Fabio Giglietto#toread #paper A systematic review of social science studies analyzing social media data, 2010-2024 by Kai-Cheng Yang et al. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/yexp6_v1
#toread #paper Protest movements and the mainstreaming of radical and extremist ideologies: the case of COVID-19 protests by Sophia Rothut et al. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2026.2654668
#toread #paper Mapping the sociotechnical imaginaries of generative AI in UK, US, Chinese and Indian newspapers by Weili Wang, John Downey https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625251328518
Katherine Pickett, Editor
#toread #paper Seeing candidates at scale: Multimodal LLMs for Visual Political Communication on Instagram by Michael Achmann-Denkler, Mario Haim, Christian Wolff http://arxiv.org/abs/2604.19489v1
Seeing Candidates at Scale: Multimodal LLMs for Visual Political Communication on Instagram
This paper presents a computational case study that evaluates the capabilities of specialized machine learning models and emerging multimodal large language models for Visual Political Communication (VPC) analysis. Focusing on concentrated visibility in Instagram stories and posts during the 2021 German federal election campaign, we compare the performance of traditional computer vision models (FaceNet512, RetinaFace, Google Cloud Vision) with a multimodal large language model (GPT-4o) in identifying front-runner politicians and counting individuals in images. GPT-4o outperformed the other models, achieving a macro F1-score of 0.89 for face recognition and 0.86 for person counting in stories. These findings demonstrate the potential of advanced AI systems to scale and refine visual content analysis in political communication while highlighting methodological considerations for future research.
#toread #paper Finally, access: How article 40 DSA changes platform research in practice by Jakob Ohme, LK Seiling https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2026.2664157
#toread #paper TikTok and the algorithmic transformation of social media publics: From social networks to social interest clusters by Paolo Gerbaudo https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241304106
#toread #paper Towards a Post-Social Media Studies by Petter Törnberg, Richard Rogers https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/6nue7_v1
#toread #paper Radicalization and the internet: 25 years of (online) radicalization research by Sophia Rothut et al. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2026.2658935