What is ‘item sampling’ and why is it useful? Or how can we can measure person characteristics with large item pools?

I guess every social scientist at one point has been confronted with a quite common dilemma: We know that we would need a quite large number of items to assess a certain latent concept comprehensively and validly, but we do not have enough space in our questionnaire to use the entire long scale or even inventory. More often than not, we then choose the “best” items (e.g., with the highest factor loadings). However, by reducing… Read More »What is ‘item sampling’ and why is it useful? Or how can we can measure person characteristics with large item pools?

What is statistical power? And how to conduct power analysis in R?

“The power of a statistical test is the probability that it will yield statistically significant results. Since statistical significance is so earnestly sought and devoutly wished for by behavioral scientists, one would think that the a priori probability of its accomplishment would be routinely determined and well understood. Quite surprisingly, this is not the case. Instead, if we take as evidence the research literature, we find evidence that statistical power is frequently not understood and,… Read More »What is statistical power? And how to conduct power analysis in R?

Launch of the Digital Media and Behavior Lab

I am excited to announce that I am the new managing director of the Digital Media and Behavior Lab, which was officially launched this Monday, the 12th February 2024! Embedded in the faculty of social sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the DM&B lab serves as an incubator for collaborative research aimed at shaping a positive future for our increasingly digital society. Shifting from an information-driven society to a digital one, it becomes evident that… Read More »Launch of the Digital Media and Behavior Lab

Book published: The Routledge Handbook of Privacy and Social Media

Over the last two decades, privacy has been a staple topic in communication science and other disciplines. Particularly since the advent of social media, privacy and self-disclosure processes have been central to many empirical investigations. By now, thousands of studies have been published, diverse theoretical accounts emerged, and heterogeneous – at times contradictory findings – paint a granular, but complex picture of the privacy research landscape. At this point in time, Sabine Trepte and I… Read More »Book published: The Routledge Handbook of Privacy and Social Media

VENI Grant to Study Behavioral Contagion on Social Media

I am excited to share that I was recently awarded a VENI innovation grant by the Dutch Research Council (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek; NWO). Building on my previous work on social contagion and social influence on social media (see e.g., this study), I will continue to study how behaviors spread across social network sites. More specifically, I will investigate how norms develop on social media, how they are perceived, and how such perceptions drive… Read More »VENI Grant to Study Behavioral Contagion on Social Media

How to run IRT analyses in R

This post provides an introduction to fitting item response theory (IRT) models in R. From my experience, most scholars in the social sciences have heard about IRT as an alternative to classical test theory (and its methods such as EFA or CFA), but have never really worked with it. I believe that this is unfortunate as it offers a lot of advantages and insights into the validity and reliability of tests and items. In this… Read More »How to run IRT analyses in R

How to make most of your PhD

From my personal point of view, becoming a researcher and succeeding in a PhD program can be one of the most rewarding experiences you will have in your life. You will have a lot of freedom in deciding who you want become, what you want to learn and what exactly you want to investigate. At the same time, it can be stressful, a lot of work, and – at times – be outright frustrating. Yet,… Read More »How to make most of your PhD

ICA Preconference on “Comparative Privacy and the Literacies of a Networked Age”

The comparative privacy research network is organizing a preconference before the annual conference of the International Communication Association on May, 25th (9:30 to 17:00). Drawing on previous and ongoing conversations and collaborations, this preconference aims to attend to privacy literacy’s critical comparative nature by bringing together scholars that examine the cultural, political, and otherwise contextualized aspects of privacy literacy. The ultimate goal is to enhance conversation in communication studies about the ways in which systematic comparative cross-cultural… Read More »ICA Preconference on “Comparative Privacy and the Literacies of a Networked Age”

AoIR Satellite Event on Comparing Fuzzy Things

The Comparative Privacy Research Network is organizing a workshop on issues related to comparing fuzzy concepts like love, trust, and privacy across various structural settings (including, but not limited to cultures). Below is the description of the workshop from the CPRN website: Internet researchers often engage in the study of complex, multidimensional, and culturally sensitive ideas. Deploying such concepts in comparative research settings is critically important to knowledge advancement, yet challenging to implement in practice. This workshop… Read More »AoIR Satellite Event on Comparing Fuzzy Things

Communication journals that adopted open science principles

With more and more communication scholars adopting open science principles (e.g., preregistration, sharing of data, material, and code), also more and more media and communication journals adopt open science features and take first steps in adopting the TOP guidelines. I just quickly would like to point your attention to a very useful resource in this regard. Moritz Büchi and Tobias Dienlin started a list with peer-reviewed journals that a) focus on media and communication generally or… Read More »Communication journals that adopted open science principles