Rachid Azrout is an Assistant Professor of Political Communication at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests mainly lie on the interplay of media exposure and public opinion, and studies this in relation to topics as immigration, the European Union, polarisation and party politics. In the past, he has participated in large collaborative projects such as PIREDEU (as member of the media analysis team) and the ASCoR 2014 European Election Study (coordinating both the voter survey and the media content analysis). Currently, he also participates in projects such as #NewNews, Digiworld and the ASCoR 25^th Anniversary Survey. His work has been published in, among other journals, the European Journal of Political Research, Political Behavior, the Journal of Communication, and Public Opinion Quarterly.

Research methods

• Surveys
• Experiments
• Quantitative Content Analyses

Current research projects

• “See it, say it, sorted!” – In this project we focus on how non-political identities are politicized and how this relates to (political) affective polarization.
• ChatGPT from a social scientific perspective – With the ASCoR 25^th Anniversary survey team we aim to increase our understanding of how people form perceptions around AI.
• #NewNews – In this project we study the dynamics of new political parties, and focus on under which circumstances new parties are (electorally) successful.
• DigiWorld – As the Dutch team of the larger DigiWorld project, we content analyze social media posts from politicians during the campaign of the Dutch general elections.
• Environmental political behaviour – In varying collaborations, we investigate people’s environmental attitudes and behaviour, and how they relate to other political attitudes.

Teaching

• Domeinmodule Politieke Communicatie en Journalistiek (DCW4) (bachelor Communication Science, Dutch track)
• Domain module Political Communication and Journalism (PC&J) (bachelor Communication Science, English track)
• Structural Equation Modelling (Research Master Communication Science)
• Content Analysis (Research Master Communication Science)

Administrative roles

• Chair committee Thesis Quality Bachelor (TQB)
• Chair Programme Committee (bachelor, master and pre-master Communication Science)

PhD supervision

• Ivo Bosilkov (PhD obtained in October 2019)
• Sjifra de Leeuw (PhD obtained in Feruary 2021)