What is it about computational communication science?

• #aBitOfCCS on Safeguarding Anti-Sexist Speech Online with Aditi Dutta hosted by Jana Bernhard-Harrer

  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/2508.11434v1Reach out to Aditi at [email protected] for more insights into her research.

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• Observing Opinions: What are Dictionaries?

  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.

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• Observing Opinions: What is Pre-Processing?

  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.

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• Observing Opinions: Thinking About Text Computationally

  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/

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• #aBitOfCCS on Measuring Uncertainty in Political Speech with Ella MacLaughlin hosted by Jana Bernhard-Harrer

  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 [email protected] 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.

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