Project Details
Projekt
What Defines and Affects Replicability in Computational Communication Science?
Applicants
Dr. Johannes Breuer; Professor Dr. Mario Haim
Subject Area
Communication Sciences
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 464291459
In this project, we will systematically identify and quantify the legal, ethical, and technological challenges that can impede the potential replicability of computational communication science and investigate their effects on actual replicability in this field. Since the permeation of everyday life with digital technologies has given rise to digital trace data, the social sciences and particularly communication science as the study of media content and media use have adopted a computational paradigm to collect and analyze these data. Yet, while prominent researchers in computational communication science strongly advocate for open-science principles, making work in this field reproducible and replicable faces a set of challenges, most of which were brought about by the characteristics of the data and research methods that are common to computational communication science. Specifically, ethical and legal questions regarding the (re-)use of data with regards to privacy or copyright issues, the control exerted by (commercial) third parties over data access, as well as technological challenges with reusing research materials, such as changes or deprecations of platforms, APIs, or other software complicate replications in computational communication science. We assume these challenges to be a consequence of the methods commonly used in the field (e.g. automated content analyses and observations), the volatility of its topics of study and the data it makes use of (e.g., news stories, social-media posts), and the increasing dependency on third-party data providers (e.g. search engines, social networking sites). Against this background, this project will (1) assess the potential replicability of research in computational communication science by means of a large-scale content analysis of publications in the field and (2) test and evaluate the actual replicability of studies from this field by means of a reproduction and replication of purposively selected studies. Given the disciplinary focus of the project as well as its aims, the project also offers ample opportunities for collaboration with projects from neighboring disciplines in the SPP META-REP. With the goal of uncovering what affects replicability and why in the quickly growing field of computational communication science, the project can contribute to laying the foundations for a research culture that embraces replicability in the field, thus, contributing to the goal of the SPP to increase robustness and credibility of the social and behavioral sciences.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
