Lena Frischlich

Representation in science and trust in scientists in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour Druckman et al. document gaps in trust in scientists in the USA. People from groups less represented among scientists (for example, women and those with lower economic status) are less trusting. Incre...

Paper out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com:

1) those groups (women, African Americans, lower SES, rural) that are underrepresented in science have been less trusting of science.

2) If you improve representation in science, you improve trust among those groups.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Schweiz: Palantir-Software hat verheerende Risiken Nach Risikoprüfung des Einsatzes von Palantir-Software in der Schweiz bekam der US-Konzern eine Absage, trotz jahrelanger Hofierung von Behörden und Armee. Den Eidgenossen sind die Risiken zu groß. Da...

"Die Analyse enthält auch einen 20-seitigen internen Evaluationsbericht der Armee (...) Die Militärexperten kommen zu dem Schluss, dass ein Abfluss von Daten aus den #Palantir Systemen technisch nicht verhindert werden könne." #Schweiz 🇨🇭

Class excursion day: @ddc-sdu.bsky.social is visiting Copenhagen University today to listen to @dscheykopp.bsky.social talking about data access under DSA - thanks @manuelmenke.bsky.social for the organisation!

IC2S2 2026 registration is open!
Explore the 2026 conference here ➡️ ic2s2-2026.org

✔️ Submissions open December 15th
✔️ Keynotes will be announced between now and February
✔️ Full program of selected talks and tutorials will be available in late April

Learn more about the fellows and their projects here:
www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

& watch this space for updates. 👀

Huge thanks to TrygFonden for enabling this programme! 💚

@claesdevreese.bsky.social; @lenafrescamente.bsky.social; @curdknupfer.bsky.social

Bør jeg spørge ChatGPT til råds om, hvad jeg skal stemme? Måske er du stadig i tvivl om, hvor du skal sætte dit kryds til kommunalvalget.

Should you ask an AI chatbot what to vote for? No.

I spoke to @videnskab.dk about this ahead of the local elections in Denmark and why the technology is not fit for purpose and completely non-transparent.

videnskab.dk/teknologi/bo...

a silver robot is standing in a field with trees in the background Alt: a silver robot is dancing in a field with trees in the background

What he shows is that subtle social cues such as an avatar's gender, ethnicity, or nonverbal behavior can affect how we perceive virtual others, how we respond to them and what effects they have on us.

Today, Bente talks about LLM avatars - and we do live in a time where agents do actually have embodied and nonverbal communication - many of things we learned in the very first media psychology lecture I visited are now *there* - opening new venues for research artificial others

The speaker, an older man, stands behin a laptop

A long (very) long time ago, I started my academic journey as a student assistant in the lab of Gary Bente - back then, an environment where people studied intercultural communication, nonverbal communication, and basic virtual agents such as "Karl Klammer" -

Also, when you are digitally reinforced for sharing negative information about someone from the "other" party (i.e., likes for misinfo) - your own attitudes becoming more negative over time (Take care what you share!) --> people (also) hate to garner social approval & experience social relations

a cartoon of a cat holding a gavel with the words agree below it Alt: a cartoon of a cat holding a gavel with the words agree below it

His work also shows that relational goals shape how we search information online, how we communicate with others using computers, how we adapt our own attitudes and how attractive we think others are (those we disagree with are of course more attractive, right)

Walther's work taught us that people are wired to form impressions of others—we use *every* cue to understand others and how they feel (like when your date doesn't respond to your texts for hours...). In short, we do need v.few "human cues" to like others, so relevant for today's AI-companion turn!

The speaker, a man with a beard in a suit, stands behind a speaker's table

Such a pleasure to listen to Joe Walther (scholar.google.nl/citations?us...) in person - talking about computer-mediated communication, from loving to lynching

a man with long hair and a beard is smiling behind bars and says `` that 's deep '' . Alt: a man with long hair and a beard is smiling behind bars and says `` that 's deep '' .

From his perspective, meaningfulness can be defined in terms of intuitive needs. He thinks this perspective could address some of the conflicts over whether meaningfulness must be "socially good," as it allows for both altruistic and egocentric needs that can be made salient through narratives.

Tamborini shows that moral intuitions are powerful unconditioned stimuli (= ppl respond), and implicit associations between these intuitions and other objects (e.g., political candidates) may be as powerful as framing (explicit associations) => Narrative media are powerful agents to learn from

a woman sitting on a couch with the words you belong together ALT: a woman sitting on a couch with the words you belong together

So: how do narratives create meaning? One way is so-called framing—presenting neutral (e.g., political) content in a way that links it to moral evaluations (negative or positive)—and this framing then shapes how political actors are judged afterwards through processes of learning and conditioning.

a book is open to a page that says ' i 'm sorry ' Alt: a book is opening pages

Ron's work (scholar.google.com/citations?us...) teaches us how we choose stories, which role intuitive moral values play in this context, and how entertainment makes these moral values accessible, reinforces them, and helps us to feel meaning

A woman wearing a green MIchigan State shirt talks into the micro while a men wearing a black baseball cap stands behind a speaker desk

Very nostalgic and exiting day - sitting besides @dianarieger.bsky.social like in the #mediapsych lecture University zu Köln to listen to a Symposium @ifkw.bsky.social which brings together Ron Tamborini Joe Walther and our doctoral supervisor, Gary Bente.

14 postdoc fellowships for 2yrs, in Freiburg, Tübingen or Konstanz

Excited to announce DID lab's first paper!

psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

We find that children as young as 6 show political ingroup preference!

First paper of very talented @annie-schw.bsky.social!

In JEP: General's special issue on political development (1/3)

SUPPORT THIS CAUSE! The deadline for signing our commentary on defending #academic #freedom is this Sunday, 9 Nov! Read this article led by Digital Journalism's Editor-in-Chief @oscarwestlund.bsky.social (bit.ly/4oUu6E0) & sign here (bit.ly/afsignatory) to support this cause!

🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity in Psychology!
The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) is hiring a 2-year, full-time Postdoctoral Researcher (PI: Júlia Palik).
📍 Location: Oslo, Norway
🗓️ Deadline: November 24, 2025
🔗 Apply here: www.prio.org/about/career...

Soo many cool new projects have started/are on the way at the DDC right now - looking very much forward to dig into AI in news and excited to continue working with @andre-k-rodarte.bsky.social on studying susceptibility to misinfo and how to support democratic resilience

Our new report provides a typology of news creators, based on analysis of 24 countries

The report, by Nic Newman, @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social @mitalilive.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social, makes a distinction between those who focus on hard news and those touching news-adjacent topics

This🧵of new @ddc-sdu.bsky.social projects👏

Cool projects by fx @lenafrescamente.bsky.social @curdknupfer.bsky.social @lyngemoller.bsky.social @emilbakke.bsky.social @andre-k-rodarte.bsky.social @hannahdecker.bsky.social @hannescools.bsky.social @dieheiselberg.bsky.social @rasmusschmokel.bsky.social

@stockholm-uni.bsky.social has announced new vacancies for Postdoctoral Fellow and Researchers in Cinema Studies.

The positions are funded by the Anders Sandrews Foundation, with an application deadline of 15 November.

Visit our website for more information 🔗 : nordmedianetwork.org/latest/vacan...

📝DDC Thesis Grant now open!📝
Students at SDU writing their thesis in Autumn 2025 on digitalization, AI, algorithms or democracy can apply for up to DKK 10,000.
Covers costs like software, data, travel, or participant compensation.

⌛️: Nov 15, 2025
Apply via ddc@sdu.dk
www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

The Limits of Analogies of Misinformation

“Contrary to misinformation, viruses care little about ingroup dynamics, political supplies, or the larger media context in which they spread.”

By @lenafrescamente.bsky.social, @abhishekr0y.bsky.social, @hdschulze.bsky.social

#AcademicSky #SocialPsyc 🧪

Overall, we hope that our framework provides a useful lense for studying misinformation and designing interventions and regulations by raising awareness for this complexity, by enabling the targeted discussion of side effects, & hopefully by inspiring further work! PS: you can read it #openaccess 🤓

Very often we study misinformation through analogies: Seeing it as virus ( #infodemic), a weapon ( #informationWarfare), or a toxin ( #informationPollution). We did an extensive mapping of these analogies mileages & baggage showing what complexities they sytematically overlook