-2025 See announcement for more information - journal.computationalcommunication.org/announcement...

💡 Ever wondered how social media and digital technology shapes our democracy? Join our team @CSMaP_NYU as a Research Engingeer and help us build the tools that power cutting-edge research on the digital public sphere. 🚀 Apply now! apply.interfolio.com/165833

NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics@csmapnyu.org · last yr.

🚨 Job Alert! 🚨 Come join our team studying the impact of digital media on democracy! We're hiring a Technical Lead - Research Engineering to help us build and maintain the robust data infrastructure and custom tools that power our research. More info + apply: apply.interfolio.com/165833

Reading Careless People makes me appreciative of @bsky.app and the AT Protocol. The open social web feels like this bright light in a sea of mercurial CEOs. Seeing teams like @graze.social and @stream.place build on it, solidifies this belief for me. Grateful to be here 💕

Couldn’t agree more! @shannimcg.bsky.social's amazing talk at UB last Friday and this clip really helped clarify the current presidential-press relationship for me.

Sarah J. Jackson@sjjphd.bsky.social · last yr.

I know I’m annoying with this. But the immediate shift to threat and power wielding, to belittling and gaslighting, the lean forward in the posture, the cadence shift when the interviewer says “it was photoshopped” - abuser tactics 101. When he says “you’re not being very nice,” DARVO 101.

🚨 New paper out in @journalqd.bsky.social! 🚨 How do different social media platforms connect to each other? In our latest study, we propose that social media can be understood as a system made up of differentiated yet interconnected platforms, shaped by how users share information. #socialmedia🧵

🌟pub🌟 "Communicative AI in the scientific public sphere" is out in Telematics & Informatics! w/ @yinizhang.bsky.social Jiawei Liu & Yukyung Yang We examine public discussions on generative AI tools from both cognitive and affective dimensions. first 50 copies 👇 authors.elsevier.com/a/1kmCI2dUkY...

Over the past two decades, online news headlines have become longer, more negative, and increasingly use features linked to clickbait. This shift is widespread across outlets of all political leanings and journalistic quality. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The evolution of online news headlines - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - The evolution of online news headlines

nature.com

Columbia grad student with a green card and a pregnant US citizen wife, abducted by ICE because of his political organizing, and now his lawyers can't find him. Hey, @schumer.senate.gov. This is your constituent. Bring him back home.

Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 2y ago

UPDATE—Mahmoud's attorney says they do NOT know where he is. They were first told he was sent to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, NJ. But when his 8-month-pregnant wife tried to visit him, she was told he's not there. They've received reports he may be sent as far away as Louisiana.

Reminder: When a person or institution you hate is targeted for illiberal persecution by an aspiring authoritarian, you have to defend them EVEN IF you don't like them. It doesn't matter if you don't like campus protestors or Columbia or the law firms. We must defend them or we're all at risk next.