📣 Extension of Deadline for Travel Grants Applications!
We invite applications for travel grants from ICA attendees without sufficient funding. These grants are especially directed at students and junior scholars from Tier B/C.
Apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Posts by Ernesto de León 🟥
The persuasive impact of AI chatbots on voters.
The effects found are large but likely also an effect of the design.
Regardless, AI is part of election campaigns now.
My comments include reference to recent @algosoc.org data
@ernesto-deleon.com @favstats.eu
www.newscientist.com/article/2507...
Fabulous online seminar organized by @algosoc.org
Algorithmic Effects on #Elections: Using Social Media Data Donations to Study Elections
🗓️ Fri 12 Dec, 14:00–15:30 CET
@ernesto-deleon.com @favstats.eu @antmandan.bsky.social @simonchauchard.bsky.social
Registration ⬇️
algosoc.org/events/algos...
We’ve assembled a stellar line-up of scholars to discuss how digital trace data donations can help us study elections across a wide variety of platforms and contexts! @claesdevreese.bsky.social @favstats.eu @algosoc.org
Register here and join: lnkd.in/eUZZDCk4
10% of surveyed Dutch citizens told us they are likely to ask AI for election advice. They shouldn't!
This is especially problematic as we know that the people who usually consult advice applications are undecided and are doing so right before casting their vote.
algosoc.org/results/1-in...
As a scholar I rarely offer electoral guidance. But today I do:
DO NOT USE AI CHATBOTS AS YOUR VOTE ADVICE APPLICATION AHEAD OF (THE DUTCH) ELECTIONS
Full of errors, bias and lack of transparency.
@ernesto-deleon.com @favstats.eu @theoaraujo.bsky.social and🙋unpack why
algosoc.org/results/1-in...
Our CampAIgn Tracker got featured in this brilliant piece of investigative journalism by @groene.nl. They reveal the prompts behind an extremely disturbing AI-powered campaign by Dutch politicians that we find is one of the top producers & spreaders of AI-generated content in this election #tk2025.
Op sociale media delen PVV-fanaccounts levensechte AI-beelden, veelal van knappe, blonde vrouwen die worden bedreigd door migranten. Deze pagina’s blijken te worden beheerd door minstens twee PVV-Kamerleden.
👉 buff.ly/MFNFcU3
🚀 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/
If you ever wanted to delve into the AI-generated world of far-right imagination.. now you can.
See our CampAIgn Tracker 🇳🇱 here:
www.campaigntracker.nl/en/
#tk2025
President @realDonaldTrump showing President Zelenskyy and President Macron his 4 More Years hat 🤣🇺🇸
Showing the endangered leader of an invaded country my hats
🚀 New postdoc position for Platform Data & Computational Social Science
Join us to drive @gesis.org' efforts around the Digital Services Act (DSA) and conduct research with online platform data
💼 TV-L EG 14 | Location: Cologne
📌 Apply now: www.gesis.org/en/institute...
#DSA #CSS #DataScience
Book cover for “The Psychology of Attack Politics"
This bad boy is finally out - and it is a beaut!
Fantastic collab with @lukotto.bsky.social & @cvargiu.bsky.social
Quick thread about some key findings in the book. Link to buy the book with 20% discount at the end of the thread
As GPT-5 announcement is underway, know that a majority of Dutch people already make use of ChatGPT (and similar Gen AI models),
43% percent even say they use it "often" (5-7 on our 1-7 scale) -> the graph below
For your correlation ≠ causation collection
We've been tracking the rise of ChatGPT use in the Netherlands!
Our third update of the AI Opinion Monitor shows a meteoric rise in use amongst youth, with 43% reporting to use it regularly.
Check it out yourself: monitor.algosoc.org
Data we are collecting with @algosoc.org in the Netherlands shows similar and even starker trends and age gaps.
Everyone is using ChatGPT more. But 82% of 18-29 year olds now report having used in the past year whereas a still sizeable but comparatively lower amount of 65+ year olds have (19%).
Honoured to have been awarded this year's ASCoR Baschwitz Faculty Article of the Year award for my work with Mykola Makhortykh and Silke Adam!
Check out the paper, "Hyperpartisan, Alternative, and Conspiracy Media Users: An Anti-Establishment Portrait", below!
Alexandra Schwinges receives ASCoR Baschwitz Young Scholar Award
🎉 We #congratulate @alexschwinges.bsky.social and @ernesto-deleon.com, winners of the ASCoR Baschwitz Awards 2024! Each year, the Baschwitz Article of the Year and the Young Scholar Award are presented during the Departmental Meeting of Communication Science.
Scholar, journalist, policy maker, NGO working on digital technologies and democracy topics?
Check out this exciting Fellowship program at the @ddc-sdu.bsky.social.
Flexible conditions, inspiring environment, great colleagues.
🗓️ DL: September 15 (check instructions ⬇️)
www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...
Another windowless room (but this time way bigger) in which I got to present first preliminary findings on how strategic politicians can *actually* be about their emotions in election campaigns
📷 @amplanitzer.bsky.social
@mshu.bsky.social & @jbgruber.bsky.social presenting great work showing that scraping TikTok yields similar results to using the API (although it is a lot slower and doesn't work as well with larger accounts).
Stellar panel on data donations at #ica25 @lionw.bsky.social presenting on across platform sample biases, Yangliu Fan @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social on sequence mining in digital trace data, and @ernesto-deleon.com on tailored recruitment messages. Full room shows how important #datadonation is
More on data donation and tracking data. Don’t miss this panel #ica25
@ernesto-deleon.com @dougaparry.bsky.social @dscheykopp.bsky.social Yangliu Fan @lionw.bsky.social & more
@ascor.bsky.social @algosoc.org @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social
Thanks Curd!
Happening now #ICA25:
@ernesto-deleon.com presenting work on influencer-hyperpartisan info networks. Shows the importance of sourcing and linking to a wider variety of sources, all serving to propagate anti-system narratives.
Awesome stuff by these colleagues! Right up my alley. 👏
And I am finally on Bluesky 🥳!!
In this role, I’ll be working to create spaces and mechanisms to support students and early career scholars from around the world - a very vulnerable group as science comes increasingly under attack.
If you have ideas on how ICA can better support you, I’d love to hear from you!
Happy to be coming onboard as co-chair of the ICA @icasecac.bsky.social, representing student and early career interests at the ICA board level.
I am really looking forward to working with @danijaradent.bsky.social and the rest of the SECAC members over the coming years! #ica25