Home | RC2S2

The RC2S2 (Research Center for Computational Social Science) research group was established at the Institute of Empirical Studies of the Eötvös Loránd University in 2018 by the expansion of the former Methodological Research Center. The leaders of the research group are Ildikó Barna and Renáta Németh.

Our research team uses methods of data mining and text mining to analyse textual data available on the internet or digitalized offline texts. We also use network analysis and develop data visualization solutions. Our research topics are diverse, we deal with online hate speech, the online representation of corruption and we analyse online forums with the main focus on depression.

The data revolution that has taken place in recent decades and the digital data generated by our everyday activities became a socially relevant source of information. Responding to this, the methodology of quantitative social research uses by now methods of computer science and artificial intelligence research. This new research area is called computational social science in the international literature. Subfields of Computational Social Science are data science (machine learning, text analytics), network analysis and data visualization. The digital revolution not only brought new data sources, but also changed the society. As sociologists, our goal is to get to know this new type of society. We are convinced that the computational trend will be inescapable. The aim of the RC2S2 research group is to discover the social knowledge of this area and to develop and adopt new methods, and explore its epistemological consequences.

News and Results

The Introductory Material of our Research Group

2022.12.14. Featured

If you’re interested in our research, our projects and our activities, this small booklet will help you to get to know the focus of our research team.

Sik, Domonkos (2023): Populist Juggling with Fear: The Case of Hungary

2023.03.08. Result Publication The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Domonkos Sik published his results in the journal called East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures with the following title: " Populist Juggling with Fear: The Case of Hungary".

Rakovics, Zsófia (2023): Memory Politics in the Hungarian Parliament

2023.02.11. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsófia Rakovics gave a presentation entitled " Memory Politics in the Hungarian Parliament " at the CENTRAL Workshop: Notion and Construction of Victimhood in Central East and Southeast Europe, held in Vienna, 8-11 February 2023.

Katona, Eszter and Németh, Renáta (2023): Carpathian Basin-related topics in Hungarian parliamentary speeches. A concept related to Hungary’s self-definition Katona, Eszter and Németh, Renáta (2023): Carpathian Basin-related topics in Hungarian parliamentary speeches. A concept related to Hungary’s self-definition

2023.02.11. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Eszter Katona and Renáta Németh gave a presentation entitled " Carpathian Basin-related topics in Hungarian parliamentary speeches. A concept related to Hungary’s self-definition " at the CENTRAL Workshop: Notion and Construction of Victimhood in Central East and Southeast Europe, held in Vienna, 8-11 February 2023.

Boda, Zsuzsanna and Rakovics, Zsófia (2022): Analysis of Viktor Orbán’s speeches between 2010 and 2020: Investigating the issue of migration

2022.12.12. Result Publication The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsuzsanna Boda and Zsófia Rakovics published their results in the journal Szociológiai Szemle with the following title: " Analysis of Viktor Orbán’s speeches between 2010 and 2020: Investigating the issue of migration".

Németh, Renáta (2022): A scoping review on the use of natural language processing in research on political polarization: trends and research prospects

2022.11.29. Result Publication The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh published her results in the Journal of Computational Social Science with the following title: "A scoping review on the use of natural language processing in research on political polarization: trends and research prospects".

Lecture by Domonkos Sik at the conference “Fundamental Issues of Social Theory”

2022.11.04. Result Előadás The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Domonkos Sik gave a conference presentation entitled "The autonomy of poiesis - the interaction of social structures and discursive possibilities" at the conference "The Fundamental issues of social theory" at the National University of Public Service (3-4 November 2022).

Ildikó Barna and Márton Rakovics at the Addressing the Past – Shaping the Future: Memory Politics in Europe and Canada conference

2022.10.26.

Ildikó Barna and Márton Rakovics represented our research group at the Addressing the Past - Shaping the Future: Memory Politics in Europe and Canada conference, held at the University of Victoria, funded by the Jean Monnet Network European Memory Politics (EuMePo) and co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European [...]

Members of our research group at the Hungarian Sociological Association’s annual meeting

2022.10.18. Result Presentation

Between 14th and 15th October, 2022, many members of the ELTE RC2S2 research group had given lectures or lead sections at the Hungarian Sociological Assocation's annual meeting. PROGRAMME >> 'Quantitative methodological innovations' section. Participants from ELTE RC2S2 >> Renáta Németh, Eszter Katona PROGRAMME >> 'Challenges of international migration' section. Participant [...]

Zsófia Rakovics gave a presentation at the Hungarian Sociological Assocation’s annual meeting

2022.10.15. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsófia Rakovics presented her research results entitled "Analysis of migration discourses based on parliamentary speeches" at the Hungarian Sociological Association’s annual meeting between the 14th and 15th October, 2022 (hosted by the University of Miskolc). The presentation was part of the ’Challenges of international migration’ section.

Eszter Katona and Mihály Fazekas gave a presentation at the Hungarian Sociological Assocation’s annual meeting

2022.10.15. Result Presentation Corruption in Online Editorial Media

Eszter Katona and Mihály Fazekas (CEU) presented their research results entitled "Identifying competition restrictions as a corruption risk in public procurement procedures using natural language processing" at the Hungarian Sociological Association’s annual meeting between the 14th and 15th October, 2022 (hosted by the University of Miskolc). The presentation was part [...]

Renáta Németh gave a presentation at the Hungarian Sociological Assocation’s annual meeting

2022.10.15. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh presented her research results entitled "The role of domain knowledge in social research applications of data science" at the Hungarian Sociological Association’s annual meeting between the 14th and 15th October, 2022 (hosted by the University of Miskolc). The presentation was part of the ’Quantitative methodological innovations’ section.

Zsófia Rakovics and Márton Rakovics gave a presentation at Text.Machine.Society conference

2022.09.20. Result The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsófia Rakovics (ELTE RC2S2) and Márton Rakovics (ELTE RC2S2) gave a presentation at the Text.Machnine.Society conference (organized by ELTE RC2S2) entitled „Analysis of parlementary speeches with document embedding” on 20.09.2022.

Renáta Németh gave a presentation at the Text.Machine.Society conference

2022.09.20. Result The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh (ELTE RC2S2) gave a presentation at the Text.Machnine.Society conference (organized by ELTE RC2S2) entitled „Researching language polarization with NLP: methodological challenges based on a scoping review (generalizability, role of domain knowledge, mixed methods, causal inference)” on 20.09.2022.

Árpád Knap, Tímea Emese Tóth and Ildikó Barna gave a presentation at Text.Machine.Society conference

2022.09.20. Result The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Árpád Knap (ELTE RC2S2), Tímea Emese Tóth (ELTE RC2S2) and Ildikó Barna (ELTE RC2S2) gave a presentation at the Text.Machnine.Society conference (organized by ELTE RC2S2) entitled „Emotions in the word embeddings of articles about Trianon Peace Treaty and the Holocaust, and possible tools for automated emotion detection” on 20.09.2022.

Jakab Buda, Bori Simonovits and Renáta Németh gave a presentation at Text.Machine.Society conference

2022.09.20. Result The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Jakab Buda (ELTE RC2S2), Bori Simonovits (ELTE PPK), Renáta Németh (ELTE RC2S2) gave a presentation at Text.Machine.Society conference (organized by ELTE RC2S2) entitled „Official discrimination? – Measuring attentional discrimination using natural language processing” on 20.09.2022.

Buda Jakab, Németh Renáta, Simonovits Bori, Simonovits Gábor: The language of discrimination: assessing attention discrimination by Hungarian local governments

2022.09.14. Result Publication A politikai nyilvánosság rétegei Magyarországon (2001-2020)

Megjelent Buda Jakab, Németh Renáta és társszerzőik publikációja a Language Resources and Evaluation (D1) hasábjain.

Renáta Németh was promoted to the rank of professor

2022.09.14.

Congratulations to Renáta Németh, co-leader of our research group, for being promoted to the rank of professor!