Tune into the #aBitOfCCS Podcast as we explore how large language models classify online political speech about sexism. Aditi Dutta, a doctoral researcher at the University of Exeter, joins us to discuss her study on how automated moderation systems often misclassify anti-sexist speech as harmful—raising important questions about fairness, resistance, and digital democracy.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes discussions and examples of sexist language online, which may be offensive or upsetting to some listeners.

Read the paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11434v1

Reach out to Aditi at ad882@exeter.ac.uk for more insights into her research.

In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Valerie Hasse from LMU Munich to demystify one of the most widely used tools in computational text analysis: the dictionary. Valerie explains how computational dictionaries relate (or don’t!) to the everyday dictionaries we know, and breaks down how they actually work behind the scenes. We explore what dictionaries are good for, when to build your own versus using ready-made ones, and where they shine — especially for studying opinions, emotions, and media narratives. Valerie also opens up about the real challenges that come with using dictionaries, from biases to technical hurdles, and whether they still matter in the age of large language models. She gives clear answers and practical insights into a tool that helps researchers decode massive amounts of text.

In this episode, Prof. Jamal Abdul Nasir from the University of Galway reveals why pre-processing is the backbone of all text analysis. He breaks down key steps like defining documents, tokenization, removing stop words, unification, and stemming vs. lemmatization. Jamal also explains unigrams vs. bigrams and how modern NLP techniques like byte-pair encoding are changing the game. Plus, he shares practical tips for making your pre-processing transparent and reproducible, helping your research stand strong and scale up.

In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Fabienne Lind from the University of Vienna, who sheds light on how computational methods transform the way we study opinionated communication. Fabienne shares her experience researching political emotions on social media in the CIDAPE project and explains what it really means to “code” when we’re working with text. We explore how computational tools help us find patterns and insights that traditional reading might miss — and why this matters for understanding public discourse today. From clear benefits to real challenges, Fabienne shows why thinking computationally is key for anyone studying text at scale. Further information about the CIDAPE Horizon Europe Project here: https://cidape.eu/

Tune in to the #aBitOfCCS Podcast as we explore how to measure something as abstract and slippery as uncertainty in political speech. Ella MacLaughlin, a PhD candidate at Utrecht University, joins us to discuss her ongoing research on how politicians in the US, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands express uncertainty in public communication.

In this episode, we dive into the challenges of capturing uncertainty in political language, how it differs from other domains like biomedical science, and how we can build a dictionary for latent novel contracts.. Rather than focusing on results, we reflect on the conceptual and methodological puzzles that come with studying highly normative political language through computational tools.

Reach out to Ella at e.j.maclaughlin@uu.nl for more on her work, and check out the project website at radiunce.org!

A brief note from Ella: At 17:52, I mistakenly attributed a paper to ‘Walters’ instead of the correct author ‘Walker’. Apologies for the error.

In this episode, we are joined by Prof. Helle Sjøvaag, journalism researcher and founding member of the OPINION Network. She shares how the network came to life and why it’s vital for studying how opinions form and spread online. We explore how digital spaces — from social media to news sites — shape what we think and how we express it. Helle unpacks the hidden influence of technology, power, and money on online discourse. Tune in to hear why building supportive networks is crucial in navigating these turbulent spaces — and how collective research can make a real difference. Further information here: https://www.opinion-network.eu/about

In this episode of #aBitOfCCS, Jana Bernhard-Harrer sits down with Denise Roth, a PhD student at the Strategic Communication Group at Wageningen University & Research. Denise’s research focuses on how science is communicated by political elites and the implications for the relationship between science and society.

Her study, "In the Crossfire: Online Hostility Towards Public Figures Amid Politicized Science Communication" , investigates how large language models (LLMs) can be leveraged to annotate training data for a classifier capable of distinguishing hateful language from other types of online comments. Together, we explore the intersection of AI, social science, and combating online hostility in the context of politicized science communication.

Don’t miss this thought-provoking discussion on the challenges and opportunities in understanding and addressing hostility towards public figures in today’s digital age. If you have any questions, you can connect with Denise here: Denise Roth - Wageningen University & Research

In the first episode, Wendo King'ang'i and Christian Baden dive into the concept of opinionated communication — what it is, how it shows up in our daily lives, and why it matters. They also touch on the current state of research and what the future holds for this fascinating topic.

In this podcast we aim to introduce and discuss the OPINION COST Action CA21129. The network convenes early- and mid-career researchers from over 35 European countries, Israel, and the US, integrating cutting-edge expertise from different disciplines (notably, communication science, computational linguistics, IT) while networking the many, hitherto largely disconnected language communities of textual researchers. Further information here: https://www.opinion-network.eu/about