Skip down to main content
  • OII >  

    • MISDOOM 2021

  • OII >  

    • MISDOOM 2021

    Call for Contributions

    Key Information

    Dates

    • 21-22 September 2021

    Location

    • Online

    Submissions

    • Submission Deadline: 4 June 2021
    • Notification by: 12 July 2021
    • Camera ready version: 9 August 2021 (for LCNS proceedings only)

    After two successful editions, the international MISDOOM symposium on misinformation in online media returns for a 3rd edition, this time co-hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute and the Universiteit Utrecht on 21-22 September 2021. Topics include health misinformation, hate speech, misinformation diffusion, news spreading behaviour and mitigation, harm-aware news recommender systems, and related topics on misinformation in online media.

    Online media have become a politically, economically, and organizationally critical infrastructure. Internet users all over the world can directly interact with each other and participate in political discussions. Through online media, journalists have access to enormous amounts of information and public sentiment that increasingly becomes part of their reporting. Politicians refine their positions and actions based on the (seemingly) public opinion, which they distill from online media. Others use these channels to distribute their views. Companies allow product reviews by users to provide crowd-based quality assurance.

    The symposium brings together researchers from multiple disciplines, including communication science, computer science, computational social science, political communication, journalism and media studies, as well as practitioners in journalism and online media. The symposium has a strong multidisciplinary character, and aims to cater to the habits of different disciplines. Therefore, there are three submission tracks (see detailed information below):

    1. Social Science Track: Full Papers for Special Issue in Social Media + Society.
    2. Computer Science Track: Full papers with Springer LNCS proceedings.
    3. Extended Abstracts

    Submission deadline: 4 June 2021

    Cost of Attendance: Free

    Submissions for this event have closed.

    Symposium topics

    In an ideal world, participation and openness would foster free and democratic processes as well as beneficial societal interactions. However, beyond the desired space for free expression of public opinions, such openness also provides options for large-scaled and orchestrated manipulations. Groups of humans (“trolls”) or semi- to fully-automated systems (“social bots”) can bias or manipulate online discussions and inject false perceptions into social media. How can we detect and learn from this phenomenon, and how do we combat fake news and misinformation?

    Participants can discuss and contribute to the following (non-exclusive list of) topics:

    • Cross-platform campaigns and their impact (e.g., diffusion of disinformation and manipulation, observations of campaigns and strategies, communication strategies, hate speech)
    • Approaches to studying misinformation (e.g., qualitative approaches, case studies, quantitative approaches, experiments)
    • User involvement with fake news on various platforms (e.g., engagement, viewership)
    • Counter-measures on mis- and disinformation and manipulation (e.g., censorship policies, behavioral changes, education, professional codices, legal actions)
    • Social networking platforms, censorship policies and impacts (e.g. policies to counter hate speech, health misinformation)
    • Trending topics in mis- and disinformation research (e.g., health related fake news)

    Presenting at MISDOOM

    In addition to keynote talks and panel discussions, we particularly invite researchers and practitioners to present their work at the symposium.

    Given that we welcome both social scientists and computer scientists, and that the publication strategies of these fields differ, we solicit three types of contributions that, upon acceptance, result in the same opportunity to present at MISDOOM:

    1. Social Science Track: Full papers for a special issue of Social Media + Society, to be published in 2022. Papers should be around 8,000 words in length, describe original unpublished and new research, and follow the SM+S formatting guidelines. Please note that acceptance to the conference is not a guarantee of inclusion in this special issue, which would also have a further review process attached to it. Such submissions will be judged based on scientific quality and relevance for the MISDOOM symposium.
    2. Computer Science Track: Full papers to be published with Springer LNCS proceedings. Up to 15 pages (including references) in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) format describing original unpublished and new research. The work should be structured like a research paper, and cover the context of the problem studied, the research question, approach/methodology and results in 6 to 15 pages. It should be formatted according to the LNCS Word or LaTeX template. Such submissions will be judged based on scientific quality and relevance for the MISDOOM symposium.
    3. Extended Abstracts: If authors do not have a full paper ready in time for the conference we encourage them to submit an Extended Abstract. This abstract should be up to one page of A4 (including references), and should briefly describe the work that will be presented. The abstract can be based on previously published work, ongoing work in progress or even a new research idea or agenda. No template is provided, but at least title, authors, their affiliation, the text of the abstract and, especially in case of previously published work, reference(s) should be included. Submissions are non-archival, and not formally published. Authors of extended abstracts will also have the opportunity to submit a full paper at a later stage for consideration in one of the two special issues. If you are interested in having your abstract considered for a special issue, please note this as a footnote after the citations in your abstract.

    Organisers

    A program committee of international recognized scholars evaluates all abstracts for suitability according to international research standards. All accepted abstracts and full papers are eligible for oral presentation at the symposium.

    Jonathan Bright

    Dr Jonathan Bright General Chair

    Anastasia Giachanou

    Dr Anastasia Giachanou General Chair

    Viktoria Spaiser

    Dr Viktoria Spaiser Program Chair

    Francesca Spezzano

    Dr Francesca Spezzano Program Chair

    Anna George

    Anna George Outreach Chair

    Alexandra Pavliuc

    Alexandra Pavliuc Communications Chair

    Programme Committee

    Elena Kochkina, Queen Mary University

    Kelechi Amakoh, Aarhus University

    Heidi Vepsäläinen, University of Helsinki

    Eric Fernandes de Mello Araujo, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

    Henna Paakki, Aalto University

    Taha Yasseri, University College Dublin

    Alon Sela, Ariel University

    Adriana Amaral, UNISINOS

    Marina Tulin, Erasmus University Rotterdam

    Hendrik Heuer, University of Bremen

    Dennis M. Riehle, Universität Koblenz-Landau

    Milos Ulman, Czech University of Life Sciences

    Neta Kligler Vilenchik, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

    Peter van der Putten, LIACS, Leiden University & Pegasystems

    Dennis Assenmacher, Uni Münster

    Thorsten Quandt, WWU Munster

    Ross Towns, Leiden University

    Heike Trautmann, University of Münster

    Stefano Cresci, IIT-CNR

    Chico Camargo, University of Exeter

    Giulio Barbero, Leiden University

    Ebrahim Bagheri, Ryerson University

    Mehwish Nasim, CSIRO Data61

    Myrto Pantazi, Oxford Internet Institute

    Sílvia Majó-Vázquez, University of Oxford

    Florian Wintterlin, University of Muenster

    Jan Schacht, HAW Hamburg

    Louis Shekhtman, Bar Ilan University

    Tommaso Caselli, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

    Christian Burgers, Department of Communication Studies, VU University Amsterdam

    Arkaitz Zubiaga, Queen Mary University of London

    Cody Buntain, New York University

    Ansgard Heinrich, University of Groningen

    German Neubaum, University of Duisburg-Essen

    Raquel Recuero, Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel)

    Matteo Gagliolo, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

    Meysam Alizadeh, Princeton University

    Elly Konijn, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

    Marco Niemann, University of Muenster

    Marcel Schliebs, Oxford Internet Institute

    Anne Dirskon, University of Leiden

    Maziyar Panahi, Institut des Systèmes Complexes Paris Île-de-France

    Martin Wettstein, University of Zurich

    Mona Elswah, Oxford Internet Institute

    Nicoleta Corbu, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration SNSPA

    Aleksi Knuutila, Oxford Internet Institute

    Travis Coan, Exeter University

    Lena Frischlich, University of Munster

    Tim Schatto-Eckrodt, University of Muenster

    Gerhard Weiss, Maastricht University

    Aliaksandr Herasimenka, Oxford Internet Institute

    André Calero Valdez, RWTH Aachen University

    Tom Nicholls, University of Oxford

    Łukasz Gajewski, Warsaw University of Technology

    Keynote Speakers

    Submissions

    The submission deadline was 4 June 2021 (extended and final). Submissions for this event have closed.