Author: Laura Hernandez

This meeting is a Satellite of Networks2021, a joint conference of the NetSci and INSNA associations. It will take place on-line on July 2nd from 8:30 EST to 12:30 EST

Aim and scope

The formation and diffusion of opinions in a society, as well as the evolution of language, typical subjects of study of social scientist or linguists, are also of interest for physicists, mathematicians and computer scientist as these problems can be formulated in terms of complex dynamical systems and studied empirically, based on data issued from on-line social media.

For example, different models of opinion dynamics have been proposed, which aim at understanding how the observed regularities, like consensus, polarization or fragmentation, emerge from a dynamics governed by the interactions among social actors. These models are stylized simplified versions of real societies which integrate, in general, the most important properties of human interactions, according to researchers in human sciences.  On the other hand, the last decade has witnessed the generalization of the usage of social networks, leading to an unprecedented modification of social behaviour and in parallel, allowing for large scale phenomenological studies of the outcomes of the dynamical processes going on in those networks.  This has led to a wide collection of observations that, though limited to the users of these platforms, provides a widespread view in terms of geographical location, language and cultural aspects of the involved social actors.  In the same way, the proliferation of data bases sharing large textual corpora allows for large scale studies of language dynamics across time and space, allowing for the comparison of the evolution followed by languages in different societies.

 

The goal of this satellite is to contribute to the entanglement of these two approaches–theoretical and phenomenological-, still too often considered separately, into one that goes “from models to data and back”, and also, to enhance a fruitful dialog between researchers from Science and Humanities.

Keynotes speakers

• Filippo Menczer, Observatory on Social Media, Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (confirmed)
• Ulrike Hahn, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck University of London (confirmed)

We welcome contributions of researchers of different disciplines ranging from Hard Sciences to Humanities on the following subjects (non-exhaustive list):

• Multilayer representation of social opinion
• Cascade effects, rumour diffusion
• Informational bubbles and echo chambers
• Integrating heterogeneities in opinion models
• Personal network of opinion leaders, multi-scale effects
• Role on the different types of media on opinion dynamics
• Targeting text meaning, semantic networks.

More information, call for contributions and deadlines here.