Observing Opinions: How Can We Measure Non-Verbal Opinions?

In this episode, Dr. Aleksandar Tomašević from the University of Novi Sad takes us beyond text-based analysis to explore how emotions expressed in videos can be measured and understood. Aleksandar explains why studying non-verbal cues—especially facial expressions—is becoming crucial for understanding political communication online. He walks us through different methods for detecting these expressions, highlighting how machine learning and deep learning techniques enable computational analysis of emotions. Aleksandar also discusses the accuracy of machine-based emotion detection compared to human judgment and shares fascinating findings from his research on political leaders’ emotional expressions in video content. This conversation reveals how emotion analysis opens new doors in communication research.