Data & debate

The public debate is increasingly taking place online. On platforms that are well-known to the general public, such as Facebook and Instagram, as well as on niche platforms like Telegram and Reddit. Data School studies how this online communication is changing the public debate.

“Through data analyses, we gain a new perspective on the online debate. This way, we gain insight into how groups relate to each other.”

Jeroen Bakker, researcher at Data School

Collaborations

Data School collaborates with governments, journalists, non-profits, and other organizations to provide insight into what is happening online. For example, we investigated hate messages targeting female politicians in collaboration with De Groene Amsterdammer, the spread of threatening language in the Dutch Parliament on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and Security, and the spread of medical misinformation on Twitter for the television program Medialogica.

In our collaborations, we place a strong emphasis on understanding the research. We believe it’s important that we don’t just provide research results, but also involve our partners in the research process. In this way, we build on each other’s knowledge.

Methods

For our research, we use various methods. At the core of this is data: with large amounts of data, we can gain a detailed understanding of the scope and content of the debate. We use methods such as text analysis, network analysis, and image recognition to gain different perspectives on the data. We complement these data analyses with content analyses, where we manually read and interpret the data.

What can we do for your organization?

• Scientifically grounded research into online debates
• Cutting-edge data analyses
• Insights into research methods and results