Computational Communication Science Lab (CCL)

Here's CCL's contribution to Starter Pack Season! Follow our team and colleagues in computational communication science. We'll keep updating the starter pack regularly. Feel free to DM us if you'd like to be included or have suggestions for accounts we should add. Thank you! 🙌 go.bsky.app/VqFrK14

We often don't know which data, media sources or analytical tools already exist, let alone whether we can access, share the access, and thus make the data reusable. In our new open-access paper, we explain how @medem.bsky.social aims to change that. 🧵

What are we planning for the MEDem Service Center for Text and Multimedia Data? Our colleagues have laid out the vision, services, and challenges in a new open-access paper. 👇

Heute um 15:00 Uhr am Karlsplatz (TU Wien): Noch einmal gemeinsam laut sein gegen die massiven Kürzungen des Unibudgets! ✊ Es geht um die Zukunft unserer Bildung und Forschung – jede Stimme zählt. Für die Unis, für uns alle! #UnisRetten

A new podcast from the ViDSS “Supervisors’ Secrets” is now available online! In Episode 3, our lab head, @anniewald.bsky.social, discusses the opportunities and challenges of shared supervision. 🎧 Listen here: supervisors-secrets.podigee.io/episodes #Supervision

📢 New publication in @icsjournal.bsky.social! Mykola Makhortykh, @aytalina.bsky.social, & @maikovska.bsky.social examine how Ukrainian and Russian political elites communicate on Telegram during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war and how Russia’s full-scale invasion affected their tactics. Read more👇

Back in #Dienten for our annual team retreat! 🗻 A few days filled with hiking, productive discussions, strategic decisions, & even some karaoke. As the CCL is growing, it is great to spend time together beyond our usual work routines & return with fresh ideas. 💡

🎓 CONGRATS to @julaluehring.bsky.social on successfully defending her dissertation on socio-affective dynamics in misinformation spread! 👏Thanks to advisors @anniewald.bsky.social, @dgarcia.eu & @hannahmetzler.bsky.social! Jula continues at GESIS as Senior Researcher. All the best for what’s next! 🥂

Very happy to share some news 😊 In October, I started as Professor of Quantitative Methods in Digital Communication Research at @kowisalzburg.bsky.social / @unisalzburg.bsky.social. Thank you for the warm welcome, I’m excited to be part of your team! More info: www.plus.ac.at/news/fabienn...

@compcommlab.bsky.social has been my academic family for nine years. Your support helped me find my path in research and teaching, thank you all 💚 Special thanks to @hajoboo.bsky.social , @jamoeberl.bsky.social & @hdnrch.bsky.social, you were there from the start! More family gatherings ahead!

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ Running for a good cause! Today, a delegation of current and former CCL members took part in the #CancerResearchRun! 💙 Great to see our CCL community coming together (again) beyond academia to support a good cause, get moving, and enjoy some time together. #CancerResearchRun #CCL

Ever wondered whether politicians rely more on scientific evidence in their communication over time? We looked at almost 30 years of Austrian parliamentary debates, and the answer is: No. 🔗 Read the full paper here: doi.org/10.22323/385...

📣 Deadline extended! If you think this could be the right position for you, don’t miss the opportunity to apply. 👇✨

We are so proud to congratulate our dear Fabienne Lind on starting her professorship at @unisalzburg.bsky.social today! 🎉 Not saying goodbye just yet 🥲 We will stay in touch and keep collaborating! 🫶 Wishing you a wonderful start, @fabiennelind.bsky.social, and all the best for this new chapter! 💙💚

Today we are saying goodbye to Antje Sader 💙 She supported our teaching, kept our lab meetings running, and was always looking out for everyone. And she brought plenty of fun along the way! Our “#1 Guardian of the Team” award says it all🛡️Thanks for everything, Antje 🙌 We will miss having you around!

Last week, CCL hosted the Summer School on Digital Public Spheres in Vienna ☀️ ECRs and experts from Berlin, Roskilde, Tübingen, Bern & Vienna came together to discuss their research projects 🎓 Many thanks to @anniewald.bsky.social & @sarahepp.bsky.social for organizing such a memorable event! 🙌

Many thanks for @aytalina.bsky.social, @rupertkiddle.com, Dana Bouwknegt and @damiantrilling.net (#TWON Project) for insightful presentations! And also many thanks for everyone who attended the session and participated in the thoughtful roundtable discussion afterward🔥

On the final morning of #ECC2026, #WHAT-IF team hosted a session on LLMs and ABMs in digital communication research. Organized by @aytalina.bsky.social and chaired by @vanatteveldt.com, the session highlighted some perspectives on the current state of the social simulation field development.

📣 Call for papers now open! The next Annual Conference of the European Political Science Society will take place in Copenhagen, 24–26 June 2027. Submission deadline: 13 November 2026 (23:59 CET) Looking forward to it! #EPSS2027 @epssnet.bsky.social

Today at #ECC2026: The #WHATIF session on LLMs and ABMs. Stop by to hear our latest updates on social simulation research.

Excited to see Miglė Bareikytė and Kateryna Maikovska present our co-authored research on sabotage as resistance in Russia’s war on Ukraine #ecc2026 @ecreaeu.bsky.social

Wow, I'm absolutely speechless! Huge shout out to all the amazing folks at CCL who helped me with their feedback and mentoring, especially Petro Tolochko, @aytalina.bsky.social and @hajoboo.bsky.social !!!

Another #WHATIF presentation at #ECC2026! 🚀 In a session chaired by @rupertkiddle.com, @maxpe.bsky.social shared the insights on whether certain LLMs can reliably predict and replicate human cooperation patterns in game-theoretic settings. Check out the pre-print: doi.org/10.48550/arX...

📢 We’re hiring a Postdoc in Computational Communication Science at the University of Vienna! 🔎 Text/image analysis, platform data & political communication 📍 Vienna ⏳ 6 years, full-time ⏰ Apply by 3 Oct jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi... Find out more about our team here: compcommlab.univie.ac.at

🎉 New publication in Mass Communication and Society! The latest study by Mirjana Čirjak, @ahrabhikat.bsky.social, @dbetakova.bsky.social, K. Pamina Syed Ali, & @hajoboo.bsky.social examines the dynamics of news and social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria 🇦🇹 Read more👇

📢 Job Alert! The @compcommlab.bsky.social at the University of Vienna is hiring a University Assistant (Postdoc) in the area of computational communication science! 💻 📍 Vienna | 6-year position | full-time Apply until the 3rd of October via the University of Vienna job portal ⬇️

📢 We’re hiring a Senior Scientist in Computational Communication Science at the University of Vienna! Come join our CCL Team and work on building a research infrastructure for #CSS @medem.bsky.social 🤓 📍 Vienna | 4-year position | full-time Apply via the University of Vienna job portal 👇

📍Last week at the Social Simulation Conference 2026 in Durham! 🎤 Our lab members @anniewald.bsky.social, @maikovska.bsky.social, and @aytalina.bsky.social presented research from the projects @what-if-horizon.bsky.social and Social Issue Emergence in the Hybrid Media System 🚀 And more ahead!

Truly grateful to have had the opportunity to share and discuss the work @what-if-horizon.bsky.social with the social simulation community💡 and not alone this time but with the brilliant @maxvandrunen.bsky.social & @anniewald.bsky.social 👏👏 Many thanks for the inspiring event in 💚Durham, #SSC2026 🥳

ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox are now VLOSE. These platforms will have several obligations and will be hold to a higher standard of responsibility. Extremely interesting, from a research point of view, is the data access part. ROBLOX! here we come! Give us the data! ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Our Research Network Democracy and Human Rights is now on Bluesky! 🦋 Follow @dem-hum.bsky.social for exciting research updates related to democracy & human rights. 💬

💡 New preprint is out: Can AI-simulations help shape the future of platform governance? 🔗 The whole paper is available here: osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/y2ext_v1 Many greetings for the authors @maxvandrunen.bsky.social @natalihelberger.bsky.social @aytalina.bsky.social @anniewald.bsky.social

📢 We’re hiring a Postdoc in Computational Communication Science at the University of Vienna! Come join our CCL team and work on digital public spheres, political communication, and computational methods 🤓 📍 Vienna | 6-year position | full-time Apply via the University of Vienna job portal 👇

📬 WHAT-IF Newsletter #5 is out! Our latest highlights about conferences, publications, preprints and the WHAT-IF Dataverse Collection are available here: what-if-horizon.eu/2026/07/31/n... 📩 Stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter on the project website.

🤖 🔥 New preprint is out The paper, co-authored by Taehee Kim and @dgarcia.eu, demonstrates that AI-generated conversations can be remarkably convincing. 💡 For more insights check out the preprint: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🎉 New publication in Digital Journalism! The latest study by Paul Balluff, @hajoboo.bsky.social, and @anniewald.bsky.social compares how German alternative and legacy media reported on Nord Stream 2 and reveals both distinctive reporting patterns and substantial overlap. Read more👇

Summer School for Women* in Political Methodology 2026☀️ so many exciting projects and ideas! We discussed how to measure and validate various highly relevant but complex constructs with dictionaries an LLMs 💻

The #WHATIF 2nd General Assembly meeting in Bucharest came to an end Many thanks to Facultatea de Comunicare si Relatii Publice for the excellent organisation and hospitality, and to the city of Bucharest for the welcoming atmosphere. Stay tuned for upcoming project updates!

Rudolphina, the Science Magazine of @univie.ac.at is featuring our @what-if-horizon.bsky.social, where we use #ABM and #LLM -powered simulations to explore civic engagement in digital information environments: rudolphina.univie.ac.at/en/computer-... @aytalina.bsky.social @compcommlab.bsky.social

🔥 Happening now: The 2nd General Assembly Meeting of the WHAT-IF project is currently taking place in 📍 Bucharest, Romania. Over the coming days, partners from across the consortium will come together to share progress, discuss preliminary findings and explore new research ideas. Stay tuned!

Thrilled and grateful that SYNAPS has been selected for ERC Advanced Grant funding. @erc.europe.eu SYNAPS looks at how 14- to 16-year-olds develop political interest, knowledge and engagement in a networked world shaped by peers, social media, influencers and algorithms. @compcommlab.bsky.social

A new CCL #SeniorScientist position is now officially open on the @univie.ac.at job portal! Please apply and/or share with colleagues with a matching profile! 📑

Excited that my first peer-reviewed article, co-authored with @fabiennelind.bsky.social and @sonjablum.bsky.social is out! We ask how German and Italian parties used emotions in energy policy communication during the 2024 European Parliament elections. 👉Open Access: doi.org/10.1002/epa2...

🌍 CCL is heading to #ICA26 with a broad set of contributions across panels and preconferences spanning multiple areas of communication research! 👋 Find us in Cape Town and explore the full overview here: compcommlab.univie.ac.at/news-detaila...

Thank you @lorenzspreen.eurosky.social for your guest talk today at @compcommlab.bsky.social 🙌 Very much appreciated the interdisciplinary discussions on content vs. source-level misinformation detection, LLM annotations and validation practices in the social sciences. Photo: @aytalina.bsky.social

End your week by hitting "submit"! Today is the last day to submit your abstract to the @dgpuk-meth.bsky.social conference of the DGPuK at @gesis.org!

Training data for AI models matter for what you get. A lot. And states can benefit. Good primer by @justinhendrix.bsky.social and @techpolicypress.bsky.social on @hwaight.bsky.social and team’s important piece in @nature.com www.techpolicy.press/language-mod...