RAT Community Meeting 2024

The second RAT Community Meeting on 27th September in Hamburg will gather researchers interested in utilizing search engine data for their research.

Key features of the program include:

• Showcases: Gain insights into how respected researchers use RAT to investigate a wide range of topics such as climate change, politics, health, and more.
• Tutorials: Learn how to effectively use this powerful tool in your research, from data collection to in-depth analysis. Improve your skills and unlock RAT‘s potential.
• Poster Session: Explore how RAT has been applied in various research projects and how RAT’s functionality has been expanded through add-ons.

 Program:

• 9:00 – 9:30: Welcome

• 9:30 – 11:00: Introductory Talks

  • RAT: A flexible tool for search engine studies – Dirk Lewandowski
  • What’s new in RAT? – Sebastian Sünkler and Tuhina Kumar
  • Generating queries for your search engine study – Dirk Lewandowski

• 11:00 – 13:00: Hands-on tutorials

  • How to RAT? A Hands-On Tutorial to Designing and Conducting Studies With RAT – Sebastian Schultheiß and Tuhina Kumar
  • Running your own installation of RAT – Sebastian Sünkler
  • Evidential value of search engine studies – Dirk Lewandowski

• 13:00 – 14:00: Lunch break

• 14:00 – 16:15: Showcases

  • Tracing the Climate Change Counter Movement across platforms. Reflections on the role of search engines – Jutta Haider, University of Borås, Sweden
  • How helpful is Dr. Google when you’ve got a venereal disease? Comparing search engines for health information – Aylin Imeri, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany and Dirk Lewandowski
  • Which parties would Google and Bing support in the 2024 European Parliament election? An analysis of stance in their search results – Hanna Käfer, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany

• 16:15 – 18:00: Poster session and Get together

• 19:00 – 22:00: Dinner and Networking