Fascinating paper on supply-side factors of negativity bias, misinformation and misperceptions. Also interesting measurements of accuracy of reporting and negativity bias of specific media orgs (e.g.
CNN, Fox News).
My first post on my new Peace & Violence Substack:
“What Makes Them Tick: Why I Study Psychology & Political Violence”
zeitzoff.substack.com/p/what-makes...
You can just research things. New from @jatucker.bsky.social & me at @brookings: Coding agents like Claude Code and Codex will likely accelerate research AND undermine institutional structures we built to support it.
Funny but also unlikely
Gallup ends presidential approval polling. There are plenty of alternatives but having one firm back the 1930s was a great continuity. Here is my last update of their series. RIP.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
A lot of smart people have been in denial about AI for understandable reasons:
– the people pitching it can be distasteful
– there’s been a ton of snake-oil hype
– it’s easier not to reckon with a major disruption
Joe Rogan helped Trump with one thing he always wants more of: male voters. @melinamuch.bsky.social expands in our latest episode ➡️ linktr.ee/americanfriction
#JoeRogan #Trump #TrumpElection #USpolitics #AmericanFriction
*No Option But Sabotage* is out in 10 days.
Pre-order links are pinned—thank you for all the support!
No Option But Sabotage coming 2/16:
Draws on 150+ interviews & historical data and it examines:
– origins of radical environmentalism
– subcultures & mobilization
– repression & tactical choice
– shrinking space for protest
Pre-order (30% off with @academic.oup.com code ASFLYQ6) ⬇️
> Even the controversial 2003 Iraq War offers a revealing case. For all the war’s many problems and deceptions, the United States abstained from seizing Iraq’s oil. Iraqi oil ultimately remained under Iraqi control, even as U.S. forces occupied the country.
goodauthority.org/news/trump-m...
Would be great to chat about this sometime!
Second, we need to distinguish between two kinds of nasty rhetoric:
A) Rhetoric used by marginal politicians or opposition figures to grab attention when they lack agenda-setting power.
B) Rhetoric used by national leaders, and amplified by supporters, to demonize opponents or minority groups.
I need everyone in the political communications world who found the moral foundations reframing approach promising (which includes me) to read this paper
It doesn't replicate in new research. It just doesn't work.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Please share with all the awesome applicants you know!
Very cool to read this from @kenzonera.bsky.social
and co-authors!
From the abstract: "those low in conspiracy mentality not only believed less in conspiracies but also underestimated their prevalence" osf.io/preprints/ps...
Week 1 of 2026
Mechanisms of Europe’s “Death” since I was old enough to read newspapers:
- Inability to enact “structural reforms”
- Too much public debt
- Excessive focus on curbing fiscal deficits (“austerity”)
- Populism
- Low birth rates
- Absence of a European Silicon Valley
- Migration
- Stagnation
Research shows people dislike and want to block speech they believe is harmful. Wrote for @goodauth.bsky.social about this a few weeks ago: goodauthority.org/news/what-we...
Johns Hopkins Data Science and AI Institute is hiring Postdoctoral Fellows (Deadline Jan 23rd, 2026)! 💫
Reach out and apply if you're interested in working with me! I'm especially excited to work with postdocs on AI for social sciences/human behavior, social NLP, and LLMs.
I pay a similar amount for www.hey.com largely to avoid Gmail or Outlook
Maybe the impact of chatbots on truth is actually greater than the impact of deepfakes (for now)
My latest for @goodauth.bsky.social goodauthority.org/news/what-we...
Mechanisms of Europe’s “Death” since I was old enough to read newspapers:
- Inability to enact “structural reforms”
- Too much public debt
- Excessive focus on curbing fiscal deficits (“austerity”)
- Populism
- Low birth rates
- Absence of a European Silicon Valley
- Migration
- Stagnation
This excellent paper is now out -
Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Code: github.com/kobihackenbu...
A useful summary by @lpargyle.bsky.social: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
.@pettertornberg.com's keynote in Oxford was fantastic.
What comes after the traditional model of social media ends?
1) Algorithmic broadcasting platforms (everything turning into TikTok and Instagram reels)
2) Private and semi-private spheres (like group chats)
3) Chatbots and LLMs as new media
🚨 Job Alert! Postdoc in POLITICAL TEXT ANALYSIS in the MULTIREP project
You do quant text analysis? You are interested in political representation? Enjoy working in teams? Would like to live in a great city? Consider joining us in Vienna!
⏱️ Apply by 15/12/2025
wratil.eu/files/MULTIR...
1/4 🧵
The mimicking behavior is also interesting: I listened to Slovak news this morning on the radio and the reporter also said who "is expected to win".
The video is from July, so "announces" isn't quite right.
Also, a response to that video at the time seems to contain a small hint of paranoia
Hard to distinguish from opportunism...
- Will certain people always continue "just asking questions"? Yes.
- But citizens have the right to ask questions and, in a tolerant society, they could ask them without getting mocked
- It's a bad case here, because how could anyone prove a negative? (Can't show "we're not altering the weather")
