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Schedule Overview

 Alumni CenterShillman 320Snell 90
9am – 10:30 amPanel: Politics in Full Color: Image Analysis in Political SciencePanel: Collective Action under Autocracies
10:30 am – 11 amBreak
11am – 12:30 pmPanel: Methods for Computational Social SciencePanel: My Way or the Highway: Polarized Politics
12:30 pm – 1:45pmBox lunches available in
Behrakis 105
1:45pm – 3:30 pmPanel: Current Directions in Text as DataPanel: Coalitions, Factions, and PartiesPanel: This Panel is (about) Fake News!
3:30 pm – 4 pmBreak
4 pm – 5:30 pmPanel: Ideology & Public OpinionPanel: International RelationsPanel: #FakeNews and Social Media
 Fenway Center, 77 Saint Stephen St
6 pm – 7pmWelcome: David Lazer
Keynote: Gary King
7 pm – 9pmReception

Conference Description

The data and methodologies available to social scientists have exploded with the emergence of vast archives of passive data collection, large scale online experimentation, and innovative uses of simulation. These data are of a larger magnitude and methods are of a greater computational complexity than approaches that have dominated political science for the last 50 years. This offers the potential for rich insights into society at scale, while simultaneously introducing new ethical and infrastructural challenges. In parallel, the information and communication technologies that have driven these changes are also driving changes in politics, around the world, that require study. In order to understand the political world, it is increasingly important to gain access to the political communication and behavior occurring online.

This conference is sponsored by the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks at Northeastern, the Network Science Institute at Northeastern; the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University; and Sage Publishing. Special thanks to our Organizing Committee and Host Committee.

Panels

Politics in Full Color: Image Analysis in Political Science
Alumni Center, 9 am – 10:30 am

Prima Facie: A Pipeline for Image Analysis
Stefan Wojcik, Computational Social Scientist, Pew Research Center

Demographics, Violence, Bandwagoning, and Psychic Numbing: Measuring Protest Dynamics with Geolocated Images
Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, Assistant Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Photographic home styles in Congress:
Visual representational styles in the digital age
Lefteris Anastasopoulos, Microsoft Visiting Professor, Princeton University & University of Georgia

Roads to Rule, Roads to Rebel: Relational State Capacity and Conflict in Africa
Philipp Hunziker, Postdoctoral Fellow, Northeastern University; Carl Müller-Crepon, ETH Zurich; Lars-Erik Cederman,  ETH Zurich

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Collective Action under Autocracies
Shillman 320, 9am – 10:30 am

When Autocracies Threaten Citizens With Violence: Evidence from China
Erin Carter, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California

Can the Mass Public Deliberate in a Semi-Authoritarian Setting? — Examining Deliberative Reasoning in Macau’s Deliberative Poll
Kaiping Chen, Doctoral Candidate, Stanford University

Peers and Protest
Nick Eubank, Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University

Online Dissent in an Absolute Monarchy:  The Effect of Repression on Key Opinion Leaders in the Saudi Twittersphere
Alexandra Siegel, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University; Jennifer Pan, Assistant Professor, Stanford University.

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Methods for Computational Social Science
Alumni Center, 11 am – 12:30 pm

Record Linkage as Prediction: Using Machine Learning Ensembles to Link Administrative Data
Soumyajit Mazumder, Doctoral Candidate, Harvard University

What are behavioral data good for? Triangulating political media exposure from behavioral and self-reported measures of political information exposure
Ericka Menchen-Trevino, American University; Magdalena Wojcieszak, University of California at Davis; Brian Weeks, University of Michigan; Kurt Wirth, American University

Disambiguating Identities and Affiliations in the FEC Campaign Contribution Database
Carolina Mattsson, Doctoral Candidate, Northeastern University

Detecting Heterogeneity and Inferring Latent Roles in Longitudinal Networks
Benjamin Campbell, Doctoral Candidate, The Ohio State University

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My Way or the Highway:  Polarized Politics
Shillman 320, 11 am – 12:30 pm

The Social Origins of Political Polarization
Jaemin Lee, Duke University

Supply and Demand Side Drivers of Political Polarization in Televised Media
Dylan Walker, Assistant Professor, Boston University

The Light and Dark sides of Bubbles: Deliberation and Hate Online
Nick Beauchamp, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Northeastern University

When Groups Fall Apart: A Study of Transnational Polarization with Twitter from the Arab Uprisings
Robert Kubinec,Postdoctoral Researcher, Princeton University

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Current Directions in Text as Data
Alumni Center, 1:45 pm – 3:30 pm

Political Style at Westminster: The Changing Role of Seniority in Making Members of Parliament as Boring As Ever
Arthur Spirling, Professor,New York University

Measuring the nature and contents of speech: a new approach using distributed word representations
Maurits van der Veen, Associate Professor, William & Mary

How diplomats use frames:  How Diplomats Use Frames: Evidence from the U.S. Case, 1861-1985
Heather-Leigh Ba, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of Missouri

Finding Simple Patterns in Complex Political Movements
Laura Nelson, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University

Matching with Text Data: An Experimental Evaluation of Methods for
Matching Documents and of Measuring Match Quality
Reagan Mozer, Harvard Statistics; Luke Miratrix, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Aaron Kaufman, Harvard Government; L. Jason Anastasopoulos, University of Georgia

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Coalitions, Factions, and Parties
Shillman 320, 1:45 pm – 3:30 pm

Shifting Frames, Shifting Policy
Kelsey Shoub, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Virginia

Using Networks and Text Analysis to Study Party Factions in Congress
Rachel Blum, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Miami University of Ohio

Social Media and the Rise of Dark Horse Candidates
Yotam Shmargad, Assistant Professor, University of Arizona

Talk is Cheap? Examining Inter-Party Communication for Anticipating Coalition Participation
Mariken van der Velden, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Zurich

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This Panel is (about) Fake News!
Snell 90, 1:45 pm – 3:30 pm

Can Fact-checking Prevent Political Lying? How?
Chloe Lim, Doctoral Candidate, Stanford University

Fact Checking in the Wild–Social Influences and Effects
Drew Margolin, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

Adventures in Classifying Climate Change Misinformation
Travis Coan, Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter

Susceptibility to partisan misinformation is explained by lack of analytic thinking rather than motivated reasoning
David Rand, Associate Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Science, MIT; Gordon Pennycook; University of Regina

Semantic and Topical Structures of Fake and Real News
Leah Windsor, Research Assistant Professor, The University of Memphis, Institute for Intelligent Systems

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Ideology & Public Opinion
Alumni Center, 4 pm – 5:30 pm

An Automated Method to Estimate Survey Question Bias
Aaron Kaufman, Doctoral Candidate, Harvard University

Panem et Circenses: The Persuasive Effect of Soft News in Berlusconi’s Italy
Alessandro Vecchiato, Doctoral Candidate, New York University

Mapping Conceptual Networks: Modeling Political Reasoning
Sarah Shugars, Doctoral Candidate, Network Science Institute, Northeastern University; Nick Beauchamp, Northeastern University

Clustering Ideological Writings by Salience and Valence of Core Values
Justin Gross, Assistant Professor, UMass-Amherst

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International Relations
Shillman 320, 4 pm – 5:30 pm

Transnational Connections for a Transnational Ideology: Networks and Influence on Jihadi Telegram
Margaret Foster, Doctoral Candidate, Duke University

How Rendition Flight Paths Expose the Effectiveness and Limitations of National Security Oversight Across Democracies
Michael Colaresi, Professor,University of Pittsburgh

Human versus computers: Manual and computational estimates of the design of international institutions
Lisa Lechner, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Salzburg

Multi-level Modeling of Forced Migration in Iraq and Syria using Social Media Signals
Laila Wahedi, Postdoctoral Fellow, MDI, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University

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#FakeNews and Social Media
Snell 90, 4 pm – 5:30 pm

Fake News on Twitter During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
Nir Grinberg, Postdoctoral Fellow, Northeastern University

Who’s Clogging Your Facebook Feed? Ideology and Age as Predictors of Fake News Dissemination During the 2016 U.S. Campaign
Andy Guess, Assistant Professor, Princeton University

Clickbait Effects on the Clickers:
Using Facebook Ads to Measure Online Media Effects

Kevin Munger, Assistant Professor, Penn State

Voter Information and Learning in the US 2016 Presidential Election:
Evidence from a Panel Survey Combined with Direct Observation of Social Media Activity.

Jonathan Nagler, Professor, New York University

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Keynote Speaker: Gary King

Gary King is Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor and Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He develops and applies empirical methods in many areas of social science research, focusing on innovations that span the range from statistical theory to practical application. He has been elected to 8 honorary societies and has won more than 40 awards for his work.

King has a long history of developing what are now widely used teaching and learning innovations, including as cofounder of the educational technology startups, Perusall, Learning Catalytics, and others. Full bio

Rooms
Alumni Center
Columbus Place, 6thFloor
716 Columbus Ave, Boston, MA 02120

Behrakis 105
Behrakis Center, Room 105
30 Leon St, Boston, MA 02115

Shillman 320
Shillman Hall, Room 320
115 Forsyth St, Boston, MA 02115

Snell 90
Snell Library, Room 90
360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115

Fenway Center
77 St Stephen St, Boston MA 02115

Organizing committee:
David Lazer (Northeastern University)
Nick Beauchamp (Northeastern University)
Adam Berinsky (MIT)
Ken Benoit (London School of Economics)
Fabrizio Gilardi (University of Zurich)
Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon (University of Pennsylvania)
Andreas Jungherr (University of Konstanz)
Gary King (Harvard University)
Ines Levin (University of California, Irvine)
Helen Margetts (Oxford Internet Institute)
Lily Mason (University of Maryland)
Molly Roberts (University of California, San Diego)
Derek Ruths (McGill University)
Sarah Shugars (Northeastern University)
Betsy Sinclair (Washington University)
Michelle Torres (Rice University)
Josh Tucker (NYU)
Jennifer Victor (George Mason University)
Hanna Wallach (Microsoft Research)
Duncan Watts (Microsoft Research)
Brooke Foucault Welles (Northeastern University)

Host Committee
David Lazer
Sarah Connell
Sarah Shugars
Janette Briceno
Stefan McCabe
Matt Simonson
Rezvan Sherkati

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