20. Navigating the Shores of Computational Text Analysis Validity with Christian Baden, Christian Pipa, and Mariken van der Velden

20. Navigating the Shores of Computational Text Analysis Validity with Christian Baden, Christian Pipa, and Mariken van der Velden

Author: Katherine A. Keith, Naitian Zhou, & Lucy Li October 30, 2023 Duration: 57:11

In this episode, we speak to Christian Baden, Christian Pipal, and Mariken van der Velden about their 2022 journal paper in Communications Methods and Measures, titled, “Three Gaps in Computational Text Analysis Methods for Social Sciences: A Research Agenda”. They co-authored this paper with Martijn Schoonvelde, and the authors span several disciplines, from communication to political science.

We discuss the challenges and joys of writing for a cross-disciplinary audience, how their frustrations with the validity of computational methods are shared across fields with different methodological conventions, and how this paper laid the groundwork for a larger project on European political text analysis.


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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