# Agustin Prinetti

> Personal academic website of Agustin Prinetti, PhD candidate in Political Science at Rice University (Houston, TX) and visiting fellow at the Centre for Political Research (CEVIPOF), Sciences Po Paris (Fall 2026). Editorial assistant at International Organization. Website: https://www.agustinprinetti.com/ | CV: https://www.agustinprinetti.com/cv_ap.pdf | Email: aprinetti@rice.edu

Agustin Prinetti works on the intersection of comparative politics, political communication, and technology. His research explores how citizens interact with deceptive, hostile, or extremist political content on social media, with a focus on AI chatbots as political information intermediaries. He combines observational social media data with immersive online experiments that recreate real-world digital environments.

Originally from Argentina (BA in Political Science and Government, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, 2019), he worked as a Research Analyst for the Government of the City of Buenos Aires (2018 to 2022), evaluating public policies through surveys, interviews, experiments, and focus groups, before starting his PhD at Rice in 2022 as a Fulbright scholar. He holds an MA in Political Science from Rice (2024). Languages: Spanish (native), English and Italian (fluent), French (intermediate).

## Research agenda

- Misinformation and factual verification
- Political manipulation of AI chatbots
- Moderation of extremist content
- Campaign negativity and attack advertising

## Dissertation

"Do Androids Dream of Corrective Tweets? How Citizens Turn to AI to Verify Political Information." Committee: Randolph T. Stevenson, Erik Peterson, and Mark P. Jones.

For years, research has shown that factual corrections can limit the harmful effects of political misinformation, yet major social media platforms are retreating from partnerships with professional fact-checkers. The dissertation examines the newest of these developments, the growing use of AI chatbots to verify political information: how political contexts shape the ways people adopt these tools, and whether they can substitute human fact-checkers.

## Working papers

- [Do Androids Dream of Corrective Tweets? The Reliance of AI Factual Verification on Professional Fact-Checking](https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=6260079): Prinetti. Preprint. An observational study of Grok's verifications on X over time and a controlled design manipulating its access to external sources show that Grok's accuracy increases as professional fact-checking articles become available. AI verification is a complement, not a substitute, for professional fact-checkers.
- [Designing for Power: Covariates, Indices, and Efficiency in Survey Experiments](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6117547): Peterson, Tyler, and Prinetti. Preprint. Formally evaluates covariate adjustment and multi-item index outcomes and revisits over four hundred recent survey experiments; the two techniques are complements, both are underused, and combining specialized covariates with a short index outcome is a practical way to increase statistical power.
- [Bystanders on Social Media: Audience Moderation and the Spread of Political Extremism](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t0uDJFp0w5Gp1YFr1LUt71CCfKYVIDcN/view): Joyce, Joyce, and Prinetti. Manuscript. Explains participation in crowd moderation (user reporting of extremist content) with the Volunteer's Dilemma Game and tests it with simulated social media feeds.
- Campaign Negativity and Political Participation in the Social Media Era: Prinetti, Obata, and Stevenson. In progress. Revisits whether negative campaigns demobilize voters in a multi-platform media environment through the first immersive artefactual field experiment in the study of social media platforms.

Also in progress: "Hey @bot, is this true? How Users Turn to AI for Political News Verification" (Prinetti) and "Estimating Ideological Positions on X (Twitter) Through LLM Retrieval of Account Activity" (Prinetti and Stevenson).

## Selected fellowships and awards

- Chateaubriand Fellowship, Embassy of France in the U.S. (2026), supporting the research stay at Sciences Po.
- Lodieska Stockbridge Vaughn Fellowship, Rice University (2026), a university-wide award for five graduate students recognized for outstanding achievement and promise.
- Fulbright Foreign Student Program, U.S. Department of State (2022).
- Research funding from Rice's Social Sciences Research Institute (Dissertation Improvement and Pre-Dissertation grants), the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society (CIISR), and travel grants from APSA, its Political Communication Section, and SPSA.

Regular presenter at APSA, MPSA, and SPSA.

## Teaching

Teaching assistant at Rice for PhD-level statistics (Introduction to Maximum Likelihood Estimation I and II, with Randolph T. Stevenson; student rating 5.0/5), a Master's course on quantitative applications in global affairs (4.9/5), and undergraduate American politics (4.4/5), and at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella for comparative political systems (4.3/5). Holds Rice's Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning (2024). Teaches in English and Spanish.

## Experience and service

- Editorial Assistant, International Organization (2026 to present): reproducibility verification of accepted manuscripts and administration of replication files.
- Research Assistant, Rice University (2022 to 2025), for Mark P. Jones, Erik Peterson, and Randolph T. Stevenson.
- Graduate Student Ambassador, Rice Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (2024 to 2026).
- Additional training: LAPOP Summer School in International Survey Methods, Vanderbilt University (2024).

## Methods and tools

Survey and field experiments, immersive simulated social media environments, observational social media data, large language models for text retrieval and classification. R, Stata, Qualtrics, HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

## Links

- [Website](https://www.agustinprinetti.com/)
- [CV (PDF)](https://www.agustinprinetti.com/cv_ap.pdf)
- [X / Twitter](https://x.com/agustinprinetti)
- [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/aprinetti.bsky.social)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/agustinprinetti/)
- Email: aprinetti@rice.edu