2020 Research & Writing Updates

2020 wasn’t exactly a great year for getting things done, but hey; some things got done nonetheless.

“Covariance in diurnal patterns of suicide-related expressions on Twitter and recorded suicide deaths” (with Jeremy Boo and Michiko Ueda), in Social Science & Medicine.
(What’s interesting about it: there’s a surprising lack of clarity about whether people making suicidal statements on social media is actually connected in any way to suicide deaths – some people think it’s an obvious link, others think talk like that on social media is just casual or attention-seeking. We took a five-year sample of Twitter data and suicide death records and showed that with a small time lag, the hour-by-hour pattern of suicide deaths was indeed correlated to the traffic on Twitter regarding suicidal ideation.)
“COVID-19, digital privacy, and the social limits on data-focused public health responses” (with Airo Hino), in International Journal of Information Management.
(What’s interesting about it: this was a really early attempt to untangle some of the issues surrounding the use of digital tracking and contact tracing tools for managing the COVID-19 pandemic. It touches on a few different issues ranging from privacy concerns (and how being cavalier about those concerns could sink the whole digital side of the pandemic response – which, in the end, it did in many countries) to the path-dependency created by the dominance of tech giants.

“Sentiment Analysis and Social Media” (with Luigi Curini), in The Sage Handbook of Research Methods in Political Science and International Relations.

「図書紹介：『内容分析の進め方　ーメディア・メッセージを読み解く』」、日本世論調査協会報「よろん」、126号、52−54. (“Book Review: ‘Analyzing Media Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research'”, YORON: Journal of the Japanese Association for Public Opinion Research, Vol. 126, pp.52-54)

“From Filter Bubble to Social Divide: Social Polarisation in Europe and Japan” (with Stefano Camatarri), APSA General Meeting 2020
“Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Socio-Political Identity in Japan” (with Airo Hino, Stefano Camatarri and Sebastian Jungkunz), APSA General Meeting 2020.
「日本におけるポピュリズムと陰謀論の信念」、日本世論調査協会研究大会。(“Populism and Belief in Conspiracy Theories in Japan”, at the Japanese Association for Public Opinion Research (JAPOR) Annual Research Meeting.)

—@robfahey