Marko Bachl

One of the best places to do computational communication work

📍 Location: Munich
📅 Start: 1 Apr 2026
⏳ Apply by: 31 Jan 2026

Details:
German: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/6...
English: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/7...

For example, in case you wonder whether it is still ok to use self-reports of media exposure, you can now cite me for saying "yes, sure" - doi.org/10.4337/9781...

Preprint here: doi.org/10.31219/osf...

You should absolutely apply to work with @dstoltenberg.bsky.social on this important project!

@cvsikorski.bsky.social

@dstoltenberg.bsky.social

So it turns out (my student pointed me to this) that the article was actually published in a likely predatory journal: www.gssrjournal.com/article/inte...

Well, at least this one did not pay $$$ to some fraudster publisher...

And it was cited in an AEJMC journal, so it's already sneaking into the literature: doi.org/10.1177/1077...

An article titled "Enhancing critical thinking and journalism skills through artificial intelligence literacy: A case study of journalism students in Tajik National University, Tajikistan" in the layout of the journal. However, the article did not appear in the journal...

Searching for the author in the journal shows no relevant hits: ijonses.net/index.php/ij..., so it does not seem like a typo in the citation or another simple mix-up.

I followed the DOI on the paper PDF, doi.org/10.46328/ijo.... Turns out, this leads indeed links to the 1st article in Vol 5, Issue 1 of the International Journal on Social and Education Sciences. However, this is a different article.

TIL about a new form of fraudulent academic publishing. A student pointed me to this article in the repository of the University of Limerick, doi.org/10.34961/res..., asking whether it is a credible source.

"Solution":

remotes::install_version("here", version = "1.0.1")

PSA: If you have somewhat chaotic folder and project structures in RStudio or Quarto projects, don't update {here} to 1.0.2: github.com/r-lib/here/i...

Broke my lecture materials website (presentation project within book project) and cost me an hour of sleep to figure out what went wrong.

#rstats

Come visit us in Berlin

Your Thesis Title Link to phdcomics.com

As sad as it is to read another LLM-generated student proposal, at least TIL that LLMs have deeply internalized this classic PDH comic, at least the colon part: phdcomics.com/comics/archi...

de.NBI is the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure - Service, Training, Cooperations & Cloud Computing. They are working on expanding their services beyond bioinformatics. If you are interested and associated with an eligible organization, I encourage you to contact them.

This semester, I am teaching the third iteration of my "Content Analysis with Generative LLMs" class. For the first time, I am using a local cloud infrastructure, supported by the de.NBI infrastructure, instead of the OpenAI API. They published my testimonial here: cloud.denbi.de/about/testim...

Relatedly, I realized that the LLM used in this case got much better at inventing sources. Contrary to earlier attempts, almost all the journals actually existed, and, most impressively, the publication year and journal volume almost always matched.

Some examples:
- Race, policing, and media: Framing Black youth in Toronto
- From Trayvon to transformation: Framing racial injustice in the Million Hoodies Movement
- Decoupling rhetoric from reality: Korean media and migrant representation
- Hashtag racism: #Chinavirus, #Chinesevirus, and COVID-19

Your Thesis Title Link to phdcomics.com

As sad as it is to read another LLM-generated student proposal, at least TIL that LLMs have deeply internalized this classic PDH comic, at least the colon part: phdcomics.com/comics/archi...

After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN!

Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered

jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

#DataMethods #OpenScience

#GESISMethodsHub: An open portal for computational social science research—find tools, tutorials, and code, directly usable in your browser. Methods Hub makes it easy to learn, apply, and reproduce computational methods in the Social Sciences.

methodshub.gesis.org/

Happy start of the Berlin (German) Vorlesungszeit to all who celebrate!

Also available in English: www.rki.de/EN/Topics/In...

Screenshot of the Wikipedia version page of paracetamol

Interesting page to watch today: en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...