At the core of the project is a representative longitudinal panel study in Germany and the United States, conducted continuously since November 2022. Every two weeks, around 1,750 participants per country are surveyed on a wide range of societal topics, including political attitudes, trust in institutions, perceptions of social conflicts, and personal concerns about economic and geopolitical developments. The high temporal resolution allows researchers to track changes in social sentiment with great precision and relate them to ongoing political events.

The survey includes several thematic blocks covering personal life situations, societal concerns, political attitudes, institutional trust, news consumption, and demographic characteristics. Repeated measurements over time create a detailed longitudinal dataset that allows researchers to analyze how societal attitudes evolve and how political climates shift during periods of crisis.

In addition to survey data, SOSEC integrates media and social media monitoring. A news-event monitoring system identifies relevant political events and media debates. These events are then linked with discussions on social media platforms and with changes observed in the panel survey. This enables researchers to analyze how media coverage and online discourse interact with shifts in public opinion.

The collected data are also integrated into an interactive dashboard developed within the project. The dashboard allows researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to explore societal trends, test hypotheses about political dynamics, and identify potential risks for democratic stability. A central research focus of SOSEC is the identification of societal tipping points—situations in which seemingly small events trigger cascading shifts in public attitudes. By combining panel data, media analysis, and computational approaches, SOSEC aims to better understand these dynamics and provide evidence-based insights for policymakers, researchers, and the broader public.