Niels G. Mede
LightNews LightNews
banner
nielsmede.bsky.social
Niels G. Mede
@nielsmede.bsky.social
2.9K followers 550 following 240 posts
🔎 Assistant Professor of Science Communication
📍 Wageningen University & Research @w-u-r.bsky.social‬
🏠 www.nielsmede.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
nielsmede.bsky.social
Niels G. Mede @nielsmede.bsky.social · Jul 2
Ade Zürich, hallo #Wageningen! This week I started my new position as Assistant Professor at @w-u-r.bsky.social ✨
Thanks a lot for the warm welcome – I'm very excited about what’s ahead! At the same time, I'm very grateful for the years I spent at @ikmz.bsky.social. Merci vielmal und uf widerluege 🫶
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
polcomm.bsky.social
🎉 The PolComm Database Dashboard is live!

The database content is now available in an interactive dashboard: a milestone since launching submissions at #ICA25 in Denver.

Explore this resource here
👉 politicalcommunication.org/resources/
November 5, 2025 at 9:28 AM
nielsmede.bsky.social
@matthewfacciani.bsky.social, co-author of our latest study on science communication behavior in 68 countries, just published a blog post with a great summary of the main results. Check it out! ⬇️
matthewfacciani.bsky.social Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 7d
How do people around the world encounter science, and what shapes those encounters?

Our new global study found that social media now carries much of the world’s science content, but local culture, infrastructure, and curiosity still determine how people engage. #ScienceSky #scicomm
How the World Talks About Science
Our new international study finds that science communication looks very different depending on culture, media systems, and access to technology.
matthewfacciani.substack.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
matthewfacciani.bsky.social
How do people around the world encounter science, and what shapes those encounters?

Our new global study found that social media now carries much of the world’s science content, but local culture, infrastructure, and curiosity still determine how people engage. #ScienceSky #scicomm
How the World Talks About Science
Our new international study finds that science communication looks very different depending on culture, media systems, and access to technology.
matthewfacciani.substack.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
mjcrockett.bsky.social
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
todorova.bsky.social
So happy to see this out! 🎉 We surveyed people from 68 countries about how they encounter and engage with information about science!

See the thread below for a summary of the main findings 👇

Congratulations to the whole team, especially @nielsmede.bsky.social and @colognaviktoria.bsky.social 👏
nielsmede.bsky.social Niels G. Mede @nielsmede.bsky.social · 20d
Published today: One of the biggest #science #communication studies to date. We asked 71,922 people in 68 countries how they #engage with information about #science and combined the data with several country-level factors: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #OpenAccess
October 22, 2025 at 4:49 AM
nielsmede.bsky.social
Published today: One of the biggest #science #communication studies to date. We asked 71,922 people in 68 countries how they #engage with information about #science and combined the data with several country-level factors: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #OpenAccess
October 21, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
alonzoizner.bsky.social
New publication alert🔓🚨
Toxic speech is widespread on social media – but do users mirror the toxic behavior of their ingroup or react defensively to outgroup toxicity?
Our new paper in JCMC examines how ingroup and outgroup behavior shape the spread of toxicity on social media.
October 20, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
curdknupfer.bsky.social
If you've been reading that fantastic new paper by @dasalgon.bsky.social & @tevoelker.bsky.social on how mainstream parties lose if they adopt far-right issues:
We looked at a case study & found similar dynamics for media.
This was partly based on data from Daniel & Teresa!❤️
bsky.app/profile/curd...
October 20, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
wintterlin.bsky.social
New paper out on trust in science in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.

🙏 to @nielsmede.bsky.social and @colognaviktoria.bsky.social for initiating the TISP project and to @juliametag.bsky.social for her helpful input throughout the project. Free-access link: shorturl.at/4VBAJ
October 15, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
larslott.bsky.social
Is research performance related to academic freedom? A preprint co-authored with @lutzb.bsky.social conducts a large-scale empirical analysis on the national level to this question. osf.io/2mh8f #academicfreedom #AcademicFreedomIndex Short 🧵
September 5, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
tspampatti.bsky.social
In this new Commentary in @natclimate.nature.com, I reflect on the recent focus on truth discernment in #misinfo research and argue that this outcome alone may not be beneficial to society if interventions do not improve behaviour and other outcomes because... 1/

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Truth discernment may not help to overcome misinformation
Nature Climate Change - Scientists increasingly assess interventions against misinformation mainly via truth discernment. However, pursuing truth discernment may not be sufficiently beneficial to...
www.nature.com
September 8, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
claesdevreese.bsky.social
“De wetenschap heeft een tweeledige rol: als locomotief van de vooruitgang, maar ook als rem om de trein van de geschiedenis op de rails te houden.”

Robbert Dijkgraaf in @nrc.nl

Trump en de tech-trawanten www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/... www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...
Column | Trump en de tech-trawanten
Column: Vijandigheid tegenover de wetenschap staat in een lange traditie in de Amerikaanse Republikeinse partij. Robbert Dijkgraaf ziet een verrassende ontwikkeling.
www.nrc.nl
September 6, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
janpfa.bsky.social
How much do people really reject science?

New paper out doi.org/10.1177/0963...

In four studies, we asked Americans—including flat Earthers, climate change deniers and vaccine skeptics—whether they accepted basic scientific facts.

The result? A surprisingly high level of agreement. 👇
Quasi-universal acceptance of basic science in the United States - Jan Pfänder, Lou Kerzreho, Hugo Mercier, 2025
Substantial minorities of the population report a low degree of trust in science, or endorse conspiracy theories that violate basic scientific knowledge. This m...
doi.org
September 5, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
nefcapolcom.bsky.social
🚀 We’re live!

The Political Communication Division of @nefca.bsky.social is now on BlueSky. Follow us for updates on research, events, and conversations in the PolCom community.
September 5, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
lenafrescamente.bsky.social
@nielsmede.bsky.social is opening our workshop based on his TrygFonden * @ddc-sdu.bsky.social fellowship on countering science related online harrassment - very excited to discuss how to support science communicators with a stellar line-up of academics and stakeholders!
August 20, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
hcp4715.bsky.social
thrilled that our guides for #OpenScience in developing countries is now published in AMPPS of @psychscience.bsky.social: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Please see the thread for details
August 19, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
szaszibarnabas.bsky.social
🧵 Can you predict whether behavioral interventions will work in new contexts?

… probably not, right?

In our new paper with @dggoldst.bsky.social @dilipsoman.bsky.social @susanmichie.bsky.social, we dive into how to better understand and improve generalizability. rdcu.be/ewD2z

Summary👇
Generalizability of choice architecture interventions
Nature Reviews Psychology - Choice architecture interventions (or ‘nudges’) aim to guide behaviour by changing the proximal physical, social or psychological environment. In this...
rdcu.be
July 28, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
koenfucius.bsky.social
It’s not just social media algorithms that determine whether content goes viral.

Research by @steverathje.bsky.social and @jayvanbavel.bsky.social finds how the psychology of spreaders and consumers interacts with the environment also significantly influences virality:

buff.ly/q17VnXN
July 18, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
karmel80.bsky.social
Which is why the way reporting is done is crucial... "We find: It’s not necessarily firsthand experience of extreme weather events. Instead, it’s whether people think that these events are linked to climate change."
nielsmede.bsky.social Niels G. Mede @nielsmede.bsky.social · Jul 4
New paper: What increases people’s support for policy responses to #climate #change? ✊
We find: It’s not necessarily firsthand experience of extreme weather events. Instead, it’s whether people think that these events are linked to climate change. Here is the paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🔎
Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world - Nature Climate Change
Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic asse...
www.nature.com
July 10, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
larrymillerphd.bsky.social
What if science communication wasn’t just about facts—but about trust, humility & shared values? This new agenda from PNAS calls for participatory models to replace top-down fixes. In this ultra-polarized environment, it’s about co-creation, not just correction. What are your thoughts? 🧪🧬🔬
An agenda for science communication research and practice | PNAS
Science should not unilaterally dictate individuals’ decisions or public policies. Yet, it provides a vital source of information for societies and...
www.pnas.org
July 2, 2025 at 2:02 PM
nielsmede.bsky.social
Excellent new study in @actapolitica.bsky.social: @roderikrekker.bsky.social uses 15 years of representative panel survey data (2007-2022, n = 19,084) to show how science skepticism is linked to political discontent in the Netherlands ⬇️
roderikrekker.bsky.social Roderik Rekker @roderikrekker.bsky.social · Jul 3
(1/5) Out now in Acta Politica: Populist parties increasingly target scientists and scientific knowledge. By analyzing 15 annual waves of representative panel data from the Netherlands (2007–2022), I examine to what extent populist parties fuel science skepticism among their supporters.
July 6, 2025 at 10:37 AM
nielsmede.bsky.social
New paper: What increases people’s support for policy responses to #climate #change? ✊
We find: It’s not necessarily firsthand experience of extreme weather events. Instead, it’s whether people think that these events are linked to climate change. Here is the paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🔎
Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world - Nature Climate Change
Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic asse...
www.nature.com
July 4, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Niels G. Mede
colognaviktoria.bsky.social
🚨 How do exposure to extreme weather events and the subjective attribution of these events to climate change relate to climate policy support across the world? 🔥🌎

Find out more in our OA article published in Nature Climate Change 👇 1/7 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world - Nature Climate Change
Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic asse...
www.nature.com
July 1, 2025 at 10:38 AM
nielsmede.bsky.social
Ade Zürich, hallo #Wageningen! This week I started my new position as Assistant Professor at @w-u-r.bsky.social ✨
Thanks a lot for the warm welcome – I'm very excited about what’s ahead! At the same time, I'm very grateful for the years I spent at @ikmz.bsky.social. Merci vielmal und uf widerluege 🫶
July 2, 2025 at 11:59 AM