Ulrich Matter: Search Engines, Online News, and Political Polarization

Ulrich is Assistant Professor at the University of St. Gallen, working on topics related to web technologies, data science, quantitative political economics, and online media economics. He is the author of the book "Big Data Analytics: A Guide to Data Science Practitioners Making the Transition to Big Data".

Abstract of the the paper: Algorithmic personalization of information provision has been widely debated, with concerns that it may lead to segregation and political polarization. This study aims to investigate the impact of web search personalization on political polarization, focusing on online news and Google's search engine. We designed two experiments using 300 US-based synthetic web users, or "bots," with a human-like appearance and randomized individual characteristics, who were active for a 12-month period. Our findings reveal that web search personalization indeed intensifies informational segregation between users with liberal and conservative political preferences, as well as between users with varying privacy settings. However, our results suggest that the likelihood of an increased polarization due to personalized search results is nevertheless low.

Find out more here https://www.datamethodsinitiative.org/post/ulrich-matter

Arash Habibi will defend his doctoral thesis in Economics at a public defence on Friday, 6st of September 2024 at 10.00 am in B1014 at JIBS.

The title of Arash’s thesis is  “International Trade, Global Value Chains and Sustainable Development”

Faculty examiner/opponent: Associate Professor Michael Johannes Koch, Aarhus University, Denmark 

Members of the Examining Committee: Professor Anne Neumann, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Professor Ugur Soytas, Technical University of Denmark, Professor Robert Lundmark, Lulea Technical University.

Reserve member of the committee: Senior Associate Professor Azzurra Morreale, JIBS

Chairperson at the defence: Professor Paul Nystedt

Principal supervisor: Professor Andreas Stephan, Linnaeus University/JIBS

Deputy supervisor: Professor Scott Hacker, JIBS

Title of the thesis: Gas Evolution and Transport in Foundry Sands
Author of the thesis: Dinesh Sundaram
Third-cycle subject area: Materials and Manufacturing
Faculty examiner / Opponent: Professor Michal Szucki, Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany
Principal supervisor: Professor Attila Diószegi, JTH, Jönköping University

Welcome to attend the defence!

Talha Omer will defend his doctoral thesis in Statistics at a public defence on Friday, 13st of September 2024 at 10.00 am in B1014 at JIBS.

The title of Talha’s thesis is  “Shrinkage estimation methods for mixed data sampling regression and heterogeneous autoregressive models”

Faculty examiner/opponent: Professor Dalibor Stevanovic, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada 

Members of the Examining Committee: Professor Johan Lyhagen, Uppsala University, Associate Professor Rickard Sandberg, Stockholm School of Economics, Associate Professor Yushu Li, University of Bergen, Norway.

Reserve member of the committee: Senior Associate Professor Azzurra Morreale, JIBS

Chairperson at the defence: Professor Scott Hacker, JIBS

Principal supervisor: Professor Pär Sjölander, JIBS

Deputy supervisors: Professor Kristofer Månsson, JIBS and Professor B.M Golan Kibria, Florida International University

Title of the thesis: Ontology and Knowledge Graph-Based Data Management for Sustainable Buildings: A Case of Digital Product Passport to Enable Circular Economy  in the Built Environment
Author of the thesis: Rahel Kebede
Third-cycle subject area: Machine Design
Faculty examiner / Opponent: Associate Professor Pieter Pauwels, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Principal supervisor: Associate Professor Peter Johansson JTH, Jönköping University

Welcome to attend the defence!