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Estimating the Effect of YouTube Recommendations with Homa Hosseinmardi
In Analytics at Wharton’s Research Spotlight series, we highlight research by Wharton and Penn faculty, doctoral students, and researchers whose work focuses on innovations and applications of data science, analytics, and artificial intelligence. This month, we spoke...
Joe Biden’s (but not Donald Trump’s) age: A case study in the New York Times’ inconsistent narrative selection and framing
On the weekend of March 2-3, 2024, the landing page of the New York Times was dominated by coverage of their poll showing voter concern over President Biden’s age. There was a lot of concern among Democrats about the methods of the poll, especially around the low response rate and leading questions. But as a team of researchers who study both survey methods and mainstream media, we are not surprised that people are telling pollsters they are worried about Biden’s age. Why wouldn’t they? The mainstream media has been telling them to be worried about precisely this issue for months.
Hyperpartisan consumption on YouTube is shaped more by user preferences than the algorithm
Given the sheer amount of content produced every day on a platform as large as YouTube, which hosts over 14 billion videos, the need for some sort of algorithmic curation is inevitable. As YouTube has attracted millions of views on partisan videos of a conspiratorial or radical nature, observers speculate that the platform’s algorithm unintentionally radicalizes its users by recommending hyperpartisan content based on their viewing history.
But is the algorithm the primary force driving these consumption patterns, or is something else at play?
The YouTube Algorithm Isn’t Radicalizing People
About a quarter of Americans get their news on YouTube. With its billions of users and hours upon hours of content, YouTube is one the largest online media platforms in the world.
In recent years, there has been a popular narrative in the media that videos from highly partisan, conspiracy theory-driven YouTube channels radicalize young Americans and that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm leads users down a path of increasingly radical content.
New Insights on Common Sense Take the Spotlight on Canadian Radio
Mark E. Whiting was featured on Quirks and Quarks, a science and technology podcast on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio. The host, Bob McDonald, is a renowned Canadian science journalist who interviewed Whiting on his recent milestone. Their conversation, “Common sense is not that common, but it is widely distributed,” was aired on January 19, 2024.
The commonalities of common sense
Throughout human history, survival and the formation of complex societies have heavily depended on knowledge. Equally crucial are the assumptions about what others perceive as true or false, namely common sense. This is evident in everyday situations like adhering to road rules: Pedestrians naturally avoid walking into traffic, while drivers refrain from driving on sidewalks to bypass congestion.
Commonsensicality: A Novel Approach to Thinking about Common Sense and Measuring it
In general we believe that we possess common sense to a certain extent, but have you ever wondered if what you perceive to be common sense is also considered common sense to others?
In other words, is common sense actually common?
The answer remains elusive in large part due to a lack of empirical evidence. To address this problem, CSSLab Senior Computational Social Scientist Mark E. Whiting and CSSLab Founder and Director Duncan J. Watts introduce an analytical framework for quantifying common sense in their paper titled: “A framework for quantifying individual and collective common sense.”
Warped Front Pages
Seven years ago, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, media analysts rushed to explain Donald Trump’s victory. Misinformation was to blame, the theory went, fueled by Russian agents and carried on social networks. But as researchers, we wondered if fascination and fear over “fake news” had led people to underestimate the influence of traditional journalism outlets. After all, mainstream news organizations remain an important part of the media ecosystem—they’re widely read and watched; they help set the agenda, including on social networks.
Mapping the Murky Waters: The Promise of Integrative Experiment Design
My PhD journey began with a clear vision: to unravel the interplay between social network structures and their collective outcomes. I was particularly interested in the collective intelligence arising in those structures. With several projects already underway on this topic, I felt prepared. Perhaps optimistically, or some might think naively, I chose to tackle the literature review of my dissertation —often considered the “easy part”— during the first year of my PhD. always been interested in how people think, something that drew him to study literature as an undergraduate, and, now, to investigate the intersection between public opinion, local news, and politics.
Are experimental designs one-size-fits-all? Or should they be modified to encapsulate the complexity of human behavior?
In the social and behavioral sciences, a theory provides a generalizable explanation that holds under a variety of specific conditions, and experiments are conducted to verify hypotheses which are derived from the theory. This process has become the dominant methodology under which scientific development occurs one experiment at a time, also known as the one-at-a-time approach.
The Unintended Consequence of Deplatforming on the Spread of Harmful Content
“Deplatforming” refers to the banning of individuals, communities, or entire websites that spread misinformation or hate speech. Social media platforms implement this practice to reduce harmful content, but its effectiveness is debatable.
Radicalization at a Glance: Penn Media Accountability Project Launches Interactive Data Dashboard
PennMAP launches the first in a series of interactive data visualizations. The new dashboard is designed to make the CSSLab’s research on YouTube radicalization accessible and engaging to the general public — and, in the process, forms the first step towards revolutionizing research communication.
Researcher Spotlight: Jorge Barreras Cortes
Having just earned his Ph.D. in applied math in December, Jorge “Paco” Barreras Cortes kicks off 2023 as a fully fledged post-doctoral researcher at the CSSLab. He has driven the Lab’s work on epidemic modeling since 2020, grappling with the types of data, machine learning, and network science quandaries that underpin the toughest challenges in the field. Read on to learn more about his research journey in this month’s Researcher Spotlight.
Two CSSLab projects receive Analytics at Wharton grant funding
Linnea Gandhi and Emily Hu, both PhD students in Wharton’s Operations, Information and Decisions Department (OIDD), have received AAW funding for their work at the CSSLab.
Call for Abstracts opens for IC²S² 2023
Abstract submissions are now open for IC²S² 2023, the premier conference for interdisciplinary researchers interested in using computational and data-intensive methods to address societally relevant problems.
How Data Analytics Can Help Deliver Social Good
The second of this year’s Beyond Business panels explored how data science innovations are bringing solutions to previously intractable social problems.
From Crisis Communications to Dissecting a Decade of TV News
Sam Wolken, a joint doctoral student in Communication and Political Science, studies public opinion, local news, and politics.
Duncan Watts speaks at 6th-annual Psychology of Technology Conference
Duncan Watts presented ongoing research on the media ecosystem, part of PennMAP, to a group of interdisciplinary scholars studying how technology is changing the human experience.
CSSLab receives Templeton grant for Open-Science Platform
The CSSLab has received a research grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation for the ongoing development of “An Open-Science Platform to Improve Deliberation and Reduce Polarization.”
Emma Arsekin expands role as Senior Communications Specialist
As 2022 draws to a close, we celebrate Emma Arsekin, who will be continuing her work at the CSSLab in the new role of Senior Communications Specialist.With 2023 promising groundbreaking new research outputs, the CSSLab is excited to draw from Emma Arsekin's...
CSSLab receives Google Research grant for YouTube News Modeling
The CSSLab has received a $20,000 research grant from Google Research for its project “Modeling YouTube Users’ Production & Consumption of News,” an ambitious project to illuminate the supply-demand mechanics of the YouTube news ecosystem.
What we learned from Philadelphia’s vaccine lottery
Whether developing a safe vaccine or figuring out how to encourage its adoption, the same scientific method — systematically experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t — is key.
Homa Hosseinmardi moderates panel on media consumption, misinformation, and polarization
CSSLab Associate Research Scientist Homa Hosseinmardi will moderate a panel on media consumption, misinformation, and polarization as part of NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics Seminar Series.
Empirica Stories: Exploring cultural evolution in the virtual lab
Today, we highlight the work of Levin Brinkmann and collaborators on their paper “Hybrid social learning in human-algorithm cultural transmission,” recently published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.
Researcher Spotlight: Coen Needell
As of August 2022, the CSSLab is excited to welcome Coen Needell to the team as a pre-doctoral researcher. In this Researcher Spotlight, he shares about his pathway through the field of CSS, his role in the Penn Media Accountability Project (PennMAP), and how he’s poised to contribute in the year ahead.
PennMAP work on TV news featured at PolitiFact’s United Facts of America conference
CSSLab affiliated researcher David Rothschild discusses PennMAP research on TV echo chambers, news consumption, and cable news confusion at PolitiFact’s United Facts of America conference.
PennMAP research featured on Australian radio
New PennMAP research on TV echo chambers was discussed by Australian media experts on Fourth Estate, broadcast live on Sydney radio.
Demystifying deliberation, while reinventing social science research on the side
Depending on the group, the discussion topic, or the context of a negotiation, interventions meant to streamline a deliberation process can have varying degrees of success. This summer, student researchers at Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab set out to demystify the intervention process.
Behind the Scenes: The team driving Nudge Cartography
The Nudge Cartography project is building a tool to help policymakers, marketers, managers, and academics intelligently motivate behavior change. Meet some of the project leads and volunteers putting it all together.
Miguel Rivera-Lanas joins team as resident Data Scientist
August brings a special welcome to Miguel Rivera-Lanas, who is postponing his graduate studies to continue his work at the CSSLab as its resident Data Scientist.
Recap: CSSLab’s Summer 2022 Student Research Conference
On July 29th, the CSSLab held its inaugural Student Research Conference to share the summer progress made in the Lab’s various projects.
From the Executive Corner: Welcoming Jeanne Ruane
CSSLab Director Duncan Watts says farewell to former Executive Director Valery Yakubovich and welcomes his replacement, Jeanne Ruane.
Don’t be too quick to blame social media for America’s polarization – cable news has a bigger effect, study finds
Studies of online echo chambers don’t paint the full picture of Americans’ political segregation. New research shows that the problem is more Fox News Channel and MSNBC than Facebook and Twitter.
TV news top driver of political echo chambers in U.S.
Duncan Watts and colleagues found that 17% of Americans consume television news from partisan left- or right-leaning sources compared to just 4% online. For TV news viewers, this audience segregation tends to last month over month.
Empirica Stories: Experimenting with partisan bots to study political polarization
In this installment of Empirica Stories, we highlight the work of Eaman Jahani and collaborators on their preprint “Exposure to Common Enemies can Increase Political Polarization: Evidence from a Cooperation Experiment with Automated Partisans.”
Ph.D. Student Spotlight: Linnea Gandhi
Kicking off our Ph.D. Student Spotlight series, Summer 2022 features Linnea Gandhi, a rising third-year Ph.D. student taking the lead in the CSSLab’s work on enabling cumulative science.
Researcher Spotlight: James Houghton
As a key figure in the CSSLab’s work on high-throughput virtual lab experiments, post-doctoral researcher James Houghton aims to refocus social science around large-scale, data-driven insights. In this researcher spotlight, he shares about his path to computational social science research, his work at the CSSLab, and the exciting future for his most recent project on small-group deliberation.
End-of-Year Check-In: Celebrating the CSSLab’s Students
The CSSLab’s research assistants and Ph.D. students play a vital role in advancing the Lab’s diverse research projects. As the Spring 2022 semester comes to a close, we would like to highlight and celebrate some of our students’ recent accomplishments, various pathways to the CSSLab, and exciting summer projects.
From Seahawks Fan to 2022 NFL Big Data Bowl Finalist: How American Football Shaped Tai Nguyen’s Journey
Tai Nguyen is a Penn graduate student, research assistant, former IBM data scientist, and a finalist in the NFL Big Data Bowl. Those aren’t bad stats for a bright student who came to America a decade ago by himself with big dreams.
The Data Will Save Us: An Interview with CSSLab Director Duncan Watts
The data will save us. Or at least, that’s the hope of Duncan Watts, whose new initiative, PennMAP, aims to expose bias in journalism by building a huge database of news for researchers and journalism watchdogs to analyze. What’s at stake? Only the future of the free press and perhaps democracy itself.
Navigating the challenges of data-driven research
The CSSLab’s Research Data Engineer, Yingquan Li, offers his perspective on data-driven social science and the challenges facing the new field of CSS.
Applications open: Penn Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
The Penn Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS-Penn) is open for applications! SICSS-Penn will bring together early-career researchers and provide opportunities for networking with Computational Social Science colleagues, interdisciplinary research collaborations, and guest lectures.
Preparing student RAs for success on the tech job market
How does working at the CSSLab impact student researchers’ career goals and experiences on the job market? We asked two of the Lab’s graduate student research assistants, Keith Golden and Kailun Li, about their experiences at various stages of their job searches.
Researcher spotlight: Mark Whiting
Spearheading the CSSLab’s work on high-throughput virtual lab experiments on group dynamics, Mark Whiting is helping to define the paradigm of large-scale, data-driven social science research. In this researcher spotlight, he outlines his research trajectory and thoughts on the future of CSS.
Empirica Stories: Using online multiplayer experiments to study team hierarchy
Originally published on the Empirica blogWelcome to “Empirica Stories”, a series in which we highlight innovative research from the Empirica community, showcasing the possibilities of virtual lab experiments! In our first interview, we highlight the creative work of...
From the Executive Corner: CSSLab’s One-Year Retrospective
On March 10th, the CSSLab celebrated one year of working to define the new field of computational social science. To mark its anniversary month, the Lab's Executive Director, Valery Yakubovich, reflects upon our mission to adapt the core principles of CSS research to...
Want to reduce political polarization? Start by looking beyond politics
PHILADELPHIA, January 20, 2022 — Is bonding over non-political similarities the key to depolarizing political discussions? New research sheds light on how even hardliners can be swayed when coming in contact with opposing viewpoints.In many friend groups, politics is...
How biased narratives impact our judgment — even when we’re aware of it happening
PHILADELPHIA, January 11, 2022 — Does explicitly acknowledging bias make us less likely to make biased decisions? A new study examining how people justify decisions based on biased data finds that this is not necessarily the case.Narrative-based explanations of what...
Call for Abstracts for IC²S² 2022
The 8th International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC²S²) solicits submissions of ongoing research, including (a) work that advances methods and approaches for computational social science, (b) data-driven work that describes and discovers social,...
What Big Data Reveals About Online Extremism
Originally published by the Annenberg School for Communication PHILADELPHIA, November 22, 2021 — Homa Hosseinmardi and her colleagues at Penn’s Computational Social Science Lab studied browsing data from 300,000 Americans to gain insights into how online...
Researcher spotlight: Homa Hosseinmardi
As the lead researcher on the Penn Media Accountability Project (PennMAP), Homa Hosseinmardi tackles questions of online political radicalization and misbehavior using large-scale data. In this month's researcher spotlight, she shares about her experience navigating...
Building the plane while flying it: How COVID shaped the CSSLab
As if coordinating across three largely autonomous schools were not difficult enough, the COVID-19 pandemic forced researchers at the CSSLab to fundamentally rethink how to collaborate. Director Duncan Watts took on the challenge of building a research lab amidst this...
PennMAP: YouTube radicalization paper cited in congress
On October 28, 2021, the November 2020 paper “Evaluating the scale, growth, and origins of right-wing echo chambers on YouTube” was cited in a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Authored by PennMAP project lead Homa...
K@W Podcast: Are Teams Better Than Individuals at Getting Work Done?
Originally published at Knowledge@WhartonPHILADELPHIA, October 12, 2021 — When it comes to getting work done, two heads are better than one. Except when they aren’t. A new study from Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions Duncan Watts digs into the...
PennMAP Research and Outcomes to Expand Thanks to Leadership Gift
Originally published in the Wharton NewsroomPHILADELPHIA, September 30, 2021 — The Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania are delighted to announce the expansion of the Penn Media Accountability Project (PennMAP), an interdisciplinary, nonpartisan research...
Wharton Behavioral Lab approves support for group dynamics research
We are excited to announce that the Wharton Behavioral Lab has agreed to support the CSSLab’s research on group dynamics. They will provide generous complimentary funds to help us to run our high-throughput virtual lab experiments, which will require participation...
Annenberg Conversations on Gender: “Algorithm Audits to Accountability” with Duncan Watts & Danaë Metaxa
The Annenberg Conversations series at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication engage Communication research and scholarship on topical issues together with a wide variety of individuals outside of Annenberg — including academics, activists, artists, and many others. During the 2021-22 academic year, the topic is gender.
Are two heads better than one? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth?
Can we predict whether a team of interacting individuals will outperform a group of individuals working alone? In their new paper “Task complexity moderates group synergy,” Abdullah Almaatouq and Duncan Watts, along with co-authors Mohammed Alsobay and Ming Yin,...
Empirica one of six software tools to be awarded SAGE Concept Grants
SAGE Publishing has issued the following press release announcing the winners of its 2021 Concept Grants. London, UK (August 10, 2021) — Six innovative software tools benefitting the social and behavioral sciences will receive SAGE Publishing’s 2021 SAGE Concept...
YouTube radicalization—or lack thereof—in the spotlight
Homa Hosseinmardi et al.'s most recent paper, “Examining the consumption of radical content on YouTube,” has been featured on Ars Technica. Read their coverage of the article here. The paper was also mentioned in an interview with YouTube’s chief product officer, Neal...
Is the algorithm to blame? Research on YouTube radicalization says not quite
The past two election cycles have drawn new attention to the internet’s impact on democracy. With political polarization on the rise and trust in traditional sources of authority on the decline, concerns have mounted over the distribution of false, hyperpartisan, and...
Facebook shows that even “big data” can hide big bias
With private companies increasingly controlling the production and consumption of information on their platforms, their data on user habits has grown especially valuable to researchers. However, these data rarely provide a complete picture of media consumption, since...
Nature: Special issue explores computational social science
Nature's special issue on computational social science is now available in digital format. The issue features the perspective piece “Integrating explanation and prediction in computational social science,” co-authored by Lab Director Duncan Watts. Read the full issue...
Expert advisory committee defines agenda for experimental, social, and behavioral science
The 1st Annual Meeting of the Expert Advisory Committee on Scaling Up Experimental, Social, and Behavioral Science was held on June 30th. Lab Director Duncan Watts, Abdullah Almaatouq, Mark Whiting, Linnea Gandhi, and James Houghton presented an overview of CSS Lab’s...
Can computational social scientists predict social science phenomena?
Over the past fifteen years, a technological revolution has deepened the intersection between the computational and social sciences. The rise of the internet has created new classes of data for social scientists to analyze—data which, because of its novelty compared...
Something’s in the Water: A broader view of misinformation
Baird Howland reflects upon his ongoing research on news consumption and misinformation in “Something's in the Water,” published in The Commonplace. He notes that the picture emerging from his research contradicts the conventional wisdom of Americans drowning in...
Upcoming: NetSci Computational Social Science Panel
On July 2nd, 10-12 EST, Nature editors Mary Elizabeth Sutherland and Federico Levi will host a virtual round table on Computational Social Science as part of the Networks 2021 conference. The speakers, including CSSLab Director Duncan Watts, have contributed to an...
Upcoming: IC2S2 Conference on Computational Social Science
The 7th International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), organized by EHT Zurich, will take place online July 27-31. The conference brings together researchers from different disciplines interested in using computational and data-intensive methods to...
Scaling Up Experimental Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science
Expert Advisory Committee: We are excited to announce the creation of the Expert Advisory Committee for our project “Scaling Up Experimental Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science.” Funded by research grants from the James and Jane Manzi Analytics Fund and Alfred P....
Measuring the Narrative of the Covid-19 Pandemic
New Research Project: The Analytics at Wharton Initiative awarded the CSS Lab a research grant for the project "Measuring the Narratives of the COVID-19 Pandemic." The goal of this project is to deepen our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic—specifically, the...
Towards more powerful social, behavioral, and economic science
Coauthored by Lab Director Duncan Watts, the new white paper “Scaling up experimental social, behavioral, and economic science” proposes a fundamental rethinking of the model of virtual-laboratory style experiments. It outlines four major changes to the...
Published: “A Large-Scale Comparative Study of Informal Social Networks in Firms”
“A Large-Scale Comparative Study of Informal Social Networks in Firms,” authored by Lab Director Duncan Watts and coauthor Abigail Jacobs, has been published in Management Science. The paper provides an analysis of a unique data set of aggregated, anonymized email...
Published: “Measuring the News and Its Impact on Democracy”
Authored by Lab Director Duncan Watts and coauthors David Rothschild and Markus Mobius, a recent paper titled “Measuring the news and its impact on democracy” has been published in PNAS. The paper proposes an ambitious collective research agenda to measure the...
Published: “Empirica: A Virtual Lab for High-Throughput Macro-Level Experiments”
Abdullah Almaatouq, Joshua Becker, James Houghton, Nicolas Paton, Duncan Watts, and Mark Whiting’s paper “Empirica: a virtual lab for high-throughput macro-level experiments” has been published in Behavior Research Methods. The paper introduces Empirica, a modular...
Forthcoming: “Comparing Estimates of News Consumption from Survey and Passively collected Behavioral Data”
Lab Director Duncan Watts and co-authors David Rothschild and Baird Howland explore a popular and important behavior that is frequently measured in public opinion surveys: news consumption. They validate earlier findings that, despite large shifts in news consumption...
The science of fake news
Co-authors David Rothschild and Lab Director Duncan Watts discuss extant social and computer science research regarding the belief in and spread of fake news. They focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of fake news' most recent,...
Don’t blame the election on fake news. Blame it on the media.
Lab Director Duncan Watts and David Rothschild discuss the media's role in fueling polarization and skepticism toward traditional sources of authority during the 2016 election. They explain how the volume of reporting around fake news, along with tech companies’ work...
Rebuilding legitimacy in a post-truth age
Lab Director Duncan Watts and co-author David Rothschild discuss the challenges of a post-truth age, in which evidence, scientific understanding, or mere logical consistency have grown increasingly irrelevant to political argumentation. They argue that, while the...