From Browsing History t o ChatGPT Conversations: Data Donation as a Method for Studying AI's Influence on Human Behaviour
Artificial intelligence incre asingly shapes what news people read, what content algorithms recomme nd, and what information people seek out through tools like ChatGPT. Yet studying these influences on human behaviour requires solving two interlinked challenges: getting the right data and being able to ana lyse it reliably. This talk presents data donation - where participan ts actively share their own digital trace data with researchers - as a key method for accessing otherwise opaque information environments. Drawing on a series of projects ranging from browser history and Tik Tok donations to a recent study collecting ChatGPT conversation histo ries, I discuss what we can learn about AI-mediated information expos ure and seeking behaviour, and what remains stubbornly hard. A partic ular focus is the analytical challenge: when the data is messy, perso nal, and multi-layered/modal, how do we use computational tools -&nbs p;including AI itself - to make sense of it, and how much can we trus t what we measure?
Dr. Felicia Loecherbach
Felicia Loecherbach is an Assistant Professor in Political Co mmunication and Journalism at the Amsterdam School of Communication R esearch. Her research focuses on online news consumption, news divers ity, and the use of computational methods in the social sciences. She is particularly interested in how digital information environments s hape the ways people encounter, understand, and engage with news, usi ng approaches such as digital trace data, data donations, and computa tional content analysis. She obtained a PhD in Computational Politica l Communication Science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and was previ ously a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social Media and Politi cs at New York University.
Date: 27 May 2026
Time: 15:00
Location: NU 4B43
DESCRIPTION: Artificial intelligence increasingly shapes what news people read, what content algorithms recommend, and what information people seek out through tools like ChatGPT. Yet studying these influ ences on human behaviour requires solving two interlinked challenges: getting the right data and being able to analyse it reliably. This t alk presents data donation - where participants actively share their own digital trace data with researchers - as a key method for accessi ng otherwise opaque information environments. Drawing on a series of projects ranging from browser history and TikTok donations to a recen t study collecting ChatGPT conversation histories, I discuss what we can learn about AI-mediated information exposure and seeking behaviou r, and what remains stubbornly hard. A particular focus is the analyt ical challenge: when the data is messy, personal, and multi-layered/m odal, how do we use computational tools - including AI itself - to make sense of it, and how much can we trust what we measure? Dr. Felicia Loecherbach Felicia Loecherbach is an As sistant Professor in Political Communication and Journalism at the Am sterdam School of Communication Research. Her research focuses on onl ine news consumption, news diversity, and the use of computational me thods in the social sciences. She is particularly interested in how d igital information environments shape the ways people encounter, unde rstand, and engage with news, using approaches such as digital trace data, data donations, and computational content analysis. She obtaine d a PhD in Computational Political Communication Science at Vrije Uni versiteit Amsterdam and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the C enter for Social Media and Politics at New York University. D ate: 27 May 2026 Time: 15:00 Locati on: NU 4B43 From Browsing History to ChatGPT Conversations: Data Donation as a Method for Studying AI's Influence on Human Behaviour END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR