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%% Books @book{fds226657, Author = {Bail, Christopher A.}, Title = {The Cultural Environment: An Invitation to Computational Cultural Sociology}, Publisher = {Contracting}, Year = {2015}, Key = {fds226657} } @book{fds291776, Author = {Bail, C}, Title = {Terrified: How anti-Muslim fringe organizations became mainstream}, Pages = {1-223}, Publisher = {Princeton University Press}, Year = {2014}, Month = {December}, ISBN = {9780691159423}, Abstract = {In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred Qur'ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up canceling the stunt in the face of widespread public backlash, his threat sparked violent protests across the Muslim world that left at least twenty people dead. In Terrified, Christopher Bail demonstrates how the beliefs of fanatics like Jones are inspired by a rapidly expanding network of anti-Muslim organizations that exert profound influence on American understanding of Islam. Bail traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated large segments of the American media, government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing on cultural sociology, social network theory, and social psychology, he shows how anti-Muslim organizations gained visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and redefined the contours of contemporary debate, shifting it ever outward toward the fringe. Bail illustrates his pioneering theoretical argument through a big-data analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their impact on hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, television transcripts, legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11 attacks. The book also features in-depth interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how anti-Muslim organizations entered the American mainstream.}, Key = {fds291776} } %% Journal Articles @article{fds373416, Author = {Argyle, LP and Bail, CA and Busby, EC and Gubler, JR and Howe, T and Rytting, C and Sorensen, T and Wingate, D}, Title = {Leveraging AI for democratic discourse: Chat interventions can improve online political conversations at scale.}, Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, Volume = {120}, Number = {41}, Pages = {e2311627120}, Year = {2023}, Month = {October}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2311627120}, Abstract = {Political discourse is the soul of democracy, but misunderstanding and conflict can fester in divisive conversations. The widespread shift to online discourse exacerbates many of these problems and corrodes the capacity of diverse societies to cooperate in solving social problems. Scholars and civil society groups promote interventions that make conversations less divisive or more productive, but scaling these efforts to online discourse is challenging. We conduct a large-scale experiment that demonstrates how online conversations about divisive topics can be improved with AI tools. Specifically, we employ a large language model to make real-time, evidence-based recommendations intended to improve participants' perception of feeling understood. These interventions improve reported conversation quality, promote democratic reciprocity, and improve the tone, without systematically changing the content of the conversation or moving people's policy attitudes.}, Doi = {10.1073/pnas.2311627120}, Key = {fds373416} } @article{fds372618, Author = {Combs, A and Tierney, G and Guay, B and Merhout, F and Bail, CA and Hillygus, DS and Volfovsky, A}, Title = {Reducing political polarization in the United States with a mobile chat platform.}, Journal = {Nature human behaviour}, Volume = {7}, Number = {9}, Pages = {1454-1461}, Year = {2023}, Month = {September}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01655-0}, Abstract = {Do anonymous online conversations between people with different political views exacerbate or mitigate partisan polarization? We created a mobile chat platform to study the impact of such discussions. Our study recruited Republicans and Democrats in the United States to complete a survey about their political views. We later randomized them into treatment conditions where they were offered financial incentives to use our platform to discuss a contentious policy issue with an opposing partisan. We found that people who engage in anonymous cross-party conversations about political topics exhibit substantial decreases in polarization compared with a placebo group that wrote an essay using the same conversation prompts. Moreover, these depolarizing effects were correlated with the civility of dialogue between study participants. Our findings demonstrate the potential for well-designed social media platforms to mitigate political polarization and underscore the need for a flexible platform for scientific research on social media.}, Doi = {10.1038/s41562-023-01655-0}, Key = {fds372618} } @article{fds372677, Author = {Combs, A and Tierney, G and Alqabandi, F and Cornell, D and Varela, G and Castro Araújo and A and Argyle, LP and Bail, CA and Volfovsky, A}, Title = {Perceived gender and political persuasion: a social media field experiment during the 2020 US Democratic presidential primary election.}, Journal = {Scientific reports}, Volume = {13}, Number = {1}, Pages = {14051}, Year = {2023}, Month = {August}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39359-0}, Abstract = {Women have less influence than men in a variety of settings. Does this result from stereotypes that depict women as less capable, or biased interpretations of gender differences in behavior? We present a field experiment that-unbeknownst to the participants-randomized the gender of avatars assigned to Democrats using a social media platform we created to facilitate discussion about the 2020 Primary Election. We find that misrepresenting a man as a woman undermines his influence, but misrepresenting a woman as a man does not increase hers. We demonstrate that men's higher resistance to being influenced-and gendered word use patterns-both contribute to this outcome. These findings challenge prevailing wisdom that women simply need to behave more like men to overcome gender discrimination and suggest that narrowing the gap will require simultaneous attention to the behavior of people who identify as women and as men.}, Doi = {10.1038/s41598-023-39359-0}, Key = {fds372677} } @article{fds367776, Author = {Jahani, E and Gallagher, N and Merhout, F and Cavalli, N and Guilbeault, D and Leng, Y and Bail, CA}, Title = {An Online experiment during the 2020 US-Iran crisis shows that exposure to common enemies can increase political polarization.}, Journal = {Scientific reports}, Volume = {12}, Number = {1}, Pages = {19304}, Year = {2022}, Month = {November}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23673-0}, Abstract = {A longstanding theory indicates that the threat of a common enemy can mitigate conflict between members of rival groups. We tested this hypothesis in a pre-registered experiment where 1670 Republicans and Democrats in the United States were asked to complete an online social learning task with a bot that was labeled as a member of the opposing party. Prior to this task, we exposed respondents to primes about (a) a common enemy (involving Iran and Russia); (b) a patriotic event; or (c) a neutral, apolitical prime. Though we observed no significant differences in the behavior of Democrats as a result of priming, we found that Republicans-and particularly those with very strong conservative views-were significantly less likely to learn from Democrats when primed about a common enemy. Because our study was in the field during the 2020 Iran Crisis, we were able to further evaluate this finding via a natural experiment-Republicans who participated in our study after the crisis were even less influenced by the beliefs of Democrats than those Republicans who participated before this event. These findings indicate common enemies may not reduce inter-group conflict in highly polarized societies, and contribute to a growing number of studies that find evidence of asymmetric political polarization in the United States. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for research in social psychology, political conflict, and the rapidly expanding field of computational social science.}, Doi = {10.1038/s41598-022-23673-0}, Key = {fds367776} } @article{fds367268, Author = {Hartman, R and Blakey, W and Womick, J and Bail, C and Finkel, EJ and Han, H and Sarrouf, J and Schroeder, J and Sheeran, P and Van Bavel and JJ and Willer, R and Gray, K}, Title = {Interventions to reduce partisan animosity.}, Journal = {Nature human behaviour}, Volume = {6}, Number = {9}, Pages = {1194-1205}, Year = {2022}, Month = {September}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01442-3}, Abstract = {Rising partisan animosity is associated with a reduction in support for democracy and an increase in support for political violence. Here we provide a multi-level review of interventions designed to reduce partisan animosity, which we define as negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards a political outgroup. We introduce the TRI framework to capture three levels of intervention-thoughts (correcting misconceptions and highlighting commonalities), relationships (building dialogue skills and fostering positive contact) and institutions (changing public discourse and transforming political structures)-and connect these levels by highlighting the importance of motivation and mobilization. Our review encompasses both interventions conducted as part of academic research projects and real-world interventions led by practitioners in non-profit organizations. We also explore the challenges of durability and scalability, examine self-fulfilling polarization and interventions that backfire, and discuss future directions for reducing partisan animosity.}, Doi = {10.1038/s41562-022-01442-3}, Key = {fds367268} } @article{fds362989, Author = {Bail, C}, Title = {Social-media reform is flying blind.}, Journal = {Nature}, Volume = {603}, Number = {7903}, Pages = {766}, Year = {2022}, Month = {March}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00805-0}, Doi = {10.1038/d41586-022-00805-0}, Key = {fds362989} } @article{fds353063, Author = {Finkel, EJ and Bail, CA and Cikara, M and Ditto, PH and Iyengar, S and Klar, S and Mason, L and McGrath, MC and Nyhan, B and Rand, DG and Skitka, LJ and Tucker, JA and Van Bavel and JJ and Wang, CS and Druckman, JN}, Title = {Political sectarianism in America.}, Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)}, Volume = {370}, Number = {6516}, Pages = {533-536}, Year = {2020}, Month = {October}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abe1715}, Doi = {10.1126/science.abe1715}, Key = {fds353063} } @article{fds347195, Author = {Bail, CA and Guay, B and Maloney, E and Combs, A and Hillygus, DS and Merhout, F and Freelon, D and Volfovsky, A}, Title = {Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency's impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017.}, Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, Volume = {117}, Number = {1}, Pages = {243-250}, Year = {2020}, Month = {January}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906420116}, Abstract = {There is widespread concern that Russia and other countries have launched social-media campaigns designed to increase political divisions in the United States. Though a growing number of studies analyze the strategy of such campaigns, it is not yet known how these efforts shaped the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans. We study this question using longitudinal data that describe the attitudes and online behaviors of 1,239 Republican and Democratic Twitter users from late 2017 merged with nonpublic data about the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) from Twitter. Using Bayesian regression tree models, we find no evidence that interaction with IRA accounts substantially impacted 6 distinctive measures of political attitudes and behaviors over a 1-mo period. We also find that interaction with IRA accounts were most common among respondents with strong ideological homophily within their Twitter network, high interest in politics, and high frequency of Twitter usage. Together, these findings suggest that Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized. We conclude by discussing several important limitations of our study-especially our inability to determine whether IRA accounts influenced the 2016 presidential election-as well as its implications for future research on social media influence campaigns, political polarization, and computational social science.}, Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1906420116}, Key = {fds347195} } @article{fds342826, Author = {Bail, CA and Brown, TW and Wimmer, A}, Title = {Prestige, proximity, and prejudice: how google search terms diffuse across the world}, Journal = {American Journal of Sociology}, Volume = {124}, Number = {5}, Pages = {1496-1548}, Year = {2019}, Month = {March}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/702007}, Abstract = {A large literature examines the global diffusion of institutions and policies, yet there is much less systematic research on how cultural tastes, consumption preferences, and other individual interests spread across the globe. With a data set that tracks the most popular Google search terms in 199 countries between 2004 and 2014, and drawing on Gabriel de Tarde, this article introduces a theoretical framework to examine how country-level differences shape global imitation of cultural interests and consumer tastes. Contrary to popular accounts, this study finds that cross-national diffusion is surprisingly rare—and seldom U.S. led—but occurs through a multichannel network with many different centers. Negative binomial regression models applied to cases of diffusion in 346,620 country-year dyads reveal that global imitation flows are likely patterned by the power and prestige of countries, their prox-imities to each other, and the cultural boundaries between them. Accounting for factors such as the influence of large organizations does not disrupt these findings.}, Doi = {10.1086/702007}, Key = {fds342826} } @article{fds337686, Author = {Bail, CA and Argyle, LP and Brown, TW and Bumpus, JP and Chen, H and Hunzaker, MBF and Lee, J and Mann, M and Merhout, F and Volfovsky, A}, Title = {Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization.}, Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, Volume = {115}, Number = {37}, Pages = {9216-9221}, Year = {2018}, Month = {September}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115}, Abstract = {There is mounting concern that social media sites contribute to political polarization by creating "echo chambers" that insulate people from opposing views about current events. We surveyed a large sample of Democrats and Republicans who visit Twitter at least three times each week about a range of social policy issues. One week later, we randomly assigned respondents to a treatment condition in which they were offered financial incentives to follow a Twitter bot for 1 month that exposed them to messages from those with opposing political ideologies (e.g., elected officials, opinion leaders, media organizations, and nonprofit groups). Respondents were resurveyed at the end of the month to measure the effect of this treatment, and at regular intervals throughout the study period to monitor treatment compliance. We find that Republicans who followed a liberal Twitter bot became substantially more conservative posttreatment. Democrats exhibited slight increases in liberal attitudes after following a conservative Twitter bot, although these effects are not statistically significant. Notwithstanding important limitations of our study, these findings have significant implications for the interdisciplinary literature on political polarization and the emerging field of computational social science.}, Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1804840115}, Key = {fds337686} } @article{fds335776, Author = {Bail, CA and Merhout, F and Ding, P}, Title = {Using Internet search data to examine the relationship between anti-Muslim and pro-ISIS sentiment in U.S. counties.}, Journal = {Science advances}, Volume = {4}, Number = {6}, Pages = {eaao5948}, Year = {2018}, Month = {June}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao5948}, Abstract = {Recent terrorist attacks by first- and second-generation immigrants in the United States and Europe indicate that radicalization may result from the failure of ethnic integration-or the rise of intergroup prejudice in communities where "home-grown" extremists are raised. Yet, these community-level drivers are notoriously difficult to study because public opinion surveys provide biased measures of both prejudice and radicalization. We examine the relationship between anti-Muslim and pro-ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) Internet searches in 3099 U.S. counties between 2014 and 2016 using instrumental variable models that control for various community-level factors associated with radicalization. We find that anti-Muslim searches are strongly associated with pro-ISIS searches-particularly in communities with high levels of poverty and ethnic homogeneity. Although more research is needed to verify the causal nature of this relationship, this finding suggests that minority groups may be more susceptible to radicalization if they experience discrimination in settings where they are isolated and therefore highly visible-or in communities where they compete with majority groups for limited financial resources. We evaluate the validity of our findings using several other data sources and discuss the implications of our findings for the study of terrorism and intergroup relations, as well as immigration and counterterrorism policies.}, Doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aao5948}, Key = {fds335776} } @article{fds329814, Author = {Bail, CA and Brown, TW and Mann, M}, Title = {Channeling Hearts and Minds: Advocacy Organizations, Cognitive-Emotional Currents, and Public Conversation}, Journal = {American Sociological Review}, Volume = {82}, Number = {6}, Pages = {1188-1213}, Publisher = {SAGE Publications}, Year = {2017}, Month = {December}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122417733673}, Abstract = {Do advocacy organizations stimulate public conversation about social problems by engaging in rational debate, or by appealing to emotions? We argue that rational and emotional styles of communication ebb and flow within public discussions about social problems due to the alternating influence of social contagion and saturation effects. These “cognitive-emotional currents” create an opportunity structure whereby advocacy organizations stimulate more conversation if they produce emotional messages after prolonged rational debate or vice versa. We test this hypothesis using automated text-analysis techniques that measure the frequency of cognitive and emotional language within two advocacy fields on Facebook over 1.5 years, and a web-based application that offered these organizations a complimentary audit of their social media outreach in return for sharing nonpublic data about themselves, their social media audiences, and the broader social context in which they interact. Time-series models reveal strong support for our hypothesis, controlling for 33 confounding factors measured by our Facebook application. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future research on public deliberation, how social contagions relate to each other, and the emerging field of computational social science.}, Doi = {10.1177/0003122417733673}, Key = {fds329814} } @article{fds325573, Author = {McDonnell, TE and Bail, CA and Tavory, I}, Title = {A Theory of Resonance}, Journal = {Sociological Theory}, Volume = {35}, Number = {1}, Pages = {1-14}, Publisher = {SAGE Publications}, Year = {2017}, Month = {March}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0735275117692837}, Abstract = {The metaphor of resonance often describes the fit between a message and an audience's worldviews. Yet scholars have largely ignored the cognitive processes audiences use to interpret messages and interactions that determine why certain messages and other cultural objects appeal to some but not others. Drawing on pragmatism, we argue that resonance occurs as cultural objects help people puzzle through practical challenges they face or construct. We discuss how cognitive distance and the process of emotional reasoning shape the likelihood of cultural resonance. We argue resonance is an emergent process structured by interactions between individuals that shape each other's interpretation of cultural objects, diffuse objects through interactional circuits, and create opportunities for resonance among people facing similarly shaped problems. Our approach thus identifies new processes at micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis that shape resonance and describes the pathways that might allow resonance to crystallize into broader mobilization and social change.}, Doi = {10.1177/0735275117692837}, Key = {fds325573} } @article{fds325491, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {Taming Big Data: Using App Technology to Study Organizational Behavior on Social Media}, Journal = {Sociological Methods and Research}, Volume = {46}, Number = {2}, Pages = {189-217}, Publisher = {SAGE Publications}, Year = {2017}, Month = {March}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0049124115587825}, Abstract = {Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter provide an unprecedented amount of qualitative data about organizations and collective behavior. Yet these new data sources lack critical information about the broader social context of collective behavior—or protect it behind strict privacy barriers. In this article, I introduce social media survey apps (SMSAs) that adjoin computational social science methods with conventional survey techniques in order to enable more comprehensive analysis of collective behavior online. SMSAs (1) request large amounts of public and non-public data from organizations that maintain social media pages, (2) survey these organizations to collect additional data of interest to a researcher, and (3) return the results of a scholarly analysis back to these organizations as incentive for them to participate in social science research. SMSAs thus provide a highly efficient, cost-effective, and secure method for extracting detailed data from very large samples of organizations that use social media sites. This article describes how to design and implement SMSAs and discusses an application of this new method to study how nonprofit organizations attract public attention to their cause on Facebook. I conclude by evaluating the quality of the sample derived from this application of SMSAs and discussing the potential of this new method to study non-organizational populations on social media sites as well.}, Doi = {10.1177/0049124115587825}, Key = {fds325491} } @article{fds320151, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {Combining natural language processing and network analysis to examine how advocacy organizations stimulate conversation on social media.}, Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, Volume = {113}, Number = {42}, Pages = {11823-11828}, Year = {2016}, Month = {October}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607151113}, Abstract = {Social media sites are rapidly becoming one of the most important forums for public deliberation about advocacy issues. However, social scientists have not explained why some advocacy organizations produce social media messages that inspire far-ranging conversation among social media users, whereas the vast majority of them receive little or no attention. I argue that advocacy organizations are more likely to inspire comments from new social media audiences if they create "cultural bridges," or produce messages that combine conversational themes within an advocacy field that are seldom discussed together. I use natural language processing, network analysis, and a social media application to analyze how cultural bridges shaped public discourse about autism spectrum disorders on Facebook over the course of 1.5 years, controlling for various characteristics of advocacy organizations, their social media audiences, and the broader social context in which they interact. I show that organizations that create substantial cultural bridges provoke 2.52 times more comments about their messages from new social media users than those that do not, controlling for these factors. This study thus offers a theory of cultural messaging and public deliberation and computational techniques for text analysis and application-based survey research.}, Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1607151113}, Key = {fds320151} } @article{fds318874, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {Cultural carrying capacity: Organ donation advocacy, discursive framing, and social media engagement.}, Journal = {Social science & medicine (1982)}, Volume = {165}, Pages = {280-288}, Year = {2016}, Month = {September}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.01.049}, Abstract = {Social media sites such as Facebook have become a powerful tool for public health outreach because they enable advocacy organizations to influence the rapidly increasing number of people who frequent these forums. Yet the very open-ness of social media sites creates fierce competition for public attention. The vast majority of social media messages provoke little or no reaction because of the sheer volume of information that confronts the typical social media user each day. In this article, I present a theory of the "cultural carrying capacity" of social media messaging campaigns. I argue that advocacy organizations inspire more endorsements, comments, and shares by social media users if they diversify the discursive content of their messages. Yet too much diversification creates large, disconnected audiences that lack the sense of shared purpose necessary to sustain an online movement. To evaluate this theory, I created a Facebook application that collects social media posts produced by forty-two organ donation advocacy organizations over 1.5 years, as well as supplemental information about the organization, its audience, and the broader social context in which they interact. Time series models provide strong evidence for my theory net of demographic characteristics of social media users, the resources and tactics of each organization, and broader external factors. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for public health, cultural sociology, and the nascent field of computational social science.}, Doi = {10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.01.049}, Key = {fds318874} } @article{fds318875, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {Emotional Feedback and the Viral Spread of Social Media Messages About Autism Spectrum Disorders.}, Journal = {American journal of public health}, Volume = {106}, Number = {7}, Pages = {1173-1180}, Year = {2016}, Month = {July}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2016.303181}, Abstract = {<h4>Objective</h4>To determine whether exchanges of emotional language between health advocacy organizations and social media users predict the spread of posts about autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).<h4>Methods</h4>I created a Facebook application that tracked views of ASD advocacy organizations' posts between July 19, 2011, and December 18, 2012. I evaluated the association between exchanges of emotional language and viral views of posts, controlling for additional characteristics of posts, the organizations that produced them, the social media users who viewed them, and the broader social environment.<h4>Results</h4>Exchanges of emotional language between advocacy organizations and social media users are strongly associated with viral views of posts.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Social media outreach may be more successful if organizations invite emotional dialogue instead of simply conveying information about ASDs. Yet exchanges of angry language may contribute to the viral spread of misinformation, such as the rumor that vaccines cause ASDs.}, Doi = {10.2105/ajph.2016.303181}, Key = {fds318875} } @article{fds346876, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {Lost in a random forest: Using Big Data to study rare events}, Journal = {Big Data and Society}, Volume = {2}, Number = {2}, Year = {2015}, Month = {December}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2053951715604333}, Abstract = {Sudden, broad-scale shifts in public opinion about social problems are relatively rare. Until recently, social scientists were forced to conduct post-hoc case studies of such unusual events that ignore the broader universe of possible shifts in public opinion that do not materialize. The vast amount of data that has recently become available via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter—as well as the mass-digitization of qualitative archives provide an unprecedented opportunity for scholars to avoid such selection on the dependent variable. Yet the sheer scale of these new data creates a new set of methodological challenges. Conventional linear models, for example, minimize the influence of rare events as “outliers”—especially within analyses of large samples. While more advanced regression models exist to analyze outliers, they suffer from an even more daunting challenge: equifinality, or the likelihood that rare events may occur via different causal pathways. I discuss a variety of possible solutions to these problems—including recent advances in fuzzy set theory and machine learning—but ultimately advocate an ecumenical approach that combines multiple techniques in iterative fashion.}, Doi = {10.1177/2053951715604333}, Key = {fds346876} } @article{fds291777, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {The public life of secrets: Deception, disclosure, and discursive framing in the policy process}, Journal = {Sociological Theory}, Volume = {33}, Number = {2}, Pages = {97-124}, Publisher = {SAGE Publications}, Year = {2015}, Month = {June}, ISSN = {0735-2751}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0735275115587388}, Abstract = {While secrecy enables policy makers to escape public scrutiny, leaks of classified information reveal the social construction of reality by the state. I develop a theory that explains how leaks shape the discursive frames states create to communicate the causes of social problems to the public and corresponding solutions to redress them. Synthesizing cultural sociology, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology, I argue that leaks enable non-state actors to amplify contradictions between the public and secret behavior of the state. States respond by "ad hoc-ing" new frames that normalize their secret transgressions as logical extensions of other policy agendas. While these syncretic responses resolve contradictions exposed by leaks, they gradually detach discursive frames from reality and therefore increase states' need for secrecy - as well as the probability of future leaks - in turn. I illustrate this downward spiral of deception and disclosure via a case study of the British government's discourse about terrorism between 2000 and 2008.}, Doi = {10.1177/0735275115587388}, Key = {fds291777} } @article{fds226659, Author = {Bail, Christopher A.}, Title = {"The Public Life of Secrets: Deception, Disclosure, and Discursive Framing in the Policy Process}, Journal = {Sociological Theory}, Year = {2015}, Month = {February}, Key = {fds226659} } @article{fds226660, Author = {Bail, Christopher A.}, Title = {"Taming Big Data: Using App Technology to Study Organizational Behavior on Social Media Sites}, Journal = {Sociological Methods and Research}, Year = {2015}, Month = {January}, Key = {fds226660} } @article{fds291779, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {The cultural environment: Measuring culture with big data}, Journal = {Theory and Society}, Volume = {43}, Number = {3}, Pages = {465-482}, Publisher = {Springer Nature}, Year = {2014}, Month = {January}, ISSN = {0304-2421}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11186-014-9216-5}, Abstract = {The rise of the Internet, social media, and digitized historical archives has produced a colossal amount of text-based data in recent years. While computer scientists have produced powerful new tools for automated analyses of such “big data,” they lack the theoretical direction necessary to extract meaning from them. Meanwhile, cultural sociologists have produced sophisticated theories of the social origins of meaning, but lack the methodological capacity to explore them beyond micro-levels of analysis. I propose a synthesis of these two fields that adjoins conventional qualitative methods and new techniques for automated analysis of large amounts of text in iterative fashion. First, I explain how automated text extraction methods may be used to map the contours of cultural environments. Second, I discuss the potential of automated text-classification methods to classify different types of culture such as frames, schema, or symbolic boundaries. Finally, I explain how these new tools can be combined with conventional qualitative methods to trace the evolution of such cultural elements over time. While my assessment of the integration of big data and cultural sociology is optimistic, my conclusion highlights several challenges in implementing this agenda. These include a lack of information about the social context in which texts are produced, the construction of reliable coding schemes that can be automated algorithmically, and the relatively high entry costs for cultural sociologists who wish to develop the technical expertise currently necessary to work with big data.}, Doi = {10.1007/s11186-014-9216-5}, Key = {fds291779} } @article{fds291780, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {The Fringe Effect: Civil Society Organizations and the Evolution of Media Discourse about Islam since the September 11th Attacks}, Journal = {American Sociological Review}, Volume = {77}, Number = {6}, Pages = {855-879}, Publisher = {SAGE Publications}, Year = {2012}, Month = {December}, ISSN = {0003-1224}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122412465743}, Abstract = {Numerous studies indicate that civil society organizations create cultural change by deploying mainstream messages that resonate with prevailing discursive themes. Yet these case studies of highly influential organizations obscure the much larger population that have little or no impact. It is therefore unclear whether civil society organizations create cultural change by deploying mainstream discourses or if they become part of the mainstream because of their success. I present an evolutionary theory of how discursive fields settle after major historical ruptures that highlights framing, social networks, and emotional energy. To illustrate this theory, I use plagiarism detection software to compare 1,084 press releases about Muslims produced by 120 civil society organizations to 50,407 newspaper articles and television transcripts produced between 2001 and 2008. Although most organizations deployed pro-Muslim discourses after the September 11th attacks, I show that anti-Muslim fringe organizations dominated the mass media via displays of fear and anger. Institutional amplification of this emotional energy, I argue, created a gravitational pull or "fringe effect" that realigned inter-organizational networks and altered the contours of mainstream discourse itself. © American Sociological Association 2012.}, Doi = {10.1177/0003122412465743}, Key = {fds291780} } @article{fds291778, Author = {Bail, CA}, Title = {The configuration of symbolic boundaries against immigrants in Europe}, Journal = {American Sociological Review}, Volume = {73}, Number = {1}, Pages = {37-59}, Publisher = {SAGE Publications}, Year = {2008}, Month = {January}, ISSN = {0003-1224}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000312240807300103}, Abstract = {Recent studies report significant cross-national variation in the conceptual distinctions or "symbolic boundaries" used by majority groups to construct notions of "us" and "them." Because this literature compares only a handful of countries, the macro-level forces by which certain symbolic boundaries become more salient than others remain poorly understood. This article provides the first panorama of these processes by comparing the relative salience or "configuration" of multiple symbolic boundaries in 21 European countries. I use fuzzy-set analyses of data from the 2003 European Social Survey to create a typology of symbolic boundary configurations. The results indicate that the symbolic boundaries deployed by the general public do not correspond to the official "philosophies of integration" emphasized in the literature. Moreover, the data suggest previous comparisons have focused too heavily on Western Europe, overlooking important variation in other regions of Europe where immigration began more recently. I generate hypotheses to explain this newfound variation using demographic, socioeconomic, institutional, and historical data from quantitative and qualitative sources. The article concludes with examples of how these hypotheses can be combined by future studies toward a theory of "boundary-work".}, Doi = {10.1177/000312240807300103}, Key = {fds291778} } @article{fds226664, Author = {Bail, Christopher A. (with Michele Lamont)}, Title = {Sur les frontieres de la reconnaissance: Les categories internes et externes de l’identite collective (On the Boundaries of Recognition: Internal and External Categories of Collective Identity)}, Journal = {Revue Europeene de Migrations Internationales}, Volume = {21}, Number = {2}, Pages = {61-90}, Year = {2005}, Key = {fds226664} } %% Book Chapters @misc{fds352333, Author = {Edelmann, A and Wolff, T and Montagne, D and Bail, CA}, Title = {Computational Social Science and Sociology.}, Volume = {46}, Pages = {61-81}, Booktitle = {Annual Review of Sociology}, Year = {2020}, Month = {July}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054621}, Abstract = {The integration of social science with computer science and engineering fields has produced a new area of study: computational social science. This field applies computational methods to novel sources of digital data such as social media, administrative records, and historical archives to develop theories of human behavior. We review the evolution of this field within sociology via bibliometric analysis and in-depth analysis of the following subfields where this new work is appearing most rapidly: (<i>a</i>) social network analysis and group formation; (<i>b</i>) collective behavior and political sociology; (<i>c</i>) the sociology of knowledge; (<i>d</i>) cultural sociology, social psychology, and emotions; (<i>e</i>) the production of culture; (<i>f</i>) economic sociology and organizations; and (<i>g</i>) demography and population studies. Our review reveals that sociologists are not only at the center of cutting-edge research that addresses longstanding questions about human behavior but also developing new lines of inquiry about digital spaces as well. We conclude by discussing challenging new obstacles in the field, calling for increased attention to sociological theory, and identifying new areas where computational social science might be further integrated into mainstream sociology.}, Doi = {10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054621}, Key = {fds352333} }