The Center for Social Data Analytics Colloquium: Derek Ruths

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Title: Getting Political with Stories

Abstract: Stories don’t just describe the world, they shape it. From the myths that define national identity to the fragments of news and social media that shape public opinion, stories organize how individuals, groups, and societies make sense of the world. In this era of algorithmic feeds and large-scale information flow, stories form and evolve faster than individuals or institutions can comprehend or respond to them. Despite stories’ fluidity and central importance in human belief and behavior, researchers and practitioners lack fundamental tools for identifying and dissecting narratives at scale, seeing how they are impacting the public. In this talk, we’ll discuss our ongoing effort to assemble formal models and computational methods that allow us to detect narratives and assess how they reinforce and shape beliefs in the real-world. We’ll see a variety of practical methods that researchers can use to extract story morals, stance, and character from news and social media coverage. Using case studies including climate change, AI disruption, and the invasion of Ukraine, we’ll explore how these tools allow us to understand and compare the contemporary stories that shape political behavior.

Bio: Derek is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at McGill University. In his research, Ruths innovates responsible ways of using AI and large online data sets to measure and predict large-scale human behavior. As an industry and government advisor, he supports the responsible and impactful use of AI and data science. Recent career highlights include leading the Canadian government’s impact assessment of the COVID Alert app, designing and deploying a transformational AI-powered health data solution in several African countries, and devising a stakeholder mapping method for understanding seemingly intractable socio-technical problems. In his free time, he enjoys building LEGOs with his kids, consistently losing at Scrabble to his wife, and scuba diving.