How Facebook, Twitter and other data troves are revolutionizing social science

A new breed of researcher is turning to computation to understand society — and then change it. Duncan Watts discusses changes to traditional social science and computational social science in this recent Nature news feature.

Communication
Computer and Information Science
Operations Information and Decisions

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Diana Mutz receives PSRM Prize

Diana Mutz's 2018 paper on "Attitudes Toward Economic Inequality: The Illusory Agreement" was awarded the 2019/2020 PSRM Prize. This prize is awarded annually to the best article published in Political Science Research and Methods.

Communication
Political Science

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Meeting the Challenge of Vaccination Hesitancy: Q&A with Damon Centola

Damon Centola contributed an essay to a recent report on the root causes of vaccine hesitancy and actionable steps to address it. In his Q&A with Annenberg, he answered a few questions about the anti-vaccination movement and how to curb it.

Communication
Sociology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

How we make decisions during a pandemic

From mask wearing to physical distancing, individuals wield a lot of power in how the coronavirus outbreak plays out. Behavioral experts including Damon Centola reveal what might be prompting people to act — or not.

Communication
Sociology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

There Are 3 Things We Have to Do to Get People Wearing Masks

Lyle Ungar's New York Times op-ed discusses how best to persuade people to wear protective face masks. “It’s not too late to apply three basic principles from behavioral science: make it easy, understood, and expected, and we’ll soon see face masks everywhere, saving lives.”

Computer and Information Science

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Duncan Watts named 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow

Duncan Watts' Carnegie project aims to deepen our understanding of misinformation and its consequences for democracy, culminating in the production of interactive dashboards that will enable journalists, policymakers, and members of the public to ground policy discussions in facts and evidence.

Communication
Computer and Information Science
Operations Information and Decisions

Consensus and Contagion in Society

#ICA20 Top Paper Profile – Jovanova, Lydon-Staley, O’Donnell, Pandey, Parelman, Kang, Bassett, & Falk

The Communication Science and Biology (CSaB) Interest Group awarded four teams top papers for #ICA20. Dani Bassett and Emily Falk are two of the authors on a paper that looked at what makes some people more receptive to health messaging than others.

Bioengineering
Communication
Electrical and Systems Engineering
Marketing
Psychology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Catie Fee, left, and Vivi Kirsh practice social distancing and wear face masks as they sit in downtown Davis, Calif.

You can help slow the virus if you talk about it accurately online

As the coronavirus pandemic tears through the US, and as some governors move toward reopening the economy, reducing the impact of the catastrophe depends on persuading people to continue to follow public health guidance. Emily Falk examines how ordinary citizens can amplify the most important public health information.

Communication
Marketing
Psychology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Mapping the Social Network of Coronavirus

In a recent New York Times article, Duncan Watts spoke about how analysts are racing to model the behavior of humans in order to slow the spread of Coronavirus.

Communication
Computer and Information Science
Operations Information and Decisions

Consensus and Contagion in Society

Helpful interactions can keep societies stable

New work by Erol Akçay challenges 50-year-old predictions that mutualistic interactions make a community unstable. His work shows that mutualism is compatible with stable communities and that the balance of mutualism with other types of interactions plays determinative roles in the makeup, size, and stability of those communities.

Biology

Consensus and Contagion in Society

News

How Facebook, Twitter and other data troves are revolutionizing social science

Diana Mutz receives PSRM Prize

Meeting the Challenge of Vaccination Hesitancy: Q&A with Damon Centola

How we make decisions during a pandemic

There Are 3 Things We Have to Do to Get People Wearing Masks

Duncan Watts named 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow

#ICA20 Top Paper Profile – Jovanova, Lydon-Staley, O’Donnell, Pandey, Parelman, Kang, Bassett, & Falk

You can help slow the virus if you talk about it accurately online

Mapping the Social Network of Coronavirus

Helpful interactions can keep societies stable