I have a new paper on "The Psychology of Virality" with @steverathje.bsky.social

We explain how similar psychological processes (eg preferential attention to negativity, social motives, etc.) drive the spread of information across online and offline contexts: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thank you, Ella 🙏🏻

Dr Sandy Schumann, Winner of the First ENOC Open Criminology Award
@sandyschumann.bsky.social
@uclcrimescience.bsky.social

Thank you to ENOC and the colleague who nominated me! It’s very motivating, and I look forward to getting more criminologists excited about open science.

We are thrilled to be able to bring together esteemed colleagues from different disciplines: Atte Oksanen, Olivia Brown, Darja Wischerath, Stephane Baele, Javier Torregrosa, Charlie Stoeldraaijers, @joncollins.bsky.social, @lizzypearson.bsky.social, Harley Williamson, Miriam Fernandez and Maria Vau

Do you have suggestions for what should be included (or avoided) in a good methods handbook? Let us know! (3/4)

The book will be a resource for anyone who wants to extend their methods tool box, covering a wide range of quantitative and qualitative approaches as well as introducing key challenges that scholars in this field must address (e.g.,documenting causality, dealing with too low data volumes). (2/4)

I am pleased to share that @isabellevdv.bsky.social, @ryanscrivens.bsky.social and I have just signed a contract with @uclpress.bsky.social to co-edit an open-access book that will discuss ‘Methods for Studying Extremism and Terrorism Online’.
(1/4)

UCL returned to in-person assessment for 50% of assessments in a module this year. I don’t know if huge discrepancies between a module‘s online and in-person marks have been observed though.

I am thrilled that Victoria Bowland published her MSc research. She showed that young people who are radicalised online are more readily perceived as victims, which shapes the public’s support for distinct criminal justice responses. bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A timely reminder at Charité in Berlin to remember persecuted science (and that the persecution of science is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes).

We hope to encourage greater specificity in research that examines the ‘radicalising potential‘ of the internet and highlight that internet use that enhances capability warrants more (research) attention. 2/2

I am pleased that my paper with Jonathan Kenyon and Jens Binder has now been published here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We delineate distinct types of internet use that are associated with an increased likelihood to prepare/commit a terrorist attack. 1/2

"We are losing sight of the academic mission: to think, to enquire, to design & perform new research, to innovate, to teach & communicate our findings for the purpose of societal improvement"

A painfully accurate read. That lays out the folly of the modern uni!

academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

@vox-pol.bsky.social - it would be great if you were able to share this call.

@oii.ox.ac.uk - it would be great if you were able to share this call with your students.

More information is here: www.ucl.ac.uk/security-cri... - my project is „Talk is Cheap? Assessing how extremist content online can promote violence offline“. If you have questions, get in touch. And please share this information with your students!

Studentship funding is available for UK home students. I am looking for a motivated candidate with a social science background who is confident in developing advanced computational skills (I.e., computational linguistic analysis, agent based modeling).
2/3

I am recruiting a PhD student for our new EPSRC center for doctoral training in Cyber-physical risk. The project will examine how extremist content online can promote violence offline. 1/3

2) With Jonathan Kenyon and Jens Binder, we identified distinct types of internet use that predict the likelihood of planning/committing a terrorist attack (in England and Wales) www.crimrxiv.com/pub/wrjm1zdy...

🚀 2 new pre-prints are out!
1) Led by my former student Victoria Bowland, we examined the victim-perpetrator nexus in the context of online radicalisation crimrxiv.com/pub/tosz8zd9...
1/2

#Germany's federal criminal police office, not exactly known for over-counting such things, reports that at least 41,000 crimes with a right-wing extremist motive were committed in 2024, a 1/3 increase compared to 2023. 2023, with a 23% increase on 2022, had already marked an all-time high #farright

Join us for UCL‘s first Replication Games, run by @i4replication.bsky.social 🙌🏻

Join us next week for International Love Data Week 2025!

The theme is year is Whose data is it, anyway: https://buff.ly/48cq4hw

Join us next week as we celebrate our love for all things data and showcase the fantastic work of teams across UCL who help staff and students everyday with their data!