COMAP LAB

The Computational Media and Politics (COMAP) Lab is an interdisciplinary research group led by Dr. Yingdan Lu in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. 

Our mission is to advance interdisciplinary scholarship on how digital technologies are transforming political communication globally. We aim to inform public policy, guide platform design, and enrich scholarly debates on the social, political, and global implications of digital media and artificial intelligence, contributing to democratic and more resilient information ecosystems worldwide.

The Global LLM Values Benchmarking Working Group at Northwestern University’s School of Communication and the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs is seeking applicants for a one-year Postdoctoral Scholar position, starting between July 1 and September 1, 2026. More details about this position: Link

Application review begins January 30, 2026. To apply, email application materials to comap@northwestern.edu. 

December, 2025 

We are recruiting a postdoc in the School of Communication and Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. Review of applications will begin January 30, 2026.

December 2025 

COMAP PI Yingdan Lu gave an invited talk, "Reimagining Computational Multimodal Analysis in Social Science Research" at HSBC Business School, Peking University.

September, 2025 

COMAP PI Yingdan Lu delivered a guest lecture, "Computational Multimodal Analysis in Social Science Research", at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

September, 2025 

COMAP PI Yingdan Lu and PhD student Xinyi Liu presented our work "Algorithmic Amplification in China: How Platforms Boost State Visibility" at 2025 American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Vancouver, Canada.

September, 2025 

COMAP welcomes our new PhD student, Otto Xin! Welcome, Otto!

August, 2025 

COMAP PhD students Xinyi Liu and Fatima Gaw presented our work on algorithmic curation in China and TikTok political influencers at PolNet-PACSS 2025

August, 2025 

COMAP PI Yingdan Lu gave an invited talk, "Understanding Authoritarian Propaganda through Computational Video Analysis" in Computational Visual Media Research (CVMR) Workshop at the University of Zurich.

July, 2025 

Our paper "Algorithmic Amplification in China: How Platforms Boost State Visibility" received the Best Lightning Talk Award in 11th International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2) 2025!

July, 2025 

COMAP PI Yingdan Lu delivered a guest lecture, "Computer Vision in Social Science", in Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS) at NYU-Shanghai.

June, 2025 

COMAP PI Yingdan Lu delivered a guest lecture, "Computational Multimodal Analysis in Social Science Research", in Summer Workshop on Computational Social Science at University of Minnesota.