Special Issue on Multilingual Text Analysis

Our computational toolkits have recently expanded to include computational text analysis methods (CTAM) not just for single languages but for multilingual analyses as well. This offers many opportunities to advance the comparison of cases in social science but it also poses considerable challenges to our research. Especially, how can one validate the results of multilingual analyses given that the languages they are based on vary as well the contexts, e.g. institutional or media type differences, in which those languages are used? Commensurability across languages requires validation on several stages to ensure that a) documents in their corpus and features in their analyses can be compared across languages; b) models or instruments applied to the documents are comparable across languages; and c) the results obtained can be meaningfully compared with each other, regardless of the language in which they appear. 

Researchers across the social sciences have already begun to leverage multilingual CTAM to examine innovative research questions. To support the continued growth of this exciting field will require a triple approach: first, more theoretical and fundamental reasoning on the type of validation is needed to demonstrate that measures across language are comparable; second; more substantive examples of how to use and validate multilingual textual research are needed; third, there is a high demand for practical guides that illustrate how researchers can use and validate these computational methods in their own work. 

To fill these gaps, the Computational Communication Research journal will dedicate a special issue to Applying & Validating Multilingual Text Analysis for Social Science Research. In line with the identified needs, we welcome two different types of submissions: 

  • [ A ] Research Articles: manuscripts that introduce, use and validate multilingual computational methods to examine important theoretical questions in communications, political science, or other social sciences. This also includes manuscripts that make a theoretical and fundamental methodological contribution to our understanding of multilingual CTAM. 
  • [ B ] Workshop Articles: manuscripts that explain how to use an existing or novel computational method to study large multilingual datasets. Workshop manuscripts are expected to be very practical, to include open source code that readers can adapt for their own work, and to have clear recommendations about which fields/questions can benefit from the described method. 

We highly encourage authors to discuss the validation steps made in their research (e.g. bridging strategies, input, output, and throughput validity). 

Computational Communication Research is open access and completely free for authors and readers. You will retain copyright on your article and it will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Submission Guidelines 

All special issue extended abstracts should be submitted through the journal’s online system: computationalcommunication.org/ccr/submission.  In the "note to editor", please indicate that you are submitting to the special issue on "Multilingual text analysis".

Extended abstracts are limited to 1,500 words (excluding a title page, references, tables, and figures) and should be single spaced. The abstracts should include the following sections to facilitate evaluation. 

  1. Title page. The title page should include a title for your abstract, author(s) and affiliation(s), and a mention of the type of article you are submitting (research or workshop article). 
  2. Proposed research (up to 1,000 words). For research articles, a brief introduction of relevant literature, research questions, hypotheses and methods. For workshop articles, a brief description of the computational method to be presented, types of questions that can be unlocked and answered using the method, the data and cases you will use to illustrate the method, and details about the open source code you plan to share along with the piece.
  3. Timeline and milestones (up to 100 words). For example, when data will be collected and analyzed, and when sections of the draft will be completed. A concise table, chart, or bulletin list should be sufficient to summarize the information. 
  4. Contribution to social science research (up to 400 words). Describe the theoretical and empirical contributions of the proposed research to social science research broadly. How will this research impact scholarly communities moving forward? 

Review criteria 

The abstracts will be reviewed by the editors of the special issue (Christian Baden, Martijn Schoonvelde, and Mariken van der Velden), in consultation with relevant experts when necessary. Review criteria include how clearly the proposed research responds to the call of the special issue in addition to the research’s theoretical and empirical contributions to communication science, political science, or any other social science; methodological and scholarly rigor; broader impacts; and feasibility. Acceptance of abstracts to be developed into full paper submissions does not guarantee final publication in the special issue. All full paper submissions will be competitively peer-reviewed and reviewed by the editors. 

Deadlines 

  • Extended abstracts are due September 12th 2022.
  • Decisions on the extended abstracts will be made by September 19th 2022.
  • Full papers for accepted extended abstracts will be due November 30th 2022. Papers will then be subject to external blind peer review. 
  • Publication of final accepted articles is expected in the first half of 2023. 

Inquiries for Guest Editors 

Please feel free to contact the guest editors, Christian Baden (c.baden@mail.huji.ac.il), Martijn Schoonvelde (martijn.schoonvelde@rug.nl), and Mariken van der Velden (m.a.c.g.vander.velden@vu.nl), if you have questions about additional details or whether your research fits the scope of the special issue.