Last week, I defended my PhD dissertation at Trinity College Dublin. I am happy to say that I have joined the esteemed ranks of Dr. Dre, Dr. Pepper, and Dr. Seuss! 😁🎉

Thanks so much to family, friends, colleagues, and especially my PhD supervisors, @cboussalis.bsky.social and @janberz.bsky.social!

Thrilled to say that I submitted my PhD dissertation! 😀

It measures the ideological structure of 324 online news outlets and tests the effects of this structure on voting.

I find large ideological gaps in media markets and powerful effects of these gaps over public opinion and how we vote. 📺💻📱📠

Enjoyed my first APSA conference in beautiful #Vancouver!

We're all very interested in media effects. But my paper uses original #survey #experiments and panel data to study how cross-pressured audiences select political #media in the first place. 📺📻💻📱📰

#APSA2025 @polcomm.bsky.social #APSA

Thanks @comptext.bsky.social for a great conference in #Vienna! I presented (1) a new method -- "MQ-Class" -- for LLM-classifying the full spectrum of media ideology and (2) my project mapping the 2D structure of global media ideology. Great people, panels, and most importantly food!

#COMPTEXT2025

People often assume that media influences elections by changing our opinions. I find that the effect mostly occurs through outlets changing our *perceptions of party positions*.

If you want to avoid media influence, watch out for how your favorite outlets depict party positions! 📺💻📰🎧

🧵 3/3

Using DiDiD, I find that the boycott of the right-wing Sun newspaper caused people in Liverpool to:
🟦 perceive the Labour Party (@teamlabouruk.bsky.social) as considerably more moderate 🔍
🟦 become somewhat more left-wing ⬅️
🟦 support the Labour Party more 🗳️

🧵 2/3

To examine how media outlets influence our voting behavior, I use a natural experiment — the Liverpool boycott of the popular Sun newspaper (from 1989 to now) after The Sun falsely blamed the Hillsborough stadium crush on Liverpool F.C. supporters. @lfcr.bsky.social @liverpoolecho.co.uk

🧵 1/3

Thrilled that my paper is now published by @polbehavior.bsky.social! Using a natural experiment—the Sun boycott—I show how media may shape our voting mostly by changing our perceptions of party positions. Media matters! 🗳️

Read here: doi.org/10.1007/s111...

@tcddublin.bsky.social #mediabias #vote