Laia Castro's Avatar

Laia Castro

@laiacastro

Associate Professor, Political Science Department, University of Barcelona; Digital Media & Politics | https://www.laiacastro.com

624
Followers
444
Following
4
Posts
08.01.2024
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Laia Castro @laiacastro

Preview
‘In the end, you feel blank’: India’s female workers watching hours of abusive content to train AI Women in rural communities describe trauma of moderating violent and pornographic content for global tech companies

when people talk about AI used in moderation of social media posts, you must remember there is always the human-in-the-loop, often a woman, often in the Global South, always dehumanised and forgotten

1/n

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

24.02.2026 16:33 👍 559 🔁 354 💬 3 📌 25
Post image

Have you conducted a content analysis and want to share your variable operationalizations? Or are you about to start one?

If so, check out DOCA: a great openscience initiative offering a shared database of content-analytical variables for communication science.

➡️ www.hope.uzh.ch/doca

14.01.2026 12:37 👍 4 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 2
Post image Post image Post image

Call for Authors 📣
Contribute to the Database of Variables for Content Analysis (DOCA) – thematic call on Digital Publics!
We invite variable entries for the analysis of digital publics (manual & automated approaches).

🔗 Full call: t.uzh.ch/1Wn

#DigitalPublics #ContentAnalysis #CommResearch

12.02.2026 20:29 👍 7 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0

After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN!

Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered

jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

24.11.2025 20:50 👍 82 🔁 33 💬 1 📌 0

The Public Opinion Analytics Lab (POAL) is a collaboration by Southampton, Reading, and the LSE to leverage our strengths in public opinion research for academia and beyond. Today we've published our first methods brief— a short primer on conjoint experiments by the fantastic Thomas Robinson (LSE).

10.11.2025 10:48 👍 15 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
Cover titled "The Power of the Crowd" by Sabrina Stöckli, Benjamin A. Lyons, and Hannah Krekler, published by Cambridge Elements in Political Science. The cover features a vibrant, multicolored geometric background.

Cover titled "The Power of the Crowd" by Sabrina Stöckli, Benjamin A. Lyons, and Hannah Krekler, published by Cambridge Elements in Political Science. The cover features a vibrant, multicolored geometric background.

NEW - 'The Power of the Crowd: How the Public Can Both Spoil and Improve Social Media as a Source of Information'

This Cambridge Element by F. Stöckel, S. Stöckli, B.A. Lyons, H. Kroker & @jasonreifler.bsky.social is free to read for 2 weeks.

cup.org/4344Tyl

#cambridgeelements #politics #Polisky

08.10.2025 14:56 👍 17 🔁 9 💬 2 📌 2
Post image

Social media users adopt the toxic behaviors of ingroup members

An analysis of 7 million tweets from over 700,000 accounts finds that exposures to toxic behavior by ingroup members is the primary driver of contagious toxicity online academic.oup.com/jcmc/article...

22.10.2025 13:16 👍 413 🔁 174 💬 11 📌 45
Post image

How common are “survey professionals” - people who take dozens of online surveys for pay - across online panels, and do they harm data quality?

Our paper, FirstView at @politicalanalysis.bsky.social, tackles this question using browsing data from three U.S. samples (Facebook, YouGov, and Lucid):

07.10.2025 18:49 👍 136 🔁 54 💬 4 📌 6
Post image

How do people think different sectors’ use of generative AI will change their experience of interacting with them?

More optimists than pessimists for e.g. science and search engines, but more pessimists than optimists for news media, government, and – especially – politicians 1/3

07.10.2025 09:18 👍 8 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 2
Preview
Explaining public preferences for regulating Artificial Intelligence in election campaigns: Evidence from the U.S. and Taiwan The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election campaigns, such as AI-generated political ads, automated messaging, and the widespread …

🧵 New publication: How do people feel about regulating #AI in election campaigns? 🧵

In a new article, @adrauc.bsky.social, @kunkakom.bsky.social, and I examine when and why people support stronger AI regulation in political competition.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

👇

06.10.2025 11:36 👍 14 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 0
Abstract

Abstract

New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵

07.10.2025 07:14 👍 474 🔁 206 💬 6 📌 16
Screenshot of the article “Open science in democracy research: the research infrastructure ‘Monitoring Electoral Democracy’ (MEDem)” published in European Political Science. The header shows the journal name, DOI link, and the label “DEBATE.” Below, the title is followed by the author list: Hajo Boomgaarden, Alexia Katsanidou, Sylvia Kritzinger, Georg Lutz, Johanna Willmann, and Jakob-Moritz Eberl. The abstract explains the aims of MEDem as a European research infrastructure to make democracy research data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). Keywords listed include open science, FAIR data, ESFRI roadmap, research infrastructure, democracy research, data harmonization, data linking, and data set search. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-025-00534-8

Screenshot of the article “Open science in democracy research: the research infrastructure ‘Monitoring Electoral Democracy’ (MEDem)” published in European Political Science. The header shows the journal name, DOI link, and the label “DEBATE.” Below, the title is followed by the author list: Hajo Boomgaarden, Alexia Katsanidou, Sylvia Kritzinger, Georg Lutz, Johanna Willmann, and Jakob-Moritz Eberl. The abstract explains the aims of MEDem as a European research infrastructure to make democracy research data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). Keywords listed include open science, FAIR data, ESFRI roadmap, research infrastructure, democracy research, data harmonization, data linking, and data set search. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-025-00534-8

They say: once there’s a paper 📝, it’s real…
🎉 #MEDem in #EPS @ecpr.bsky.social

The paper outlines how MEDem will strengthen #OpenScience by making data #FAIR in #DemocracyResearch – and how scholars across Europe are joining forces to build a truly open #ResearchInfrastructure ⚙️

27.09.2025 09:05 👍 48 🔁 27 💬 1 📌 0

Proud to be part of such a productive research group!

🔎Looking for a panel survey? Feel free to use ours!

29.09.2025 16:11 👍 12 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
A multilevel network approach to revealing patterns of online political selective exposure Selective exposure, individuals’ inclination to seek out information that supports their beliefs while avoiding information that contradicts them, plays an important role in the emergence of polarizat...

New publication with @abovet.bsky.social @esserfrank.bsky.social @laiacastro.bsky.social

With today’s political environment becoming increasingly complex, how can political selective exposure be measured beyond the traditional ‘left vs. right’ lens?

Read more:
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

26.09.2025 21:21 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
In_equality Conference 2026 The "Politics of Inequality” research center invites interdisciplinary & international researchers to Konstanz, Germany, for the In_equality Conference, 15-17 April 2026.

🚨Call for papers for the 2026 Inequality conference in Konstanz. I'm co-organizing it and we welcome submissions from Computational Social Science. The deadline is approaching quickly!
inequality-conference.de

25.09.2025 09:45 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Call for expressions of interest for a PhD scholarship within the project GPOL – Democracy, Elections and Citizenship

🧲 We are hiring!
✨ PhD position to join @dec-gr.bsky.social
🏁 4-year FPI contract
🎓 Pol Sci / Social Sci background + Master’s + English
📧 Send expression of interest with CV and motivation letter to gr.dec@uab.cat
🔗 tinyurl.com/yc3epmv2

17.09.2025 09:22 👍 31 🔁 35 💬 0 📌 4

📣 We’re launching the London Social Media Observatory! 🎉

➡️ We are a new multidisciplinary research centre, directed by @andreucasas.bsky.social & funded by the @ukri.org Future Leaders Fellowship

🧵 [1/4]

16.09.2025 08:37 👍 14 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 3
Post image

Radical right accommodation really does not work.

New paper out with this exceptionally talented team
@katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk

doi.org/10.31235/osf...

05.09.2025 06:50 👍 2169 🔁 973 💬 58 📌 174
Preview
Scapegoating the Algorithm—Asterisk America’s epistemic challenges run deeper than social media.

How much can we blame social media for our polarized political climate?

@danwphilosophy.bsky.social argues that the narrative that the platforms cause polarization “overlooks deeper political and institutional problems that are reflected on social media, not created by it.”

14.08.2025 16:25 👍 9 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

To all the #DSA experts and data access enthusiast out there, before you go on holiday, sign up & save the date for the #dsa40 data access days in Berlin, September 25 & 26!

2 days with keynotes, panels, expert insights and practical guidance 👉 dsa40collaboratory.eu/data-access-...

29.07.2025 14:59 👍 16 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 1

🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community.

🔗 epssnet.org

Here’s a thread with everything you need to know.

🧵

26.06.2025 17:07 👍 375 🔁 210 💬 4 📌 58
Post image

Our Digital News Report 2025 is out!

📊48 markets
🌏Almost 100K respondents
📰Key headline: Audiences lean into video news and influencers, raising misinformation concerns and new dilemmas for publishers

📱Explore now buff.ly/xLP67Tg
🧵Findings in thread #DNR25

17.06.2025 05:03 👍 94 🔁 81 💬 2 📌 25
Post image Post image

Thrilled to share the program for the III Yale-UB HPE Workshop — a joint initiative bringing together HPE researchers across continents and disciplines. Huge thanks to our sponsors, presenters, and discussants. Can’t wait for a great conference!
cc @cescamat.bsky.social (UB co-host)

18.06.2025 07:07 👍 23 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 0
Digital Democracy Fellowship x TrygFonden Fellowship Program Digital Democracy Fellowship x TrygFonden Fellowship Program

Scholar, journalist, policy maker, NGO working on digital technologies and democracy topics?

Check out this exciting Fellowship program at the @ddc-sdu.bsky.social.

Flexible conditions, inspiring environment, great colleagues.

🗓️ DL: September 15 (check instructions ⬇️)

www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

18.06.2025 07:24 👍 40 🔁 29 💬 1 📌 1
Preview
The real story isn’t young men supposedly voting far right. It’s what young women are up to | Cas Mudde There is an opportunity staring centre-left parties in the face – if they reject the male gaze distorting our politics, says political scientist Cas Mudde

From Bluesky to the Guardian!

In my new op-Ed, I argue that the “male glaze” of media and politics is empirically, normative, and politically wrong and that progressives should focus more on the left turn of young women.

21.05.2025 10:48 👍 709 🔁 236 💬 20 📌 30
Post image

Special issue on Democratic Listening forthcoming @polcommjournal.bsky.social. 9 excellent articles using experimental, observational, & philosophical methods to study this key component of political comm. Check out the TOC + intro essay by Michael Neblo & myself: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

30.05.2025 14:27 👍 29 🔁 17 💬 2 📌 1
Post image

🚨 We're hiring! Join us at @LMU_Muenchen for the DFG-funded project "Democratic Persuasion: How to Make the Case for Democracy."

Interested in making scholarly & societal impact?

We’re looking for:
🔹 1 Postdoc (100%)
🔹 1 PhD researcher (70%)
Starting: Oct 2025 | Apply by: July 8
More info ⬇️ (1/7)

08.05.2025 15:59 👍 119 🔁 106 💬 1 📌 2
Post image

Kicked off our #Fuel2Fire 🔥 project in Hamburg!

In this cross-country collaboration, we're studying polarization across Europe — from meta discourse to polarizing topics & practices — with partners from Spain, Sweden, Poland & @netzwerkrecherche.org.

#Polarization #Journalism

20.05.2025 15:20 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 0
Preview
The Effects of Forecasts on the Accuracy and Precision of Expectations Abstract. Quantitative forecasts have become increasingly prominent as tools for aiding public understanding of sociopolitical trends. But how much, and wh

Out now at @poqjournal.bsky.social! Do election forecasts set realistic election expectations? doi.org/10.1093/poq/... 🧵 (w/ @mbarnfield.bsky.social, @florianstoeckel.bsky.social, @benlyons.bsky.social, @vittoriomerola.bsky.social, @jasonreifler.bsky.social and other awesome BlueSky-less colleagues)

12.05.2025 10:46 👍 22 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 3
Preview
The role of far-right party performance in shaping disinformation concerns of European voters: evidence from the 2024 European Parliament elections Concerns about the risk of disinformation in the 2024 European Parliament elections were widespread in European capitals. Simultaneously, the far-right – often linked to the spread of disinformatio...

▶️ Do far-right wins fuel disinformation fears? 😮

@kgattermann.bsky.social, @elskevdhoogen.bsky.social and @claesdevreese.bsky.social show that strong far-right showings in the 2024 EP elections heighten public concern about disinformation 👇

25.04.2025 07:11 👍 19 🔁 13 💬 0 📌 0