Saori Maeda – Research Intern.
About me
Saori Maeda is a Research Master’s student in Social Sciences for a Digital Society at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a research intern at the Societal Analytics Lab. Her current work focuses on computational methods for analysing digital behaviour, including longitudinal media diary data, LLM-assisted text classification, and the integration of self-reported data with donated digital trace data.
Her broader research interests concern how the use of LLMs in decision-making may generate or amplify group-level disparities, particularly in public-sector and policy contexts.
She holds a Master of Economics from the University of Tokyo and previously worked as a visiting researcher at the Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance, Japan.
You can find more info about me here.
About my project
Internship supervisor: Dr. Kasper Welbers
Project: Validating LLM-Assisted Coding of Longitudinal Media Diary Data
Abstract: This project investigates the use of large language models (LLMs) for coding longitudinal open-ended media diary data. It compares LLM-assisted classification with human coding and evaluates coding quality, for example by examining whether providing information from participants’ previous diary entries improves performance compared with analysing each response in isolation. The project will also explore how coding performance may vary across characteristics of the data and analytical choices, such as response characteristics, the amount and type of contextual information provided to the model, or political topic. In addition, it will explore whether LLM-assisted coding can support longitudinal analysis of participants’ media experiences, for example by capturing changes in engagement, emotional responses, or news avoidance over time. By evaluating coding validity and the potential value of longitudinal context, the project contributes to methodological discussions on the valid and responsible use of LLMs for repeated open-ended data in computational social science.
