Gavin Ploger

🚨 Please share widely! 🚨

I'm hiring a postdoc (from Aug 1) to help build a new research program on politically sustainable immigration policies at Notre Dame.

Looking for a social scientist with strong quant skills, familiarity with new computational tools, and interest in public-facing research.

AI is turning research into a scientific monoculture - Communications Psychology The rush to study generative AI is producing a feedback loop of topical and methodological convergence, flattening scientific imagination and crowding out the pluralism needed to keep research adaptiv...

“Epistemic monocropping” is a great phrase www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Engaging to Oppose: Cross-Cutting Patterns in Hostile News Commentary - Seonhye Noh, Stuart Soroka, 2026 Prior work shows that passive news engagement, such as selection and consumption, exhibits strong news selectivity. Far less attention has been given to more ac...

“Hostile commenters are more likely to cross boundaries by targeting opposing news stories and exhibit weaker echo chamber structures.” Check out this new paper on the cross-cutting nature of hostile news commentary, lead-authored by @shnoh.bsky.social (who's on the market!). doi.org/10.1177/1940...

photograph from the 80's of the wrestler Sting wearing a Gold's Gym shirt and sunglasses, leaning against a shelf in a bookstore and positively cheesing at an open copy of The Far Side Gallery 2, a collection of Far Side Cartoons.

what if i told you, through the power of forensic analysis, we are closer than ever to knowing the exact Far Side cartoon that is making Sting smile in this iconic photo. 🧵 👇

Very excited to see this out at @bjpols.bsky.social! In this article, I show that contemporary political news coverage makes it challenging for readers to learn information that is helpful for democratic accountability, even for very politically engaged audiences.

A brief summary:

this is hands down the most confusing graphic I have ever seen, I’ve been staring at it for like five full minutes

What does an independent mean in politics? New CNN poll results identify five distinct types of independents.

Check out our new CNN poll deep dive into who political independents are, how they engage with politics and what they think about the current political moment. The classic swing voter appears to be a thing of the past. www.cnn.com/interactive/...

UMich to close CSCAR, longtime statistical consulting service The University of Michigan disclosed it will phase out the Consulting for Statistics, Computing and Analytics Research unit.

A disappointing decision, made in a (reputedly) disappointing way.
www.michigandaily.com/news/researc...

Can embarrassment of one's party dampen partisanship and polarization? One would think.

In a forthcoming paper at @poqjournal.bsky.social, Taylor Carlson, @stevenwwebster.bsky.social, and I examine what we call "partisan embarrassment," including looking at the ramifications of these feelings...

Also Mia is on the job market and you should hire her, she’s an amazing scholar!

Hi all, I'm still collecting data for my dissertation. If anyone has any thoughts on the Vine app in the year 2025, I would be deeply happy to hear you talk for a bit!

These Faculty Senates Are Trying to Band Together to Stand Up to Trump The idea of a compact among institutions is based on the idea that there’s strength in numbers, and it comes amid frustration that few presidents are speaking out against the administration’s actions ...

Nebraska, Rutgers, Indiana, and Michigan State faculty senates have now voted in favor of creating a mutual defense compact amongst Big 10 schools.

www.chronicle.com/article/thes...

We'll be hosting an REP mini conference on September 19 at Boulder. We're hoping to provide an alternative option for REP folks who can't attend APSA in person. CFP and further details TBA.

EMU has no plans to close its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion While sadness and anger are being expressed down the road in Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University says its Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will continue. WEMU’s Kevin Meerschaert has this...

Yet another example of the lesser-ranked schools taking the stand that the bigger schools are too scared to.

Here: even as Ann Arbor caves on DEI, Eastern Michigan does not.

The courage of the smaller schools is laudable. The refusal of the bigger schools is frustrating.

Open Letter to the Leadership of the American Political Science Association Regarding Concerns Over the Vancouver Annual Conference and Immigration Risks To the Leadership of the American Political Science Association, As political scientists, our scholarship often interrogates the interplay between policy, politics, and their real-world impacts. It is...

In light of the immigration crackdown on graduate students and professors with documented legal status in the United States, here is an open letter to APSA which you can sign to show support to our colleagues facing tremendous uncertainties. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The more people who sign the less risky it is for all of us. We're over 900 in just about 13 hours since we first posted it. Share with your colleagues, your friends, your list servs, your professional associations, your department and campus email lists -
bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEd

in case you missed it, here or on the other place, here's the Sad Dad Bands thread, from the top

Planning a faculty teach-in on current events How to plan a current events teach-in Drafted Feb 21, 2025 Josh Pasek - Generated with AI assistance Key tasks/questions Determine what your teach-in will look like Identify people who can be part of ...

For faculty who are wondering about the steps of putting together a teach-in on what is currently happening, I threw together a quick guide based on some of what we did at Michigan - Feel free to pass it around and open to any suggestions - docs.google.com/document/d/1...

deviation from pre-registration: i cried too much with the more complicated model bc it wasn’t working and idk why

Some higher ed organizations who are loudly circling the wagons against federal funding cuts were oddly silent or circumspect about the earlier attacks on CRT and DEI.

I wish there was a better understanding that these attacks are coming because we failed to repel those.

It's a "post pictures of my cat on social media" kind of day

New timeline, same problems, same solution

My Life As a Homeless Man in America An extraordinary firsthand account.

From Patrick Fealey, very much worth your time.
www.esquire.com/news-politic...

Impressive - and fast - analysis of the US elections: (social) media, voters and the campaign. 88 crisp analyses. Great lineup. Open access.

Democracy commsky polisky @polcomm.bsky.social

www.electionanalysis.ws/us/

Thanks for setting this up! I'd like to be added.

This is one of the few outlets I autopay each month. Just do it and forget about it. This is some of the most important work being done on elections in the U.S.

Corsair K70 core. Just picked it up a week or two ago 'cuz my old one gave up the ghost. Like many keyboards, the new one is a keyboard, and that's about all I need it to be. It does have a silly little knob on it to change volume though, so that's fun.

I can get on board with this

Vanderbilt Political Science is hiring! Assistant Professor in American Political Behavior.

The group is fabulous and they're open to considering psychologists with relevant research. The psych & polisci buildings are neighbors and we chat often. #PsychSciSky #polisky

apply.interfolio.com/152973