Andreas Jungherr
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Publications
    • Digital Transformations of the Public Arena (2022)
    • Retooling Politics: How Digital Media Are Shaping Democracy (2020)
    • Analyzing Political Communication with Digital Trace Data (2015)
    • Das Internet in Wahlkämpfen: Konzepte, Wirkungen und Kampagnenfunktionen (2013)
  • Podcast: Tech and Politics
  • Media
  • Teaching
  • Impressum
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Publications
    • Digital Transformations of the Public Arena (2022)
    • Retooling Politics: How Digital Media Are Shaping Democracy (2020)
    • Analyzing Political Communication with Digital Trace Data (2015)
    • Das Internet in Wahlkämpfen: Konzepte, Wirkungen und Kampagnenfunktionen (2013)
  • Podcast: Tech and Politics
  • Media
  • Teaching
  • Impressum
19 Sep 2018
Andreas Jungherr Teaching
2018/09/19 Andreas Jungherr

Syllabus: Ideational Foundations of Computational Social Science

Today starts my course on the Ideational Foundations of Computational Social Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. The course aims to give an overview of dominant approaches in CSS with a focus on their use in pursuing social science research questions and research designs. One important idea that we will come back to continuously is the importance of interpreting the output of computational methods to connect them meaningfully to contemporary debates in the social sciences.

The course examines the methodological foundations of various popular approaches in computational social science (CSS). Over the last ten years, social scientists have found themselves confronting a massive increase in available data sources. In the debates on how to use these new data, the research potential of “computational social science” has featured prominently. While a lot of attention in the current debate has featured in the adaptation of computational methods new to the social sciences, questions about how to interpret the outputs of these methods meaningfully with regard to substantial questions in the social sciences has fallen short. The current state of the field could be described as method-heavy and methodology-thin. In this course, students will be introduced to a set of novel approaches prominently used in computational social science. We will focus on the roots of these methods, underlying assumptions, and consequences thereof with regard to connecting findings to substantial research interests. We will discuss among other approaches the use of digital trace data, social network analysis, predictive modeling.

In the course we will talk about:

  • The core ideas behind Computational Social Science,
  • The specific characteristics of Digital Trace Data,
  • Measurement in the Social Sciences,
  • Prediction in the Social Sciences and Computer Science,
  • Classification & Scoring,
  • Text as Data,
  • Network Analysis,
  • Experiments, and
  • Simulation.

[Syllabus]

Computational Social Science, Methodology, Syllabus
  • Recent Posts

    • New preprint: Political Disinformation: ‘Fake News’, Bots, and Deep Fakes
    • New working paper: What do people expect from Artificial Intelligence? Public opinion on alignment in AI moderation from Germany and the United States
    • Neuer Kurs: Forschungsprojekt in der Computational Social Science
    • New Course: Misinformation, disinformation and other digital fakery (Summer 2025)
    • New Course: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy (Summer 2025)
  • Categories

    • Conferences
    • Interviews
    • Lecture Podcast
    • News
    • Notes
    • Public Speaking
    • Publications
    • Teaching
    • Videos
  • Archives

    • June 2025 (1)
    • May 2025 (1)
    • April 2025 (3)
    • March 2025 (3)
    • February 2025 (7)
    • January 2025 (3)
    • November 2024 (4)
    • September 2024 (1)
    • July 2024 (2)
    • June 2024 (5)
    • April 2024 (4)
    • February 2024 (2)
    • January 2024 (1)
    • December 2023 (1)
    • November 2023 (1)
    • July 2023 (2)
    • June 2023 (1)
    • April 2023 (1)
    • March 2023 (1)
    • February 2023 (2)
    • December 2022 (1)
    • November 2022 (1)
    • October 2022 (3)
    • July 2022 (1)
    • June 2022 (4)
    • May 2022 (2)
    • April 2022 (1)
    • February 2022 (1)
    • January 2022 (2)
    • December 2021 (3)
    • November 2021 (1)
    • October 2021 (2)
    • September 2021 (3)
    • July 2021 (1)
    • June 2021 (4)
    • April 2021 (3)
    • March 2021 (2)
    • January 2021 (1)
    • December 2020 (1)
    • November 2020 (2)
    • October 2020 (2)
    • September 2020 (1)
    • July 2020 (1)
    • June 2020 (1)
    • April 2020 (5)
    • March 2020 (2)
    • February 2020 (1)
    • January 2020 (4)
    • November 2019 (1)
    • October 2019 (2)
    • September 2019 (1)
    • July 2019 (1)
    • April 2019 (3)
    • January 2019 (1)
    • November 2018 (1)
    • September 2018 (2)
    • March 2018 (1)
    • February 2018 (1)
    • December 2017 (1)
    • October 2017 (1)
    • September 2017 (1)
    • July 2017 (2)
    • June 2017 (1)
    • May 2017 (3)
    • April 2017 (2)
    • March 2017 (2)
    • January 2017 (2)
    • December 2016 (1)
    • November 2016 (1)
    • October 2016 (17)
    • July 2016 (11)
    • June 2016 (1)
    • March 2016 (1)
    • February 2016 (2)
    • January 2016 (1)
    • November 2015 (3)
    • October 2015 (1)
    • September 2015 (3)
    • May 2015 (1)
    • April 2015 (3)
    • March 2015 (3)
    • February 2015 (3)
    • January 2015 (1)
    • October 2014 (2)
    • August 2014 (2)
    • April 2014 (1)
    • March 2014 (1)
    • February 2014 (2)
    • December 2013 (1)
    • October 2013 (3)
    • September 2013 (3)
    • August 2013 (4)
    • July 2013 (3)
    • June 2013 (2)
    • May 2013 (1)
    • April 2013 (1)
    • March 2013 (1)
    • February 2013 (1)
    • December 2012 (1)
    • November 2012 (2)
    • October 2012 (3)
    • September 2012 (3)
    • August 2012 (2)
    • June 2012 (1)
    • April 2012 (8)
    • March 2012 (1)
    • February 2012 (1)
    • October 2011 (2)
    • September 2011 (1)
    • August 2011 (1)
    • July 2011 (5)
    • June 2011 (2)
    • May 2011 (4)
    • April 2011 (1)
    • March 2011 (2)
    • February 2011 (3)
    • January 2011 (2)
    • December 2010 (3)
    • November 2010 (1)
    • October 2010 (1)
    • September 2010 (3)
    • July 2010 (1)
    • June 2010 (2)
    • May 2010 (1)
    • April 2010 (4)
    • March 2010 (3)
    • February 2010 (6)
    • January 2010 (1)
    • December 2009 (3)
    • August 2009 (1)
    • April 2009 (1)
    • March 2009 (3)
    • January 2009 (2)
    • December 2008 (3)
    • November 2008 (3)
    • October 2008 (9)
    • August 2008 (1)
  • On the web

    • instagram
    • linkedin
    • xing
    • youtube
  • Navigation

    • Home
    • About
    • Blog
    • Publications
      • Digital Transformations of the Public Arena (2022)
      • Retooling Politics: How Digital Media Are Shaping Democracy (2020)
      • Analyzing Political Communication with Digital Trace Data (2015)
      • Das Internet in Wahlkämpfen: Konzepte, Wirkungen und Kampagnenfunktionen (2013)
    • Podcast: Tech and Politics
    • Media
    • Teaching
    • Impressum
  • Contact

    • Feldkirchenstraße 21
      96052 Bamberg, Germany

    • https://andreasjungherr.net/https://andreasjungherr.net/
    • andreas.jungherr[at]uni-bamberg.de
Andreas Jungherr POWERED BY United Themes™