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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.

The National Laboratory for Social Innovation is again supporting our research centre’s NLP-based research into e-menatl health forums

2023.10.10. Discursive framing of depression in online health communities

Good news: The National Laboratory for Social Innovation is again supporting our research centre's NLP-based research into e-menatl health forums. The research team is led by Domonkos Sik, and consists of Jakab Buda, Renáta Németh, Márton Rakovics, and our guest researchers: Máté Kapitány-Fövény Máté (clinical psychologist), Tibor Pólya (narrative psychologist), [...]

Márton Rakovics gave a presentation at the University of Osijek

2023.09.18. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

On 15 September 2023, Márton Rakovics, a member of our Research Centre (ELTE RC2S2), gave a lecture in English on the social science applications of natural language processing at the Faculty of Law, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, in Croatia. In his presentation, he introduced the most important text [...]

Conference poster presented at the 9th IC2S2 conference by Zsófia Rakovics and Márton Rakovics

2023.07.20. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Two members of our research center took part in the 9. International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2) in Denmark. The event is organized by the University of Copenhagen in the Maersk Tower between 17-20th of July. Below we share some photos of the conference venue and atmosphere. Zsófia Rakovics [...]

Successful research grant application to the CELSA Research Fund

2023.07.07.

We have successfully applied for the CELSA Research Fund with the title “Representations of Migration in a Transforming Europe: The Polarizing Power of Migration as a Political Tool in Online Media and Political Discourses – What can we learn from the 2015 and 2022 refugee crises?.” CELSA was founded in [...]

Zsófia Rakovics gave a presentation at the ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne

2023.06.30. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsófia Rakovics gave az online presentation at the ISA (International Sociological Association) World Congress organised in Melbourne between 25th June – 1st July, 2023. The title of the presentation was Investigating Language- and Political Polarization through Two Decades of Parliamentary Speeches. More details: Abstract is available here The conference’s site

Zsófia Rakovics gave a presentation at the ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne

2023.06.30. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsófia Rakovics gave an online presentation at the ISA (International Sociological Association) World Congress organised in Melbourne between 25th June – 1st July, 2023. The title of the presentation was Investigating Dynamic Social Networks of Politicians Constructed By the Similarity of Their Speeches. More details: Abstract is available here The [...]

Renáta Németh gave a presentation at the ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne

2023.06.30. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh gave az online presentation at the ISA (International Sociological Association) World Congress organised in Melbourne between 25th June – 1st July, 2023. The title of the presentation is The language of discrimination: Assessing attention discrimination by Hungarian local governments using machine learning, the authors were Renáta Németh (ELTE [...]

Ildikó Barna gave a presentation at the ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne

2023.06.30. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Ildikó Barna gave az online presentation at the ISA (International Sociological Association) World Congress organised in Melbourne between 25th June – 1st July, 2023. The title of the presentation is Examining the Different Political Sides’ Memorialization of Using Tools of Natural Language Processing and Narrative Psychology, the authors were Ildikó [...]

EuMePo Jean Monnet Network’s International Conference organized by ELTE RC2S2 Achieves Great Success

2023.06.16. EuMePo Jean Monnet Network on memory politics

The EuMePo Jean Monnet Network, organized by ELTE RC2S2, held its international closing conference in Budapest, Hungary, between 14-16 June 2023. The EuMePo Conference brought together researchers to explore various aspects of memory politics and remembrance especially in Europe but putting it into an international context. A special feature of [...]

Ildikó Barna gave a presentation at the EuMePo (European Memory Politics) Jean Monnet Network conference organised in Budapest

2023.06.15. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Ildikó Barna gave a presentation titled "An analysis on the framing of Trianon and the Holocaust in Hungary using Natural Language Processing" at the EuMePo (European Memory Politics) Jean Monnet Network conference  on 15th June, 2023, Budapest, co-authored by Árpád Knap. In their research, they examined the discursive framing of [...]

Renáta Németh gave a presentation at the EuMePo (European Memory Politics) Jean Monnet Network conference organised in Budapest

2023.06.15. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh gave a presentation titled "Who knows it better? The task of detecting discrimination using human coding vs. text mining" at the EuMePo (European Memory Politics) Jean Monnet Network conference  on 15th June, 2023, Budapest. The co-authors were Jakab Buda and Bori Simonovits. In their study they assess the [...]

Zsófia Rakovics gave a presentation at the EuMePo (European Memory Politics) Jean Monnet Network conference organised in Budapest

2023.06.15. Result Presentation The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Zsófia Rakovics gave a presentation titled "Memory politics – Different issues and political communication strategies in the Hungarian Parliament" at the EuMePo (European Memory Politics) Jean Monnet Network conference  on 15th June, 2023, Budapest. The motivation of the research is to analyze the themes of memory politics and the dynamics [...]

Németh, Renáta; Sik, Domonkos; Zaboretzky, Bendegúz and Katona, Eszter published their results with the following title: „Depression in times of a pandemic – the impact of COVID-19 on the lay discourses of e-mental health communities”

2023.06.15. Discursive framing of depression in online health communities

The article by Renáta Németh, Domonkos Sik, Bendegúz Zaboretzky and Eszter Katona entitled "Depression in times of a pandemic - the impact of COVID-19 on the lay discourses of e-mental health communities" was published in the journal Information, Communication & Society. The publication is available here.

Németh, Renáta; Sik, Domonkos; Zaboretzky, Bendegúz and Katona, Eszter (2023): Depression in times of a pandemic – the impact of COVID-19 on the lay discourses of e-mental health communities

2023.06.15. Result Publication Discursive framing of depression in online health communities

The article by Renáta Németh, Domonkos Sik, Bendegúz Zaboretzky and Eszter Katona entitled "Depression in times of a pandemic - the impact of COVID-19 on the lay discourses of e-mental health communities" was published in the journal Information, Communication & Society.

Németh Renáta and Koltai Júlia published their results in the journal Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics

2023.06.15. The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh and Júlia Koltai’s article entitled "Natural language processing: the integration of a new methodological paradigm into sociology" was published inthe journal Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics. Renáta Németh, one of the authors of the article, wrote the article with the support of our NKFIH research, [...]

Németh, Renáta and Koltai, Júlia (2023): Natural language processing: The integration of a new methodological paradigm into sociology

2023.06.15. Result Publication The layers of political public sphere in Hungary (2001–2020)

Renáta Németh and Júlia Koltai’s article entitled "Natural language processing: the integration of a new methodological paradigm into sociology" was published inthe journal Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics. Renáta Németh, one of the authors of the article, wrote the article with the support of our NKFIH research, [...]

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.