Why research agendas chase public panics

Dr. Kevin Munger, Assistant Professor and Chair of Computational Social Science in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, discusses the concept of temporal validity in social media research. Dr. Munger breaks down why thinking about time is an important component of meta-science, particularly when it comes to evaluating the methodologies of social media research. 

We also discuss the Meta 2020 Election Research partnership, new pathways in social media research, the logic of quantitative description, and the challenges of political communication in the current grant funding and interdisciplinary landscape of political research. 

Here are the two articles we discuss in the episode: 

Temporal Validity as Meta-Science (2023)

What Did We Learn about Political Communication from the Meta2020 Partnership? (2024)

And links to Dr. Munger's latest books:

The YouTube Apparatus (2024)

The Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture (2022)