Data Labs

Pew Research Center’s Data Labs uses computational methods to complement and expand on the Center’s existing research agenda. The team collects text, network, and behavioral datasets, uses innovative computational techniques and empirical strategies for analysis, and generates original research. Data Labs also explores the limitations of these data and methods, and works toward establishing standards for use and analysis. Learn more about Data Labs here. The Data Labs team also contributes to the Center’s Decoded blog, which examines the “how” behind our numbers – including lessons learned in computational social sciences.

Featured Publications

Congress Soars to New Heights on Social Media

Democratic lawmakers post more content on Twitter, while the median Republican member now averages more audience engagement than the median Democrat across platforms.

For Global Legislators on Twitter, an Engaged Minority Creates Outsize Share of Content

Although most national officials use the platform, their posts receive only a small number of likes and retweets.

The Digital Pulpit: A Nationwide Analysis of Online Sermons

This Pew Research Center analysis harnesses computational techniques to identify, collect and analyze the sermons that U.S. churches livestream or share on their websites each week.

All Publications from this Topic

Sharp decline in remittances expected in 2020 amid COVID-19 lockdowns in top sending nations

Remittances – money sent by migrants to their home countries – are projected to fall by a record 20% this year.

What is machine learning, and how does it work?

Our latest Methods 101 video explains the basics of machine learning and how it allows our researchers to analyze data on a large scale.

Tweets by members of Congress tell the story of an escalating COVID-19 crisis

More than half of all tweets sent by members of the U.S. Congress between March 11 and 21 were related to the coronavirus outbreak.

Democrats on Twitter more liberal, less focused on compromise than those not on the platform

A 56% majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who use Twitter describe their political views as liberal or very liberal.

Q&A: Why we studied American sermons and how we did it

Dennis Quinn, computational social scientist, explains how our analysis of sermons came together and the challenges that arise when religion meets big data.

10 facts about Americans and YouTube

Using public opinion surveys and large-scale data analysis, we have studied the content on YouTube and how the U.S. public engages with it.

A small group of prolific users account for a majority of political tweets sent by U.S. adults

These users make up just 6% of all U.S. adults with public accounts, but they account for 73% of tweets from adults that mention politics.

National Politics on Twitter: Small Share of U.S. Adults Produce Majority of Tweets

The findings of this analysis paint a nuanced picture of just how prevalent political speech is among U.S. adults on Twitter.

The challenges of using machine learning to identify gender in images

This essay on the lessons we learned about deep learning systems and gender recognition is one part of a three-part examination of issues relating to machine vision technology.

How does a computer ‘see’ gender?

Machine vision tools like facial recognition are increasingly being used for law enforcement, advertising, and other purposes. Pew Research Center itself recently used a machine vision system to measure the prevalence of men and women in online image search results. This kind of system develops its own rules for identifying men and women after seeing […]

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