Hope all of our #SMSociety people have had a bit of time to rest and refresh after an amazing conference. As a community based (and funded) conference, the conference’s success and vibe comes down to the people involved. Thank-you so much for sharing your fantastic research and demonstrating how vibrant the social media research community is across the globe. We wanted to share with you a few post-conference updates, in case of interest.
1. Welcome reception band
We loved the Scottish Tribal band that performed at the Welcome reception. It was wonderful seeing so many participants kick up their heels and give their best go at a ceilidh dancing. If you are interested in learning more about the band, their name is Clann an Drumma and are one of Scotland’s most popular tribal bands. For those of you were there, you will agree that they were incredibly talented musically and at getting the audience up and dancing on the floor.
2. Full details of conference award winners now online
Although many of you attended the awards ceremony, we have now published full details of the award winners on our web-site: https://socialmediaandsociety.org/2026/smsociety-awards-2026/. Awards are selected first by the top scoring papers via the peer review process. Next, the organizing committee conducts a meta-review with an additional round of scoring. The wining papers are finally selected from the papers and posters consistently selected and agreed by the organizing committee. This is a rigorous process and the organizing committee had their selection work cut out for them. Despite the tough selection process, we are really pleased for the winners and commend their timely and outstanding work.
The Best Paper award(s) go to:
- Marie Heřmanová for ‘Who gets to speak the truth? Russian invasion of Ukraine and construction of authenticity in social media communication’
- Chisom Omeokachie for ‘Seeing Is No Longer Believing: Audience Trust, Scepticism, and AI-Generated Visuals on Social Media’
The Best Methods Paper award goes to Matías Valderrama Barragán for his paper on ‘The Social Life of the MSI Metric: Rationalities and Metrologies around “Meaningful Social Interactions” at Meta’.
Our newest award, the Anatoliy Gruzd and Philip Mai Founders’ Emerging Scholar Award goes to the most outstanding student paper by Carlos Entrena Serrano & Thomas A. Wright for their paper on “TikTok… Are You Alright?!” Understanding the U.S. TikTok Ban and Forced Sale through Infrastructural Inversion.
And finally, selected through a conference vote, the Best Poster award goes to Joelle Saunders for her work on ‘Vine Compilations on YouTube: Social Media Archiving, Digital Nostalgia, and the Preservation of User-Generated Content’.
3. Certificates of attendance
We will be sending these out shortly to everyone who picked up a name badge. If you haven’t heard from us with your certificate by July 27, please get in touch at [email protected].
4. Sharing pictures and conference experiences!
It has been a joy to see all of your pictures and posts on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and even a few on Instagram so thank-you for posting. Please do tag us (@socialmediaandsociety.org on BlueSky) or use the #SMSociety hashtag so we can see your posts. Also, a big shout out to JuEunhae Knox for introducing us to her brilliant students, Demilee Shand (@demilee-digitals.bsky.social) and Matthew Connor (@itsmatthew.com), for their stellar short form video work on the poster reception, as well as their Day 2 BlueSky take-over!
5. Thank-you for making #SMSociety 2026 such an incredible and heart-warming experience
The conference team have been absolutely blown away by the positive feedback. Thank-you so much for attending, bringing your curiosity and amazing research. It feels like the social media & society research landscape is shaped by a global community and we are so delighted to hold that space for collaboration – and most of all, be a part of this.
We will likely send you a few more updates in the new academic year (September-ish), once we are ready to issue the CFP for the Conference Special Issue of Platforms and Society. Until then, please keep in touch via BlueSky, LinkedIn or via our conference email at: [email protected].
Most sincerely,
#SMSociety Chairs
BlueSky @socialmediaandsociety.org