15. Race in Computational Disinformation Analysis and Deep Reading with Deen Freelon

15. Race in Computational Disinformation Analysis and Deep Reading with Deen Freelon

Author: Katherine A. Keith, Naitian Zhou, & Lucy Li March 6, 2022 Duration: 51:34

Our guest in this episode is Deen Freelon, Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina in the School of Journalism and Media. We chat about his 2020 Social Science Computer Review Paper "Black Trolls Matter: Racial and Ideological Asymmetries in Social Media Disinformation" with co-authors Michael Bossetta, Chris Wells, Josephine Lukito, Yiping Xia, and Kirsten Adams.

Deen also talks about writing a "behind the scenes" book chapter about the process of making this paper, being one of the first movers in the discipline of computational methods for communication studies, and how he learns programming best when it is connected to the goals of his project. He emphasizes that many of his great research ideas come from reading deeply and recommends devoting at least half a day a week solely to reading.


Behind every published paper or headline-grabbing finding using social data, there's a hidden story of collaboration, dead ends, and problem-solving. Diaries of Social Data Research pulls back the curtain on that process. Hosted by researchers Katherine A. Keith, Naitian Zhou, and Lucy Li, this series sits down with scholars working at the intersection of computational methods and social science to explore the real, human effort behind the datasets. Each conversation functions like an open research diary, detailing how interdisciplinary teams actually come together, navigate differing academic cultures, and tackle the practical hurdles of working with massive, often messy, information about human behavior. You'll hear about the stalled projects, the unexpected breakthroughs, and the meticulous work that turns a raw idea into a credible contribution. This isn't a podcast about polished results, but about the fascinating and often untold journey of modern research. For anyone curious about how we actually study society through data-the alliances built, the ethics debated, and the code debugged late into the night-this series offers a rare and authentic look inside the lab.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 20

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