The third cohort of our MSc AI & Government and MSc AI & Sustainable Development starts this week at Birmingham. Seeing students grow is the best part of the job. Here is to a new academic year. Ad astra per aspera! #AI #sciencerocks
Chris Arnold
@chrisguarnold.bsky.social
Associate Professor in Government and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Birmingham. Data addict. Visualisation enthusiast. I ♥ institutions.
We had an awesome project meeting over the week. So much looking forward to keep working on this. #sciencerocks
Andreas Küpfer@ankuepfer.bsky.social · 2w ago📽️What do MPs communicate beyond their words? Our DFG project (w/ @chrisguarnold.bsky.social + @pluggedchris.bsky.social) studies not just what MPs say, but how and why they say it: voice, gestures, eye contact. We draw on 30,000+ hours of video from the German Bundestag and all 16 state parliaments.
4 days left to Apply!
Marius Sältzer@msaeltzer.bsky.social · 2mo agoJob Alert! We now have another position in computational social science. In the context of an interdisciplinary method center, we offer a 4+1 year 100% postdoc position with no teaching! If you have any questions, send me a PM. uol.de/en/job/postd...
VideoParl is live: videoparl.github.io — our #DFG project with @ankuepfer.bsky.social and @pluggedchris.bsky.social on #multimodal analysis of parliamentary debate. 30,000+ hours of video, all 16 Länder plus the Bundestag, 2005–2023. Pitch, face, gesture and text at the speech level.
VideoParl — Analysis of Parliamentary Debates Using Multimodal Data
VideoParl is a DFG-funded research project analyzing text, audio and video from German parliamentary debates.
videoparl.github.io
On my way back from #polmeth2026. It was truly a blast. Thankful for the community. A shoutout to all organisers. Right now, I am really tired and desperate for the summer break, but incredibly motivated. Looking forward to the months ahead. #sciencerocks
When the far right enters parliament, established parties go high on average. But right after a far-right speech, they answer madly in anger: in words, voice, and body. Joint work with @ankuepfer.bsky.social and @pluggedchris.bsky.social presented at #PolMeth2026 at Michigan State.
Reviewers asked for #EyeTracking study on image depth and object prominence in political images. @ankuepfer.bsky.social PAP now on OSF. Took real work to wrap heads around eyetracking, but genuinely excited to finally run it. Sessions running now! osf.io/bxpgd/overview #OpenScience #sciencerocks
OSF
osf.io
I have three working papers at the @epssnet.bsky.social in Belfast: (1) *Far-Right Speeches and Emotional Contagion in Parliament: Sequential and Multimodal Evidence from Germany* with Andreas Kuepfer and Christian Stecker (Thursday 10:50, Lisburn, Hilton) virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/75765/...
OA Virtual conferences
virtual.oxfordabstracts.com
1/3 A minimum participation rule in a multilateral treaty does not just set a ratification bar — it actively pulls countries across it. New paper out with Carsten Schulz (Cambridge) in Journal of Conflict Resolution 70(6), pp. 1018–1043.
Reaching for the Threshold: How Minimum Participation Rules Facilitate Multilateral Treaty Ratification - Christian Arnold, Carsten-Andreas Schulz, 2026
Uncertainty about other states’ willingness to cooperate often impedes collective action. Many multilateral agreements address this by incorporating Minimum Par...
doi.org
I was at at #BISA2026 for a roundtable on AI and research. We agreed: #LLM based #AI will fundamentally change #internationalrelations and the discipline studying it. Teaching, methods, what counts as scholarship. All of it.
A single trigger word ( #Rwanda, #Brexit, #Feminism) causally increases engagement by 3–13 %pts and negative sentiment by up to 5.5 %pts. New paper with Dimosthenis Antypas, @nedjmaou-nlp.bsky.social , Carla Perez-Almendros & Jose Camacho-Collados at #ACMWebSci26.
Just gave a talk at the University of Western Ontario (work w/ @ankuepfer.bsky.social & @pluggedchris.bsky.social). Key finds: object prominence in images matters; GOP more often sidelines women in ads than Democrats; #AfD populism is scripted, not spontaneous. #ImageAsData #CSS
I just presented recent research (with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social) on the benefits of integrating workflow management systems in computational social science studies at @parliview.bsky.social workshop at UCD in Dublin! #multimodaldata #replication #researchinfrastructure #CSS
ParliView project@parliview.bsky.social · 5mo agoAndreas Kupfer bringing order and replicability to computational social science pipelines with snakemake with application to 30k parliamentary speech videos in Germany @ankuepfer.bsky.social
🥳 @comptext.bsky.social conference 2026 at @unibirmingham.bsky.social is over! I had the chance to give a 3-hour workshop on high-performance computing for computational social scientists, during which we covered cluster access hurdles, hands-on sessions, and workflow management tools. #COMPTEXT2026
What an epic dinner at @comptext.bsky.social yesterday in the Cricket stadium! Clearly next level. All praise to Aditi Dutta for scouting this one out. #comptext2026 #sciencerocks
You must all be en route to @comptext.bsky.social now. Excited to welcome you all to campus. Workshops look 💯. Panels 💯 +1. We could not ask for more from the weather. Really looking forward to welcoming you all. Bon voyage! #sciencerocks #comptext2026 www.comptextconference.org/8th-annual-c...
8th Annual Conference 2026 - The COMPTEXT Association
8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Welcome to COMPTEXT 2026 — the Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the Quantitative and Computational Analysis of Text, Image, Audio, and Video...
comptextconference.org
Final countdown to COMPTEXT 2026 April 23–25 at the University of Birmingham. Great workshops, sessions & conversations ahead. We will shamelessly show off our Teaching & Learning building. Safe travels! www.comptextconference.org/8th-annual-c... #COMPTEXT2026 #TextAnalysis @comptext.bsky.social
8th Annual Conference 2026 - The COMPTEXT Association
8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Welcome to COMPTEXT 2026 — the Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the Quantitative and Computational Analysis of Text, Image, Audio, and Video...
comptextconference.org
⏳Final reminder: Registration for #COMPTEXT2026 closes today. 📍University of Birmingham 📅23–25 April 2026 Workshops (23 April): bit.ly/4bW0AZN Registration: bit.ly/4v4ghXC If you have trouble meeting the registration deadline, contact the organisers: comptext26(at)comptextconference.org
@comptext.bsky.social registrations are live. Go and tell your friends. #comptext2026 #sciencerocks www.comptextconference.org/8th-annual-c...
8th Annual Conference 2026 - The COMPTEXT Association
8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Call for papers: 8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Welcome to COMPTEXT 2026 — the Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the...
comptextconference.org
⏬📽️Excited to talk about (1) studying videos from complex local meetings (w/ @mirya.bsky.social + @simko.bsky.social), (2) substantively using eye contact seeking in legislative debate videos, and (3) workflow managers to process video data (w/ @chrisguarnold.bsky.social + @pluggedchris.bsky.social)!
MZES Social Science Data Lab@mzes-ssdl.bsky.social · 7mo ago🚨 Upcoming: "Politics in Action: Studying Multimodal Data from Local Meetings to National Parliaments" 👤 @ankuepfer.bsky.social (TU Darmstadt & University of Birmingham) 🗓️ Wed, March 11, 13:45-15:15 CET 📺 Register for the live stream: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
![2026-03-11 | Input talk | Andreas Küpfer (TU Darmstadt & University of Birmingham)
Politics in Action: Studying Multimodal Data from Local Meetings to National Parliaments
Hybrid event [A5, 6, Room A231 + Zoom]
März 11, 2026, 13:45-15:15
Abstract
The analysis of multimodal political communication enables political scientists to study how politicians and parties behave in previously untapped ways. While large volumes of audiovisual data are increasingly available, these data are typically unstructured and vary substantially in quality, requiring robust and carefully designed processing pipelines. This talk guides through the challenges and opportunities of analysing political video data across institutional contexts. Analysing videos from local political meetings, including US school boards and state supreme courts, allows the generation of features such as transcriptions, gendered speech shares, and agenda items. However, the often semi-professional production quality of such recordings limits the systematic use of visual information. By contrast, legislative debate recordings are typically standardised and post-edited, enabling the leverage of visual features such as eye contact seeking to study the emergence of dominant behaviour during parliamentary speech. Scaling multimodal processing and feature extraction workflows across heterogeneous institutional contexts is, therefore, crucial. It enables the systematic study of political communication across levels of government and over longer time periods.
Presenter
Andreas Küpfer is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the DFG-funded project "Analysing Legislative Politics with Aligned Text, Audio and Image Data" at the Institute for Political Science of the Technical University of Darmstadt, holding a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Mannheim. He works at the intersection of Data Science and Political Science. His research focuses on (multimodal) political communication, combining computational with tradi…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oizrkjzyr6vekl76tjctghcl/bafkreiawvyqdytqoc4essm7llpzps33qsxpv6spg6i4fi5fk7qy33p63ye)
Florian G. Kern@floriangkern.bsky.social · 7mo ago@chrisguarnold.bsky.social & I had a fun, productive kick-off for our ESRC ⭐ ♻️ RecAIqual ♻️ ⭐ project “Exploring the Re-Analysis and Recycling of Qualitative Data with Machine Learning”. We discussed how multimodal ML/AI can complement qual research& secondary data analysis+where humans are peerless.
@chrisguarnold.bsky.social & I had a fun, productive kick-off for our ESRC ⭐ ♻️ RecAIqual ♻️ ⭐ project “Exploring the Re-Analysis and Recycling of Qualitative Data with Machine Learning”. We discussed how multimodal ML/AI can complement qual research& secondary data analysis+where humans are peerless.
🏴 #ManifestoWeek in Wales: we digitised 29 Senedd manifestos (99–21) & extracted 10,000+ pledges using AI. Finding: Parties increasingly promised *more*, not less. 👇 blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal... #WelshPolitics #Senedd #sciencerocks Daksh Dewgun @jaclarner.bsky.social @frasmcm.bsky.social
blogs.cardiff.ac.uk
I feel these takes are often narrow regarding what includes social science. I am sympathetic to the idea of qualitative research and fieldwork becoming rel more weighty as AI improves. ATM, these changes seem most drastic for quant analysis. What really changed for qualitative inquiry, yet?(1/2)
Alexander Kustov@akoustov.bsky.social · 7mo agoSorry, Bluesky, but I have to say it: AI can already do social science research better than most professors with PhDs. And, for the first time in my life, I really have no idea what happens in five years. Things are changing already, we just need to wake up.
If you want to learn more about our MSc AI & Government or MSc AI & Sustainable Development, join us on Tues,27.1.26 (4-5pm UK). Together with student rep Daksh Dewgun you can ask us anything. Register: pg@contacts.bham.ac.uk #AIforgood #datascience #computationalsocialscience #sciencerocks
Term has kicked off! Teaching my 2 favourite modules again: AI and Global Challenges & AI for Government and Public Policy. We bring together coding, ML & AI with domain expertise from Government.Privilege to teach such a talented&driven crowd!#ComputationalSocialScience #DataForGood #sciencerocks
New homepage online: www.chrisguarnold.github.io Everything you already new about me. Hosted on GitHub. Built with Jekyll. No cookies, no trackers, no WordPress updates at 2am. #sciencerocks
chrisguarnold.github.io
The weather between Cardiff and Birmingham is like somewhere close to the walls of Mordor today. Lambas almost running out. Please send hope...
How to analyse audio, text, and video data for more than 15,000h of German parliamentary speech? For our #DFG project, we spent last year building compute infrastructure. Pushing ▶️ on the server soon. First results in summer #PoliticalScience #ComputationalSocialScience #sciencerocks #watchthisspace
