Category : Congress & Seminars

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Presentation of the Spanish Democracy Report by Fundación Alternativas

The Spanish Democracy Report (Informe sobre la Democracia en España) by Fundación Alternativas was launched 19 of October in Madrid. The document features a chapter by professor Sandra González-Bailón, University of Pennsylvania and myself including an analysis on modes of exposure to news information online (our chapter can be accessed here).

During the presentation of the report, I had the oportunity to talk about the news consumption patterns that characterize Spanish citizens’ behaviour on the web in 2019 and the main impacts of information technologies on the distribution of news. Alberto Penadés, director of the report, Sandra Leon, senior researcher at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Pablo Simón, professor at the UC3M and the journalist Joaquín Estafanía also took part in the presentation and discussed the main challenges ahead for the Spanish Democracy. Overall, it was a highly interesting debate that can be accessed here.

 

Round table to present The Spanish Democracy Report 2019 (link to video in Spanish)

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At the #IJPP20 Conference talking about Political Fragmentation Online

The videos of the panels of the The International Journal of Press/Politics annual conference are available on Youtube. They feature a range of interesting presentations from colleagues from 36 different countries. Here, I presented our work on political fragmentation on social media using a Structural Topic Model approach. This is the first outcome of a collaborative effort including my colleagues Raphael Heiberger (University of Bremen), Laia Castro (University of Zurich), Rasmus K. Nielsen (University of Oxford), Frank Esser (University of Zurich).

The #IJPP20 conference was held virtually for the first time and it was also the first congress of 2020 to present my research, after a long period of time including my maternity leave. It had something special, not just because it was held online but also, because it took place after a severe lockdown in many countries in Europe; and an uncertain summer, when Covid-related cases were increasing in many countries in the world, including the UK and Spain. My gratitute goes to all the organizers and the editor of the IJPP, Cristian Vaccari for an excellent planification of the virtual conference.

Watch the video of the presentation “Political Fragmentation in the Online Domain:
Evidence from a structural topic modelling approach”

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Worcester Price for the best paper published in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research

The World Association of Public Opinion Research awarded us the Robert M. Worcester Price for the best paper 2019. Our paper “Is Facebook Eroding the Public Agenda? Evidence from browsing tracking data” was considered the best manuscript published in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research. The lead co-author, professor Ana S. Cardenal (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) delivered an acceptance speech during a virtual ceremony celebrated in October 202o, on behalf of Carol Galais (Universitat de Barcelona) and myself. We all thanked the jury for this recognition, which encouraged us to keep advancing our research agenda.

We competed against 39 outstanding papers also published in 2019. The jury valued our novel combination of survey and browsing tracking data to measure citizens news media diets and its effects over the public agenda. Moreover, they highlighted our contribution to advance in the measurement of the political fragmentation in the online domain, which remains still very elusive.

Our paper can be accessed here

Citation: Cardenal, A. S., Galais, C. Majó-Vázquez, S. (2018), Is Facebook eroding the public agenda? Evidence from survey and web-tracking data. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. Volume 31, Issue 4, Winter 2019, Pages 589–608, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edy025

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Fake News and Disinformation: Audiences, Public Opinion and Regulatory Frameworks

Among the range of interesting (virtual) seminars taking place last summer, I had the pleasure to join my colleages at Meso Argentina for the talk on “Noticias Falsas y Desinformación: Audiencias, Opinión Pública y Marclos Regulatorios” (Fake News and Disinformation: Audiences, Public Opinión and Regulatory Frameworks).

My presentation focused on the results of our study on the role of suspended accounts during major elections in Europe. This study sheds light on the moderation strategies of major social media platforms during electoral contests. The panel featured also Sarah Ganter from Simon Fraser University and Sebastián Valenzuela from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

The full video recording of my presentation and that of my colleagues is available at the Meso Argentina Youtube channel (Spanish only)

 

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