We are proud to have various publications come from each year’s International Conference on Social Media & Society. Publishing papers from the conference provides important insights to the current state of social media research alongside emerging issues. These are also important opportunities for the SMSociety community as well as providing an impressive record of conference activities and research.
Visual Summary 2013-2025
Full Details of Conference Publications 2013-2025
- Full Details of Conference Publications 2013-2025
- 2025 Special Issue on “Social Media and Society: Platforms, Publics, and Anti-Publics” in Social Media + Society (Sage)
- 2023 Special Issue on “Trust and Safety on Social Media: Understanding the Impact of Anti-Social Behavior and Misinformation on Content Moderation and Platform Governance” in Social Media+Society (SAGE)
- 2019 Special Issue on “Networked Influence” in Social Media+Society (Sage)
- 2018 Special Issue on “Social Media for Social Good or Evil” in Social Media+Society (SAGE)
- 2017 Special Issue on “Social Media & Society” in American Behavioral Scientist (SAGE)
- 2016 Special Issue on “Online Communities” in Information, Communication & Society (Taylor & Francis)
- 2015 Special Theme Issue in Big Data & Society (Sage)
- 2014 Special Issue on “Networked Influence” in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage)
- Conference Proceedings in ACM 2016-2020
2025 Special Issue on “Social Media and Society: Platforms, Publics, and Anti-Publics” in Social Media + Society (Sage)
Editors: Zoetanya Sujon, Harry T. Dyer, and Felipe Bonow Soares
Publication date: August 2025
2023 Special Issue on “Trust and Safety on Social Media: Understanding the Impact of Anti-Social Behavior and Misinformation on Content Moderation and Platform Governance” in Social Media+Society (SAGE)
Editors: Anatoliy Gruzd, Felipe Bonow Soares, and Philip Mai
Publication date: 2023
2019 Special Issue on “Networked Influence” in Social Media+Society (Sage)
Editors: Jenna Jacobson, Anatoliy Gruzd, Priya Kumar, and Philip Mai
We are witnessing a changing social media environment with new actors, new influencers, and new challenges. Considering the changes on social media platforms, the rise of bots, and the increased participation of state actors, this thematic collection addresses the methodological, topical, and ethical issues of networked influence. The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica scandal opened a new chapter to analyze what “influence” means in our current, complicated social media age. As discussed in the five papers stemming from the 2018 International Conference on Social Media & Society, this special issue introduces a wide array of interdisciplinary topics and approaches that highlight the rapid changes in social media environments, use, and users—with a focus on networked influence; by doing so, we attempt to answer some of the key research questions in this area, such as (1) how to identify and measure influence (broadly defined), (2) how to track propaganda campaigns, (3) how to effectively disseminate information and measure the public’s response to these information campaigns, (4) how do bots influence opinion trends on social media, and, finally, (5) how does the public frame privacy in a social media age?
Publication date: 2019
| Jenna Jacobson, Anatoliy Gruzd, Priya Kumar, and Philip Mai | Networked Influence: An Introduction |
| Jan-Frederik Gräve | What KPIs Are Key? Evaluating Performance Metrics for Social Media Influencers |
| Marco Bastos and Johan Farkas | “Donald Trump is my President!” The Internet Research Agency Propaganda Machine |
| Supraja Gurajala, Suresh Dhaniyala, and Jeanna N. Matthews | Understanding Public Response To Air Quality Using Tweet Analysis |
| Xiaoyi Yuan, Andrew T. Crooks, and Ross J. Schuchard | Examining Emergent Communities and Social Bots within the Polarized Online Vaccination Debate in Twitter |
| Kelly Quinn, Dmitry Epstein, and Brenda Moon | We Care About Different Things: Non-Elite Conceptualizations of Social Media Privacy |
2018 Special Issue on “Social Media for Social Good or Evil” in Social Media+Society (SAGE)
Editors: Jeff Hemsley, Jenna Jacobson, Anatoliy Gruzd, & Philip Mai.
In the heyday of social media, individuals around the world held high hopes for the democratizing force of social media; however, in light of the recent public outcry of privacy violations, fake news, and Russian troll farms, much of optimism towards social media has waned in favor of skepticism, fear, and outrage. This special issue critically explores the question, “Is social media for good or evil?” While good and evil are both moral terms, the research addresses whether the benefits of using social media in society outweigh the drawbacks. To help conceptualize this topic, we examine some of the benefits (good) and drawbacks (evil) of using social media as discussed in eight papers from the 2017 International Conference on Social Media and Society. This thematic collection reflects a broad range of topics, using diverse methods, from authors around the world and highlights different ways that social media is used for good, or evil, or both. We conclude that the determination of good and evil depends on where you stand, but as researchers we need to go a step further to understand who it is good for and who it might hurt.
Publication date: August 2018
2017 Special Issue on “Social Media & Society” in American Behavioral Scientist (SAGE)
Editors: Anatoliy Gruzd, Jenna Jacobson, Barry Wellman & Philip Mai.
This special issue features eight extended papers which earlier versions were first presented at the 2016 International Conference on Social Media & Society in London, UK at Goldsmiths, University of London. In addition to being methodologically diverse, the special issue highlights how the study of social media is not located in any one department or faculty, but dispersed across disciplines; scholars in this special issue come from Communications, Sociology, Education, Architecture, Journalism, Management, Engineering, and Design. The scholarship is geographically distributed with scholars residing and conducting research in Belgium, Israel, Italy, Norway, Singapore, UK, US, and Russia.
This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist adds to this growing body of social media research and continues work that began in two earlier special issues on “Networked Influence” (2014), and “Understanding Communities in an Age of Social Media” (2016). You can access the full text of papers in this special issue of American Behavioral Scientist below:
Publication date: 2017
2016 Special Issue on “Online Communities” in Information, Communication & Society (Taylor & Francis)
Editors: Anatoliy Gruzd, Jenna Jacobsen, Barry Wellman, and Philip Mai
Publication date: 2016
| Gruzd, A., Jacobson, J., Wellman, B., & Mai, P. | Understanding communities in an age of social media: the good, the bad, and the complicated |
| Heravi, B. R., & Harrower, N. | Twitter journalism in Ireland: sourcing and trust in the age of social media. |
| Gilbert, S. | Learning in a Twitter-based community of practice: an exploration of knowledge exchange as a motivation for participation in #hcsmca. |
| McEwan, B. | Communication of communities: linguistic signals of online groups. |
| Mo, G. Y., & Wellman, B. | The effects of multiple team membership on networking online and offline: using multilevel multiple membership modelling |
| Hampton, K. N., Lu, W. & Shin, I. | Digital media and stress: the cost of caring 2.0. |
| Suphan, A. & Mierzejewska, B. I. | Boundaries between online and offline realms: how social grooming affects students in the USA and Germany |
| Hunter, A. | Monetizing the mommy: mommy blogs and the audience commodity |
2015 Special Theme Issue in Big Data & Society (Sage)
Editors: Anatoliy Gruzd
Publication dates, 2015, 2019
2014 Special Issue on “Networked Influence” in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage)
Editors: Anatoliy Gruzd and Barry Wellman
Publication date: 2014