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Welcome to modis 2024!

While online social media (OSM) holds potential for nurturing public discourse and addressing longstanding shortcomings of representative democracy it has come under substantial criticism. Concerns have been raised regarding OSM's role in disseminating misinformation fake news and fostering conspiracy theories. Additionally, OSM platforms are considered responsible for exacerbating opinion polarization and fueling partisan cultural conflicts. While explanations centered on filter bubbles and echo chambers have garnered widespread public and political attention recent developments in empirical research within computational social science and theoretical modeling in opinion dynamics have provided a more nuanced understanding. This symposium seeks to integrate diverse strands of research offering a comprehensive perspective on the social dynamics within online social networks (OSNs). The workshop will explore current methodologies and future directions for theoretically grounded and empirically supported analyses of the impact of social media on public opinion and discourse. Furthermore, we will examine research efforts aimed at identifying potential (re)designs of OSM platforms to mitigate undesirable social dynamics.

Topics:

  • resilience to propaganda and misinformation
  • modeling online social networks
  • modeling user behavior
  • emerging platform cultures
  • digital twins of online social networks
  • digital democracy
  • impact of AI

    • The workshop will include speakers and participants from two HORIZON Europe projects – TWON and SoMe4Dem.

    Program

    Session 1: Approaches to assess the impact of social media (9:45 - 11:00)

    1. Workshop Introduction. (Michael Mäs, Eckehard Olbrich and Sven Banisch)

    2. What do we really know about the causal impact of digital media on democracy worldwide? (Philipp Lorenz-Spreen)

    3. Digital Twins of online social networks. Technical, scientific, and ethical challenges. (Michael Mäs)

    Session 2: Modelling the impact of social media (11:30 - 13:00)

    4. Attitudes based on abundant information tend to be extreme. (Guillaume Deffuant)

    5. Success-driven activity in the Axelrod model (to be confirmed). (Veronika Batzdorfer)

    6. Models as data generating processes: the dynamics of platform choice. (Sven Banisch)

    Session 3: Future perspectives (14:45 - 16:00)

    7. Inoculating against misinformation at scale. (Stephen Lewandowsky)

    8. Improving Deliberative Quality with Critical Thinking AIs? (Gregor Betz)

    Session 4: Discussion (16:30 - 18:00)

    9. Open Format.