The Social Media Sway

Workshop Description

Humans, by nature, are said to be social, enthusiastic living beings. Interacting and discussing with people is crucial to them as food, water, and shelter are for their survival. While face-to-face communication has proven to enhance the quality of a person’s life, the effects of online interactions and discussions on individuals and society are more blurred and still widely debated.

The ease of access and ubiquity of online social platforms (OSPs) rapidly changed how we were used to gathering information, discussing, and interacting. This novel way of relating with peers, news, and ideas has inherited and exacerbated all the human biases typical of offline interaction (e.g., selective exposure, confirmation bias, group bias) and coming up with new ones.

Indeed, OSPs play a significant role in shaping/affecting individuals’ behaviors and mental health (both in positive and negative ways). For this reason, fully understanding how online debates, recommendations, and social interactions impact individuals and society is of utmost importance and represents a hot topic from a highly multidisciplinary point of view.

The SMS workshop aims to bring together researchers from different fields (e.g., social sciences, computer science, psychology, sociology, etc.) to discuss the latest advances in social media and human behavior.

Topics of interest

Supportive dynamics modeling and analysis (e.g., Social Support and Self Disclosure)
Polluted dynamics modeling and analysis (e.g., Epistemic Bubbles, M/Disinformation, Polarization)
Users’ stance inference, mining and analysis (e.g., sentiment, emotion, opinion)
Social Perception Bias (e.g., Peer-pressure, Consensus, Uniqueness)
Feature-rich and/or High-order Social Network Analysis
Homophilic patterns mining
Cognitive Network Science
Data-driven case studies (e.g., Mental Health, Socio-Political debates)

Objective

The main objective of the SMS workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in social media data analysis and modeling from a multidisciplinary point of view. In particular,we aim at:

1. Collect Emerging Trends in Social Media Research: The workshop will highlight cutting-edge research on online debates and discussions, shedding light on their positive and negative implications, going beyond over-explored echo chambers and d/misinformation phenomena.
2. Promote Methodological Advancements: The workshop will showcase the latest methods and techniques in social network analysis and mining for OSPs. The objective is to present innovative methodologies that can lead the scientific community towards a unified framework to obtain robust and not dataset-dependent results from the analysis of OSPs.
3. Present Data-Driven Case Studies: By featuring data-driven case studies on topics such as mental health and socio-political debates, the workshop aims to provide concrete examples of how social media influences public opinion, behaviors, and mental health. These case studies will serve as a basis for discussing potential interventions and policy implications.

Important Dates

Paper submission: June 10th, 2024
Author notification: July 10th, 2024
Camera-Ready: July 18th, 2024
Registration:
Conference date: September 2nd, 2024
All times are at 11:59PM AoE

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