
What is it about computational communication science?
As "big data" and "algorithms" affect our daily communication, lots of new research questions arise at the intersection between societies and technologies, asking for human wellbeing in times of permanent smartphone usage or the role of huge platforms for our news environment. The growing discipline of Computational Communication Science (CCS) takes on a combinatory perspective between social and computer science. In this podcast, Emese Domahidi (@MissEsi) and Mario Haim (@DrFollowMario) open this discussion for students and young scholars, one guest and one question at a time.
Latest episodes

Dec 21, 2021 • 53min
How to become a data scientist?
Emese Domahidi (Assistant Professor at TU Ilmenau) and Mario Haim (Assistant Professor at the U of Leipzig) interview Till Keyling (former Senior Data Scientist at ProSiebenSat.1 and now Team Lead Software Engineering Data Science at PAYBACK) on how to become a data scientist. After learning what data science is, we look at what communication scientists can bring to the table, what university is capable of equipping us with, and what it is that potential employers look for in future data scientists. Also, do not miss out on Till talking us through an application process.
References
Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., & Vlissides, J. (1994). Design patterns: Elements of reusable object-oriented software. Addison-Wesley.
Robinson, E., & Nolis, J. (2020). Build a career in data science. Manning.
Martin, R.C. (2008). Clean code: A handbook of agile software craftsmanship. Prentice Hall.
Martin, R.C. (2017). Clean architecture: A craftsman's guide to software structure and design. Prentice Hall.
Links and Podcasts
https://news.ycombinator.com/
https://towardsdatascience.com/
https://towardsdatascience.com/podcast/home

Nov 25, 2021 • 36min
How can I get started with CCS?
Today, Emese Domahidi (Assistant Professor at TU Ilmenau) and Mario Haim (Assistant Professor at the U of Leipzig) discuss together with Valerie Hase (Research and Teaching Assistant at the U of Zurich) ways, approaches, guidelines, and routes to get started with computational communication science (CCS). We talk learning materials, compare intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, provide ideas and suggestions on where and how to find help and companions, and we tell our very own stories of how we got started with CCS.
Conferences, Divisions, & Working Groups
http://ic2s2.org/
- https://twitter.com/IC2S2
https://www.icahdq.org/group/compmethds
- https://twitter.com/ica_cm
- Slack channel via https://twitter.com/fe_loe/status/1395020548019720193
https://www.dgpuk.de/de/methoden-der-publizistik-und-kommunikationswissenschaft.html
- https://twitter.com/dgpuk_meth
https://www.cssmethods.uzh.ch/en.html
https://cssamsterdam.github.io/
https://tadapolisci.slack.com
Journals
https://computationalcommunication.org/ccr
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hcms20/current
References
van Atteveldt, W., Trilling, D., & Arcila Calderon, C. (2021). Computational analysis of communication. Wiley Blackwell. https://cssbook.net/
Wickham, H., & Grolemund, G. (2017). R for Data Science: Import, tidy, transform, visualize, and model data. O'Reilly.
Summer Schools
https://github.com/chkla/css-schools
https://essexsummerschool.com/
https://sicss.io/
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiAbout
Introductory Tutorials
https://www.tidytextmining.com/
https://tutorials.quanteda.io/
https://content-analysis-with-r.com/
https://bookdown.org/joone/ComputationalMethods/
https://tm4ss.github.io/docs/
https://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/socialsciencedatalab/article/advancing-text-mining/
https://bookdown.org/ndphillips/YaRrr/
https://r4ds.had.co.nz/

Oct 27, 2021 • 47min
How come data needs the social sciences?
In the second episode Emese Domahidi (Assistant Professor at TU Ilmenau) and Mario Haim (Assistant Professor at the U of Leipzig) discuss with Wouter van Atteveldt (Associate Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) the role of communication science in the field. Main topics are the nature and role of data for the social sciences and challenges in collaborations with computer scientists. We touch on topics like open science, reproducibility and replicability for computational communication science and whether we need a cultural change to achieve these goals. Last but not least we talk about a new book Computational Analysis of Communication that Wouter co-edited with Damian Trilling and Carlos Arcila.
References
Lazer, D., Pentland, A. (Sandy), Adamic, L., Aral, S., Barabasi, A. L., Brewer, D., Christakis, N., Contractor, N., Fowler, J., Gutmann, M., Jebara, T., King, G., Macy, M., Roy, D., & Van Alstyne, M. (2009). Life in the network: The coming age of computational social science. Science (New York, N.Y.), 323(5915), 721–723. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1167742
Roberts, M. E., Stewart, B. M., & Tingley, D. (2019). stm: An R Package for Structural Topic Models. Journal of Statistical Software, 91(2), 1–40. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v091.i02
van Atteveldt, W., Trilling, D., & Arcila, C. (in press). Computational Analysis of Communication. Wiley Blackwell. Book homepage: https://cssbook.net/

Sep 28, 2021 • 28min
What is Computational Communication Science and why would we need a podcast on that?
In this first-ever episode, Emese Domahidi (Assistant Professor at TU Ilmenau) and Mario Haim (Assistant Professor at the U of Leipzig) discuss the relevance of a social-scientific perspective in the computer-scientifically driven field of artificial intelligence. We briefly dig into Kate Crawford's recent book (https://www.katecrawford.net/) as well as the European Union's "Guidelines for Trustworthy AI." And we compare rather distinct understandings of relevance when it comes to a computational perspective within communication science. All of this accumulates in the introduction of our new podcast in which we will tackle the urgent questions of CCS.
References
Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI. Yale University Press.
EU Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai
Fuchs, C., & Qiu, J.L. (2018). Ferments in the field: Introductory reflections on the past, present and future of communication studies. Journal of Communication, 68(2), 219-232. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy008
van Atteveldt, W., & Peng, T.-Q. (2018). When communication meets computation: Opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls in computational communication science. Communication Methods and Measures, 12(2–3), 81–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2018.1458084

Sep 28, 2021 • 4min
Trailer Season 1
What is it about Computational Communication Science?
As "big data" and "algorithms" affect our daily communication, lots of new research questions arise at the intersection between societies and technologies, asking for human wellbeing in times of permanent smartphone usage or the role of huge platforms for our news environment. The growing discipline of Computational Communication Science (CCS) takes on a combinatory perspective between social and computer science. In this podcast, Emese Domahidi (@MissEsi) and Mario Haim (@DrFollowMario) open this discussion for students and young scholars, one guest and one question at a time.
Credits
Artwork: Kristina Schneider (@kriesse)
Sounddesign: Nico van Capelle
Exciting background music in the beginning from musicfox.com