OUT TODAY! 🥳 A straightforward, non-technical guide to thinking like a quantitative social scientist. Written for students, journalists, and curious citizens. A lot of thought and heart went into this. I genuinely hope folks enjoy it!
Erika Franklin Fowler
@efranklinfowler.bsky.social
Prof @ Wesleyan U; Co-Director of Wesleyan Media Project (@wesmediaproject.bsky.social & mediaproject.wesleyan.edu); policomm, polisci, public opinion & health policy scholar; Collaborative on Media & Messaging for Health & Social Policy (commhsp.org)
Great thread relevant for #wesgov214 #wesgov372 and #wesgov366 🧵⬇️
Brendan Nyhan@brendannyhan.bsky.social · last wk.🚨New Science Advances🚨 Untrustworthy sources on Facebook and Instagram in 2020: Concentrated exposure but no attitudinal effects www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... -Exposure very low but highly concentrated -Reducing exposure by ~70% for months had no measurable effects *even among frequent consumers*
Midterms are always referendums on incumbents, but the president’s party typically puts distance between themselves and the incumbent. That pattern has never held for Trump and in fact seems to be even more pronounced this cycle. This and more in our latest report ⬇️⬇️
Wesleyan Media Project@wesmediaproject.bsky.social · 2mo ago💥NEW WMP report: Spending in the 2025-2026 midterm election cycle surpassed $2.2 billion in House, Senate, & Governor races, & the federal messaging is predominantly about Trump. mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/release-0618... @efranklinfowler.bsky.social @mikefranz.bsky.social @tnridout.bsky.social
Midterms are always referendums on incumbents, but the president’s party typically puts distance between themselves and the incumbent. That pattern has never held for Trump and in fact seems to be even more pronounced this cycle. This and more in our latest report ⬇️⬇️
Wesleyan Media Project@wesmediaproject.bsky.social · 2mo ago💥NEW WMP report: Spending in the 2025-2026 midterm election cycle surpassed $2.2 billion in House, Senate, & Governor races, & the federal messaging is predominantly about Trump. mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/release-0618... @efranklinfowler.bsky.social @mikefranz.bsky.social @tnridout.bsky.social
Hey #ica26, I recently wrote a little something that I believe might be interesting to many. Over years I tried to find a way to properly keep up to date with new journal publications across those journals that are most important to me... (1/n)
Nerd achievement unlocked. ✅ Growing up watching The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, being interviewed on the PBS NewsHour last night was a pinch-me moment. We discussed Congress's history with members missing votes — and my research on abstention. (Not everything made the cut — but my cameo survived.)
Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.'s absence raises broader questions about Congress
Primary voters in New Jersey on Tuesday finalized the race for one of the nation’s most competitive seats, and one of the most unusual, because the incumbent Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. has not been ...
pbs.org
NSF uses staffing cuts to strip Inspector General's office of its ability to investigate research misconduct www.science.org/content/arti...
Exclusive: NSF watchdog unit is no longer investigating research misconduct
New policy hands universities the reins in probing allegations against faculty
science.org
Almost $2B in 2025-2026 midterm spending so far. Although AI use in ads is very challenging to track because the federal govt and many states do not require disclosure, we have identified at least $20M in ads that have confirmed AI use. This is surely an undercount, but it’s a start. More below ⬇️
Wesleyan Media Project@wesmediaproject.bsky.social · 2mo ago💥NEW WMP report: Past Two Weeks Sees $210 Million in Ad Spending; $20 Million Spent on AI Ads This Cycle Full report: mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/releases-052... Report by: @tnridout.bsky.social, @efranklinfowler.bsky.social, and @mikefranz.bsky.social @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social
To add, Kentucky has a disclosure requirement for AI in political ads but it is already being ignored. www.lpm.org/news/2026-05...
AI ‘deepfake’ ads attack Massie and Gallrein in northern Kentucky GOP primary
PAC ads are using AI deepfakes to attack Kentucky GOP congressional candidates Thomas Massie and Ed Gallrein. Is that legal in Kentucky?
lpm.org
Erika Franklin Fowler@efranklinfowler.bsky.social · 2mo agoAlmost $2B in 2025-2026 midterm spending so far. Although AI use in ads is very challenging to track because the federal govt and many states do not require disclosure, we have identified at least $20M in ads that have confirmed AI use. This is surely an undercount, but it’s a start. More below ⬇️
Almost $2B in 2025-2026 midterm spending so far. Although AI use in ads is very challenging to track because the federal govt and many states do not require disclosure, we have identified at least $20M in ads that have confirmed AI use. This is surely an undercount, but it’s a start. More below ⬇️
Wesleyan Media Project@wesmediaproject.bsky.social · 2mo ago💥NEW WMP report: Past Two Weeks Sees $210 Million in Ad Spending; $20 Million Spent on AI Ads This Cycle Full report: mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/releases-052... Report by: @tnridout.bsky.social, @efranklinfowler.bsky.social, and @mikefranz.bsky.social @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social
Interesting thread 🧵 for #wesgov214 ⬇️
William J. Brady@williambrady.bsky.social · 2mo ago✨New paper out @nature.com ✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we built ourselves. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional (IME) content—and does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵🔗 👇
We have *never* before seen consumer sentiment this low.
NEW PUBLICATION🚨 "My party is targeted way more than yours with misinformation" 🎯 The hostile misinformation effect! Citizens believe their own political party is much more targeted with misinformation than the political opponent. #openaccess #commsky #ica26 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The Hostile Misinformation Effect: How Ideological Congruence Drives the Assessment of Misinformation Targets
Misinformation is increasingly seen as a key challenge to democratic societies. Our study is one of the first to shed light onto the citizen perspective when it comes to the perceived target of mis...
tandfonline.com
APSA Statement on the Dismissal of the National Science Board
APSA Statement on the Dismissal of the National Science Board
The American Political Science Association (APSA) condemns the Trump Administration’s recent dismissal of all 22 members of the National Science Board (NSB), the independent advisory and oversight body for the National Science Foundation (NSF). This abrupt decision was carried out without any initial justification and may violate the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, the statute that established both NSF and the National Science Board.
politicalsciencenow.com
Stunning dollar amounts are no longer surprising, but $700 million in two months is a LOT of spending! More on spending in recent and upcoming primaries in our report ⬇️ #2026midterms #commsky #polisky
Wesleyan Media Project@wesmediaproject.bsky.social · 3mo ago💥NEW WMP report: 2026 Midterm Political Ad Spending Reaches $1.7 Billion Full report: mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/releases-051... Report by: @tnridout.bsky.social @efranklinfowler.bsky.social @mikefranz.bsky.social @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social #2026election #politicalads
There is still time to submit a proposal to this special issue of @jhppl. If you are a researcher who studies organizing or if you are an organizer who has something to say—this is a space for you. Submit!
Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law@jhppl.bsky.social · 3mo ago⏰ CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS UPCOMING DEADLINE ⏰. Submissions for the JHPPL, "Community Organizing, Power, and Politics, special issue edited by @povertyscholar.bsky.social, Megan Reynolds, and @sarahgollust.bsky.social are due May 15!! Submission link here: read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/pages/...
The Draft Volume of the APSA AI Task Force, cochaired by Josh Tucker and me, is now available. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, POLITICS, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE will be published by Cambridge Press later this year, but the draft chapters are available today: apsanet.org/wp-content/u...
“…the classic problems of social science — interviewer effects, audience design, demand characteristics — have arrived in AI research. The AI knows it's being studied. And it's adjusting accordingly. We may need to start study AI more like we study people.” Important thread on AI audits 🧵 ⬇️
Petter Törnberg@pettertornberg.com · 3mo agoLLMs have been widely reported as left-wing biased. The finding has shaped policy and debate — with Trump banning "Woke AI". Our new paper challenges this story. It's not that the models are biased. It's that they think the auditor is. 🧵 w/ michelleschimmel.bsky.socialarxiv.org/pdf/2604.27633
Pertinent to #wesgov214 discussions
News Literacy Project@newslit.org · 3mo ago"For the 1st time in the Index’s 25-year history, more than half the world’s countries now fall into the 'difficult' or 'very serious' categories for press freedom." The U.S. fell 7 spots to 64th in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index. Read more: go.newslit.org/25YearLow
I've got a paper "Bipartisan-cited science is rare, unevenly distributed, and disproportionately influential" published today at @pnas.org with @dashunwang.bsky.social. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Important point we’ll be discussing in the closing days of #wesgov214
Petter Törnberg@pettertornberg.com · 3mo agoSocial media is no longer social. Most of it is passive viewing of videos and pictures from people we've never met. But we're still studying social media like it's 2010. We've entered the post-social media era — and research needs to catch up. osf.io/preprints/so... preprint w/ Richard Rogers
More evidence for #wesgov214 discussions ⬇️
Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 4mo agoA small fraction of online actors exerts outsized influence over what the public sees, believes, and discusses. In a new paper, we trace how social media influencers turn fringe claims into viral narratives by exploiting a feedback loop between influencers, algorithms & crowds osf.io/preprints/ps...
My take on how NOT to restore trust in #highered “A lack of public engagement & an air of cloistered privilege are a big part of why so many people now view universities with suspicion. Retreating further behind the gates will make a bad situation much worse.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/o...
Opinion | Yale Has Come Up With a Surefire Way to Make a Terrible Situation Worse
nytimes.com
Thread 🧵 relevant for #wesgov214
Robb Willer@robbwiller.bsky.social · 4mo agoClimate change impacts are here, but public support for action remains polarized. Which climate messages move people? In a ~13,500-person megastudy, we tested 10 of the most-cited messages. Six increased pro-environmental attitudes in the U.S.—but only by 1–4 percentage points. 🧵
Good thread on influencers 🧵⬇️ Also adding evidence from a related paper by @eunjikim.bsky.social: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... #wesgov214
How Social Media Creators Shape Mass Politics: A Field Experiment during the 2024 US Elections
Political apathy and skepticism of traditional authorities are increasingly common, but social media creators (SMCs) capture the public's attention. Yet whether
papers.ssrn.com
Professor Amanda Sturgill@drsturg.bsky.social · 4mo agoA good number of Americans now get their news from influencers instead of journalists. Most of these influencers have zero editorial oversight, no fact-checkers and work alone. Here's what that might mean for democracy. 🧵
Had a great conversation about my new book with Wesleyan's Leo Bader on New Books in Political Science (and New Books in South Asian Studies). Ordinary Rebels is out now with OUP! @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social @oxfordacademic.bsky.social
Kolby Hanson, "Ordinary Rebels: Rank-And-File Militants Between War and Peace" (Oxford UP, 2025) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
An "internal model at OpenAI" has solved 5 Erdos problems, all reported in the paper below. All of those have now been listed as Category 1 = Fully AI-generated solutions here: github.com/teorth/erdos...
Short proofs in combinatorics, probability and number theory II
We give a quintet of proofs resulting from questions posed by Erdős. These questions concern ordinary lines in planar point sets, sequences with uniformly small exponential sums, $K_4$-free $4$-critical graphs with few chords in any cycle, a counterexample to a "fewnomial" version of the Erdős--Turán discrepancy bound, and a finiteness theorem for integers $n$ such that $n-a k^2$ is prime for all $k\leq \sqrt{n/a}$ coprime to $n$ (for fixed $a\in\mathbb Z_+$). Each proof is due to an internal model at OpenAI.
arxiv.org
We do now know the NSF is proceeding with dissolving the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division. Congress might reverse it, but it is now already underway. YOU CAN NO LONGER SUBMIT FUNDING PROPOSALS TO SBE. Program officers are being moved to different parts of the agency. Call your Congress member
Jennifer N. Victor@jenvictor.bsky.social · 4mo agoNot the main point here, but I do not ever recall a federal agency making significant programmatic and personnel changes as a result of the PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL, which does not change any law or funding allocations. Congress hasn't acted yet. What are we doing here?