iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The third cohort of our MSc AI & Government and MSc AI & Sustainable Development starts this week at Birmingham. Seeing students grow is the best part of the job. Here is to a new academic year. Ad astra per aspera! #AI #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

We had an awesome project meeting over the week. So much looking forward to keep working on this. #sciencerocks

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Marius Sältzer @msaeltzer.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

4 days left to Apply!

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

VideoParl is live: videoparl.github.io — our #DFG project with @ankuepfer.bsky.social and @pluggedchris.bsky.social on #multimodal analysis of parliamentary debate. 30,000+ hours of video, all 16 Länder plus the Bundestag, 2005–2023. Pitch, face, gesture and text at the speech level.

videoparl.github.io

VideoParl — Analysis of Parliamentary Debates Using Multimodal Data

VideoParl is a DFG-funded research project analyzing text, audio and video from German parliamentary debates.

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

On my way back from #polmeth2026. It was truly a blast. Thankful for the community. A shoutout to all organisers. Right now, I am really tired and desperate for the summer break, but incredibly motivated. Looking forward to the months ahead. #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

When the far right enters parliament, established parties go high on average. But right after a far-right speech, they answer madly in anger: in words, voice, and body. Joint work with @ankuepfer.bsky.social and @pluggedchris.bsky.social presented at #PolMeth2026 at Michigan State.

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Reviewers asked for #EyeTracking study on image depth and object prominence in political images. @ankuepfer.bsky.social PAP now on OSF. Took real work to wrap heads around eyetracking, but genuinely excited to finally run it. Sessions running now! osf.io/bxpgd/overview #OpenScience #sciencerocks

osf.io

OSF

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I have three working papers at the @epssnet.bsky.social in Belfast: (1) *Far-Right Speeches and Emotional Contagion in Parliament: Sequential and Multimodal Evidence from Germany* with Andreas Kuepfer and Christian Stecker (Thursday 10:50, Lisburn, Hilton) virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/75765/...

virtual.oxfordabstracts.com

OA Virtual conferences

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I was at at #BISA2026 for a roundtable on AI and research. We agreed: #LLM based #AI will fundamentally change #internationalrelations and the discipline studying it. Teaching, methods, what counts as scholarship. All of it.

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

A single trigger word ( #Rwanda, #Brexit, #Feminism) causally increases engagement by 3–13 %pts and negative sentiment by up to 5.5 %pts. New paper with Dimosthenis Antypas, @nedjmaou-nlp.bsky.social , Carla Perez-Almendros & Jose Camacho-Collados at #ACMWebSci26.

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Just gave a talk at the University of Western Ontario (work w/ @ankuepfer.bsky.social & @pluggedchris.bsky.social). Key finds: object prominence in images matters; GOP more often sidelines women in ads than Democrats; #AfD populism is scripted, not spontaneous. #ImageAsData #CSS

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Andreas Küpfer @ankuepfer.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

I just presented recent research (with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social) on the benefits of integrating workflow management systems in computational social science studies at @parliview.bsky.social workshop at UCD in Dublin! #multimodaldata #replication #researchinfrastructure #CSS

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Andreas Küpfer @ankuepfer.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

🥳 @comptext.bsky.social conference 2026 at @unibirmingham.bsky.social is over! I had the chance to give a 3-hour workshop on high-performance computing for computational social scientists, during which we covered cluster access hurdles, hands-on sessions, and workflow management tools. #COMPTEXT2026

Photo of the workshop during "Block 1: Why HPC?"

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

What an epic dinner at @comptext.bsky.social yesterday in the Cricket stadium! Clearly next level. All praise to Aditi Dutta for scouting this one out. #comptext2026 #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

You must all be en route to @comptext.bsky.social now. Excited to welcome you all to campus. Workshops look 💯. Panels 💯 +1. We could not ask for more from the weather. Really looking forward to welcoming you all. Bon voyage! #sciencerocks #comptext2026 www.comptextconference.org/8th-annual-c...

comptextconference.org

8th Annual Conference 2026 - The COMPTEXT Association

8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Welcome to COMPTEXT 2026 — the Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the Quantitative and Computational Analysis of Text, Image, Audio, and Video...

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Final countdown to COMPTEXT 2026 April 23–25 at the University of Birmingham. Great workshops, sessions & conversations ahead. We will shamelessly show off our Teaching & Learning building. Safe travels! www.comptextconference.org/8th-annual-c... #COMPTEXT2026 #TextAnalysis @comptext.bsky.social

comptextconference.org

8th Annual Conference 2026 - The COMPTEXT Association

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The COMPTEXT Association @comptext.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

⏳Final reminder: Registration for #COMPTEXT2026 closes today. 📍University of Birmingham 📅23–25 April 2026 Workshops (23 April): bit.ly/4bW0AZN Registration: bit.ly/4v4ghXC If you have trouble meeting the registration deadline, contact the organisers: comptext26(at)comptextconference.org

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Andreas Küpfer @ankuepfer.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

⏬📽️Excited to talk about (1) studying videos from complex local meetings (w/ @mirya.bsky.social + @simko.bsky.social), (2) substantively using eye contact seeking in legislative debate videos, and (3) workflow managers to process video data (w/ @chrisguarnold.bsky.social + @pluggedchris.bsky.social)!

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Florian G. Kern @floriangkern.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

@chrisguarnold.bsky.social & I had a fun, productive kick-off for our ESRC ⭐ ♻️ RecAIqual ♻️ ⭐ project “Exploring the Re-Analysis and Recycling of Qualitative Data with Machine Learning”. We discussed how multimodal ML/AI can complement qual research& secondary data analysis+where humans are peerless.

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 #ManifestoWeek in Wales: we digitised 29 Senedd manifestos (99–21) & extracted 10,000+ pledges using AI. Finding: Parties increasingly promised *more*, not less. 👇 blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal... #WelshPolitics #Senedd #sciencerocks Daksh Dewgun @jaclarner.bsky.social @frasmcm.bsky.social

blogs.cardiff.ac.uk

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Florian G. Kern @floriangkern.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I feel these takes are often narrow regarding what includes social science. I am sympathetic to the idea of qualitative research and fieldwork becoming rel more weighty as AI improves. ATM, these changes seem most drastic for quant analysis. What really changed for qualitative inquiry, yet?(1/2)

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

If you want to learn more about our MSc AI & Government or MSc AI & Sustainable Development, join us on Tues,27.1.26 (4-5pm UK). Together with student rep Daksh Dewgun you can ask us anything. Register: pg@contacts.bham.ac.uk #AIforgood #datascience #computationalsocialscience #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Term has kicked off! Teaching my 2 favourite modules again: AI and Global Challenges & AI for Government and Public Policy. We bring together coding, ML & AI with domain expertise from Government.Privilege to teach such a talented&driven crowd!#ComputationalSocialScience #DataForGood #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

New homepage online: www.chrisguarnold.github.io Everything you already new about me. Hosted on GitHub. Built with Jekyll. No cookies, no trackers, no WordPress updates at 2am. #sciencerocks

chrisguarnold.github.io

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

The weather between Cardiff and Birmingham is like somewhere close to the walls of Mordor today. Lambas almost running out. Please send hope...

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

How to analyse audio, text, and video data for more than 15,000h of German parliamentary speech? For our #DFG project, we spent last year building compute infrastructure. Pushing ▶️ on the server soon. First results in summer #PoliticalScience #ComputationalSocialScience #sciencerocks #watchthisspace

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

The submission deadline for papers and workshop proposals to #COMPTEXT2026 is this Friday, January 16th. We are looking forward to receiving your proposals. Feel free to share the news and circulate shorturl.at/gRg0p #sharingiscaring #sciencerocks See you in Brum, 23–25 April 2026!

shorturl.at

8th Annual Conference 2026 - The COMPTEXT Association

8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Call for papers: 8th ANNUAL COMPTEXT Conference 2026 Welcome to COMPTEXT 2026 — the Eighth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on the...

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Alexander Wuttke @kunkakom.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

🧵 PhD position (75%) in Political Behavior / Political Communication / CSS 📍 LMU Munich | ⏳ 3 years | 🗓 start March–May 2026 We’re hiring for DemocraGPT, a @bidt.bsky.social-funded project developing an AI-based training for difficult conversations in times of growing polarization

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Really looking forward to helping build bridges between what was formerly known as 'qualitative' and 'quantitative' research. Couldn't think of a better colleague than @floriangkern.bsky.social to pull this off. Xtra happy to see this happening in the current dire times of UK HE #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

#COMPTEXT2026 is taking place in Birmingham. Go and tell your friends! #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

New paper with @caschulz.bsky.social: Minimal Participation Thresholds in international treaties help cooperation by overcoming uncertainty. #Freeriding matters, but less so than so far assumed. Full paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #TreatyDesign #ScienceRocks #CollectiveAction

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The COMPTEXT Association @comptext.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

SAVE THE DATE! We are pleased to announce that the 8th COMPTEXT Conference will take place at the Institute of Data and AI (lnkd.in/ebN7za_Q) of the University of Birmingham, 23-25 April 2026, with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social serving as the lead local organiser. Call for Papers coming soon!

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

I am over the moon to announce that #COMPTEXT2026 will take place at the "Institute for Data and AI" at the University of Birmingham. Look out for the imminent CfP on all channels. And go and tell your friends. Looking forward to hosting y'all in April 2026 #sciencerocks ‪@comptext.bsky.social

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

On my way to the LSE workshop "#ComputationalSocialScience meets Qualitative Research." Presenting @floriangkern.bsky.social and my framework on how #multimodalML & #LLMs help re-analyse & recycle qual data. Let's leave qual–quant clone wars behind us. #ScienceRocks www.lse.ac.uk/methodology/...

lse.ac.uk

Call for papers

Call for papers, Computational Social Science meets Qualitative Research. Two-day workshop for 10 November 2025 at LSE.

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Today, we welcomed the second cohort of students to the MSc in AI & Government and MSc in AI & Sustainable Development today. Excited to support them in developing their AI & ML skills over the coming year! #AI #MachineLearning #HigherEducation #SustainableDevelopment #AIandGovernment #ScienceRocks

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Andreas Küpfer @ankuepfer.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

👏Applause offers a revealing lens on party competition! In a recent article @wepsocial.bsky.social (w/@jocmuel.bsky.social+@pluggedchris.bsky.social), we study how applause reflects party and coalition unity, ideological agreement, political exclusion, issue ownership, and the electoral cycle! (1/6)

Cover page of the article:
"The sound of party competition: how applausereflects unity, disagreement, and the electoralcycle in parliamentsAndreas Küpfera , Jochen Müllerb and Christian Steckeraatechnical university of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany; buniversität Greifswald, Greifswald,GermanyABSTRACTThis article studies how applause reflects the dynamics of party competitionduring parliamentary debates. While legislative scholars often emphasise theselection of speakers and content of debates, spontaneous reactions from fel-low MPs remain understudied. Analysing 750,000 instances of applause in thedebates of the German Bundestag (1976–2020), it was found that applausepatterns, although largely spontaneous and immediate by nature, systemati-cally reflect incentives from party competition such as signalling party andcoalition unity, ideological (dis)agreement, and ostracising specific parties.Applause also indicates issue emphasis, especially near elections. The findingssuggest that applause can serve as a nuanced and abundant indicator in thestudy of party competition, complementing more static measures derived frommanifestos and expert judgements. By analysing applause patterns over fourdecades, this study opens new avenues to explore nonverbal reactions asmarkers of party competition in other parliaments."

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Today @10 in Pacific Rim 2: our framework for assessing LLM output. a) separates general vs. domain-specific similarity b) handles existing classifiers c) accounts for probabilistic DGP d) model-independent & efficient #APSA2025 @jamespcross.bsky.social Tim Henrichsen @christinesheldon.bsky.social

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Andreas Küpfer @ankuepfer.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

I'm at #APSA25! On Saturday at 2 pm (Panel "Seeing is Believing: Innovations and Applications in Image Data Analysis"), I'll present a new project with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social, Oliver Rittmann, and @smtorres.bsky.social in which we quantitatively measure media slant based on news article images.

Front slide of the presentation:
"Measuring Media Slant through Image Analysis
APSA Annual Meeting 2025, September 11-14, 2025, Vancouver, Canada
Christian Arnold (University of Birmingham)
Andreas Küpfer (Technical University of Darmstadt)
Oliver Rittmann (University of Mannheim, MZES)
Michelle Torres (University of California, Los Angeles)
September 13, 2025"

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

The Centre for AI in Government is at #APSA25 for the first time. Really impressive line-up and testament of a strong group of curious, committed and kind scholars. Come and find us! #sciencerocks #CAIG #computationalsocialscience #aiingovernment @christinesheldon.bsky.social

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Heike Klüver @heikekluever.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

📣 Call for Applications 📣 3-year Postdoc position in Berlin 🚀 Join our Comparative Political Behavior Group at @humboldtuni.bsky.social & the @humboldt-govlab.bsky.social Great people, great projects, great city – come work with us! 🗓️ Deadline: 31 July 2025

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Next week I’ll be in Geneva for the UN’s #AIforGoodSummit2025. I’m especially excited for the Crisis Computing workshop on how AI can help us anticipate, manage & recover from crises. If you’re there too, feel free to reach out! #CrisisComputing #AI4Peace #sciencerocks

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Chris Arnold @chrisguarnold.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

Heading home from #EPSA2025 I really enjoyed seeing so much dedication and passion to produce good science. A pure joy to be part of the community. Meetings like this are crucial for giving me sense and purpose during those endless hours in front of the computer. #sciencerocks

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