Models for Online Behavioral Research

Hosted by TAMIDS’s Urban AI Lab and GeoSAT

Abstract: The study of the social dimensions of the internet is at an acute crisis point. There has been a general rolling back of data access to studying what happens online, most dramatically recently with the elimination of API-based access to Twitter (now X). This talk will outline various paradigms for empirical research of studying online behaviors of people and platforms, as the field transitions from its reliance on Twitter data to an uncertain future, with a particular focus on the potential for creating an infrastructure utilizing user-sourced data on human and platform behavior.

Bio: Dr. David Lazer is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, faculty fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard, and elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He has published prominent work on computational social science, misinformation, democratic deliberation, collective intelligence, and algorithmic auditing. His research has received extensive coverage in the media, including the New York Times, NPR, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.  He is a co-leader of the COVID States Project, one of the leading efforts to understand the social and political dimensions of the pandemic in the United States. He is cofounder of the National Internet Observatory and Volunteer Science. Dr. Lazer has served in multiple leadership and editorial positions, including on the Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication for the National Academies, the International Society for Computational Social Science, the International Network for Social Network Analysis, Social Networks, Network Science, and Science.

Zoom Link: https://tamu.zoom.us/j/91478380129?pwd=ZVNpN01WUGhGcERYZkNrdXdNaDhlUT09
Meeting ID: 914 7838 0129
Passcode: 751480