Publications

We are proud to have various publications come from each year’s International Conference on Social Media & Society.

2022 Conference Publications

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

Anatoliy Gruzd, Felipe Bonow Soares, Philip MaiIntroduction to the Special Issue on Trust and Safety on Social Media
Caroline HaythornthwaiteModeration, Networks, and Anti-Social Behavior Online
Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-NicolucciFrom Community Governance to Customer Service and Back Again: Re-Examining Pre-Web Models of Online Governance to Address Platforms’ Crisis of Legitimacy
Ashiwn NagappaNarratives of change to platform governance on DTube, an emerging blockchain-based video-sharing platform
Daniel Angus, Axel Bruns, Edward Hurcombe, Stephen Harrington and Xue Ying TanThe Dissemination of Problematic News on Facebook: A Large-Scale, Longitudinal Study
Fabio Giglietto, Giada Marino, Roberto Mincigrucci and Anna StanzianoA Workflow to Track, Monitor and Update Lists of Coordinated Social Media Accounts Across Time: the Case of 2022 Italian Election
Nili SteinfeldHow do users examine online messages to determine if they are credible? An eye-tracking study of digital literacy, visual attention to metadata and success in misinformation identification
Bin Chen, Josephine Lukito and Gyo Hyun KooComparing the #StopTheSteal Movement across Multi-platform: Differentiating Discourse on Facebook, Twitter, and Parler
Debora Salles, Priscila Medeiros, Rose Marie Santini and Carlos Eduardo BarrosThe Far-Right Smokescreen: Environmental Conspiracy and culture wars on Brazilian YouTube
Esteban MoralesEcologies of violence on social media: An exploration of practices, contexts, and grammars of online harm
Jaigris Hodson and Victoria O’MearaCurating Hope: the aspirational self and social engagement in early-onset cancer communities on social media
Ruvimbo Musiyiwa and Jenna JacobsonSponsorship Disclosure in Social Media Influencer Marketing: The Algorithmic and Non-Algorithmic Barriers

2020 Conference Publications

 2020 #SMSociety Proceedings (ACM)

  • Overall Acceptance Rate: 41%

2019 Conference Publications

 2019 #SMSociety Proceedings (ACM)

  • Overall Acceptance Rate: 42%

2019 Special Issue on “NETWORKED INFLUENCE” in Social Media+Society (SAGE)

Editors: Jenna Jacobson, Anatoliy Gruzd, Priya Kumar, and Philip Mai

Publication date: 2019

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?

Table of Contents

  • Networked Influence: An Introduction
    • Jenna Jacobson, Anatoliy Gruzd, Priya Kumar, and Philip Mai.
  • What KPIs Are Key? Evaluating Performance Metrics for Social Media Influencers
    • Jan-Frederik Gräve
  •  “Donald Trump is my President!” The Internet Research Agency Propaganda Machine
    • Marco Bastos and Johan Farkas
  • Understanding Public Response To Air Quality Using Tweet Analysis
    • Supraja Gurajala, Suresh Dhaniyala, and Jeanna N. Matthews
  • Examining Emergent Communities and Social Bots within the Polarized Online Vaccination Debate in Twitter
    • Xiaoyi Yuan, Andrew T. Crooks, and Ross J. Schuchard
  • We Care About Different Things: Non-Elite Conceptualizations of Social Media Privacy
    • Kelly Quinn, Dmitry Epstein, and Brenda Moon

2018 Conference Publications

 2018 #SMSociety Proceedings (ACM)

  • Overall Acceptance Rate: 43%

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.

Publication date: August 2018

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.

Table of Contents

To view an article, click on the title or the Full Text link below it.

Social Media for Social Good or Evil: An Introduction
Jeff Hemsley, Jenna Jacobson, Anatoliy Gruzd, Philip Mai. July 2018.
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The Clickwrap: A Political Economic Mechanism for Manufacturing Consent on Social Media
Jonathan Obar and Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch. July 2018.
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How People Weave Online Information Into Pseudoknowledge
Joshua Introne, Irem Gokce Yildirim, Luca Iandoli, Julia Decook and Shaimaa Elzeini. July 2018.
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Refugee or Migrant Crisis? Labels, Perceived Agency, and Sentiment Polarity in Online Discussions
Ju-Sung Lee and Adina Nerghes. July 2018. 
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Visualizing the Paris Climate Talks on Twitter: Media and Climate Stakeholder Visual Social Media During COP21
Jill Hopke and Luis Hestres. July 2018. 
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Twitter Issue Response Hashtags as Affordances for Momentary Connectedness
Chamil Rathnayake and Daniel Suthers. July 2018.
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Cognitive Effects of Social Media Use: A Case of Older Adults
Kelly Quinn. July 2018. 
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Constructing the Platform-Specific Self-Brand: The Labor of Social Media Promotion
Leah Scolere, Urszula Pruchniewska and Brooke E Duffy. July 2018. 
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Social Media, Opinion Polls, and the Use of Persuasive Messages During the 2016 US Election Primaries
Patricia Rossini, Jeff Hemsley, Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Feifei Zhang and Jennifer Stromer-Galley. July 2018. 
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2017 Conference Publications

 2017 #SMSociety Proceedings (ACM)

  • Overall Acceptance Rate: 41%

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.

  • First, it builds on the 2014 Special Issue of American Behavioral Scientist on “Networked Influence” (Gruzd & Wellman, 2014) that explored how the characteristics of users, platforms, and social networks can affect the nature of influence in social media.
  • Second, it builds on the 2016 Special Issue of Information, Communication & Society on “Understanding Communities in an Age of Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated” (Gruzd, Jacobson, Wellman, & Mai, 2016) that examined the everchanging notion of online communities and the intersection between online and offline interactions.

You can access the full text of papers in this special issue of American Behavioral Scientist below:

2016 Conference Publications

 2016 #SMSociety Proceedings (ACM)

  • Paper Acceptance Rate: 38%

2016 Special Issue on Online Communities in Information, Communication & Society (Taylor & Francis)

  • Gruzd, A., Jacobson, J., Wellman, B., & Mai, P. (2016). Understanding communities in an age of social media: the good, the bad, and the complicated. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1187-1193. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1187195
  • Heravi, B. R., & Harrower, N. (2016). Twitter journalism in Ireland: sourcing and trust in the age of social media. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1194-1213. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1187649
  • Gilbert, S. (2016). Learning in a Twitter-based community of practice: an exploration of knowledge exchange as a motivation for participation in #hcsmca. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1214-1232. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1186715
  • McEwan, B. (2016) Communication of communities: linguistic signals of online groups. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1233-1249. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1186717
  • Mo, G. Y., & Wellman, B. (2016). The effects of multiple team membership on networking online and offline: using multilevel multiple membership modelling. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1250-1266. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1187194
  • Hampton, K. N., Lu, W. & Shin, I. (2016). Digital media and stress: the cost of caring 2.0. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1267-1286. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1186714
  • Suphan, A. & Mierzejewska, B. I. (2016). Boundaries between online and offline realms: how social grooming affects students in the USA and Germany. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1287-1305. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1186716
  • Hunter, A. (2016). Monetizing the mommy: mommy blogs and the audience commodity. Information, Communication, & Society, 19(9), 1306-1320. DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2016.1187642

2015 Conference Publications

2015 #SMSociety Proceedings (ACM)  

  • Paper Acceptance Rate: 42.5%

Special Theme Issue in Big Data & Society (Sage) 

2014 Conference Publications

Special Theme Issue in Big Data & Society (Sage)

  • Obar, J.A. (2015). Big Data and The Phantom Public: Walter Lippmann and the fallacy of data privacy self-management.  Big Data & Society 2(1), DOI: 10.1177/2053951715608876
  • Quan-Haase, A., Martin, K., & McCay-Peet, L. (2015). Networks of digital humanities scholars: The informational and social uses and gratifications of Twitter. Big Data & Society, 2(1), 2053951715589417. http://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715589417
  • Bingham-Hall, J. and Law, S. (2015) Connected or informed?: local Twitter networking in a London neighbourhood. Big Data & Society, 2(2),  http://bds.sagepub.com/content/2/2/2053951715597457.abstract 
  • Dumas, C., LaManna, D., Harrison, T.M., Ravi, S.S., Kotfila, C., Gervais, N., Hagen, L., & Chen,F. (2015). Examining political mobilization of online communities through e-petitioning behavior in We the People. Big Data & Society , 2(2), http://bds.sagepub.com/content/2/2/2053951715598170 

2013 Conference Publications

Special Issue on Networked Influence in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage)

  • Elizabeth Dubois and Devin Gaffney
    The Multiple Facets of Influence: Identifying Political Influentials and Opinion Leaders on Twitter
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1260-1277, first published on April 8, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527088
  • Weiai Wayne Xu, Yoonmo Sang, Stacy Blasiola, and Han Woo Park
    Predicting Opinion Leaders in Twitter Activism Networks: The Case of the Wisconsin Recall Election
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1278-1293, first published on March 13, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527091
  • Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley
    Homophily in the Guise of Cross-Linking: Political Blogs and Content
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1294-1313, first published on April 9, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527090
  • Robin Blom, Serena Carpenter, Brian J. Bowe, and Ryan Lange
    Frequent Contributors Within U.S. Newspaper Comment Forums: An Examination of Their Civility and Information Value
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1314-1328, first published on March 28, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527094
  • Haiyi Zhu and Bernardo A. Huberman
    To Switch or Not To Switch: Understanding Social Influence in Online Choices
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1329-1344, first published on March 28, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527089
  • K. Hazel Kwon, Michael A. Stefanone, and George A. Barnett
    Social Network Influence on Online Behavioral Choices: Exploring Group Formation on Social Network Sites
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1345-1360, first published on March 28, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527092
  • Kasper Welbers and Wouter de Nooy
    Stylistic Accommodation on an Internet Forum as Bonding: Do Posters Adapt to the Style of Their Peers?
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1361-1375, first published on March 17, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527086
  • Sean Goggins and Eva Petakovic
    Connecting Theory to Social Technology Platforms: A Framework for Measuring Influence in Context
    American Behavioral Scientist September 2014 58: 1376-1392, first published on April 7, 2014 doi:10.1177/0002764214527093