[ecrea] CfP iCS Symposium on Challenges to Studying Disinformation

Locked out of Social Platforms: An iCS Symposium on Challenges to 
Studying Disinformation (27-28 October 2018), The IT University of 
Copenhagen, Denmark

Deadline for abstracts:  31 July 2018. Abstracts/biographies/contact 
details should be sent to (dan.mercea.1 /at/ city.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(dan.mercea.1 /at/ city.ac.uk)>.

Keynotes:  Axel Bruns (Queensland University of Technology), Lina Dencik 
(University of Cardiff), Claes de Vreese (University of Amsterdam), 
Katrin Weller (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences).

A selection of papers presented at the symposium will be published in a 
special issue of the journal Information, Communication & Society (iCS). 
More info: https://blogit.itu.dk/ics2018/.**

After years of exalting rhetoric praising the democratisation of public 
discourse with the diffusion of the internet, informed observers have 
sounded a note of alarm about the scope for the distortion of electoral 
processes in democratic countries. The Brexit campaign, along with 
recent elections in the US and France have been linked to 
disinformation, misinformation or propaganda campaigns seeking to 
strategically diffuse content that heightens partisanship and erodes the 
general trust in democratic institutions.

In the run-up to the 2018 US mid-term elections,  the aftermath of the 
Irish abortion referendum and the Italian general elections, this 
two-day symposium aims to address the topical question of how 
independent, ethical research on dis/misinformation in political 
communication can be conducted in a corporate environment that favours 
platform ‘lockdowns’ and the throttling of API access in response to the 
strategic use of data analytics, bots, trolls, fake news, and 
dis/misinformation operations in electoral politics, public information 
campaigns, and activist communication.

What are the challenges for independent academic research examining 
these developments? How can researchers investigate disinformation in a 
context of narrowing access to trace data?  How can these challenges be 
met, and what meaningful ways can be imagined for making social media 
platforms more accountable to the democratic constituencies where they 
operate? How is such disruptive communication designed, executed, with 
what effects and how are these measured? What data policies can be 
envisaged to strike a balance between safeguarding privacy and enabling 
academic research into the impact dis/misinformation or propaganda 
campaigns have on social media and beyond, in the attitudes and 
behaviours of their users?

We encourage submissions that address but are not limited to the 
following aims:

•             reflect on the structural and contextual factors that have 
acted as fertile ground for dis/misinformation and propaganda;

•             determine the scope and intricacies of dis/misinformation 
and propaganda campaigns;

•             explore the relationship between dis/misinformation and 
the polarization of public opinion;

•             consider the weaponization of social media platforms and 
discuss the interdependencies among the vast plurality of newsmakers 
operating in the current hybrid media ecosystem;

•             reflect on the political, cultural or socio-economic costs 
of distortive communication, the relevance of such research to industry 
and public policy and the ethical implications attendant to such studies;

•             untangle technological design choices and ideological 
leanings that shape platform communication, enable dis/misinformation 
and propaganda and their bearing on independent research;

•             examine the implications for academic research of 
controlled access by private owners of data produced in public 
communication spaces such as the Facebook page of a political candidate, 
and methodological solutions for sustaining the investigation of these 
topics;

•             consider the changing social media research landscape as 
the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force in 
May 2018;

We invite 500-word abstracts outlining empirical, theoretical or 
policy-orientated papers that address these or cognate topics. Abstracts 
should be accompanied by a 100-word biography of the presenter(s) 
together with contact details.

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