Call for Papers: MISDOOM 2020

MISDOOM 2020 - Call for Papers
2nd Multidisciplinary International Symposium
on Disinformation in Open Online Media
https://2020.misdoom.org
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Leiden University, the Netherlands, April 20-22, 2020.
Submission deadline: February 1, 2020.

About MISDOOM
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After a successful 1st edition in Hamburg, Germany, the international MISDOOM symposium on misinformation in online media returns for a 2nd edition, this time hosted by Leiden University, the Netherlands. Topics include fake news, social bots, disinformation, filter bubbles, virality, deep fakes and related topics on misinformation in online media.
The symposium brings together researchers in communication science, computer science, computational social science, political communication, journalism and media studies, as well as practitioners in journalism and online media. The symposium has a strong multidisciplinary character, and aims to cater to the habits of different disciplines. Therefore, there are two submission tracks: one for extended abstracts which will be judged based on suitability for presentation at the symposium, and another track for full papers with Springer LNCS proceedings, reviewed based on scientific quality and suitability for presentation.
In this way, we aim to create an attractive venue that truly brings together the `best of both worlds’ through contributed presentations at the symposium.

Do stay tuned for the list of keynote speakers.
We hope to welcome you in Leiden, the Netherlands in April 2020!

Context
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Online media have become a politically, economically, and organizationally critical infrastructure. Internet users all over the world can directly interact with each other and participate in for example political discussions. Through online media, journalists have access to enormous amounts of information and public sentiment that increasingly becomes part of their reporting. Politicians refine their positions and actions based on the (seemingly) public opinion, which they distill from online media. Others use these channels to distribute their views. Companies allow product reviews by users to provide crowd-based quality assurance.

Symposium topics
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In an ideal world, participation and openness would foster free and democratic processes as well as beneficial societal interactions. However, beyond the desired space for free expression of public opinions, such openness also provides options for large-scaled and orchestrated manipulations. Groups of humans (“trolls”) or semi- to fully-automated systems (“social bots”) can bias or manipulate societal streams, perceptions, and multiplicators in society. How can we detect and learn from this phenomenon, and how do we combat fake news and misinformation?

MISDOOM is a multidisciplinary international symposium that brings together researchers and practitioners from communication science, media studies, computer science, data science, as well as journalists and online media professionals to discuss current topics, technical advances and societal challenges in the area of online media. Participants can discuss and contribute to the following (non-exclusive list of) topics:

- Manipulation of societies, politics, economics, and journalism by disinformation strategies (e.g., types of disinformation and manipulation, case studies, observations of campaigns and strategies, communication strategies, economic implications and threats) and their impact.
- Technical and organizational means for manipulation (e.g., technical state of the art and advances in artificial intelligence, information retrieval and content generation, technical infrastructure and access to social networks)
- Human, technical and hybrid detection mechanisms for orchestrated manipulation or individual actors (e.g., indicator-based detection, machine learning, anomaly detection, monitoring systems and visualization, human task forces)
- Counter-measures on mis- and disinformation and manipulation (e.g., transparency approaches, technical limitations, organizational processes, behavioral changes, education, professional codices, legal actions)
- Future trends in online-media usage and societal influencing (e.g., development of platforms, disruption of traditional journalistic work, potential attack vectors in economy, journalism, politics, research challenges and open fields)

Presenting at MISDOOM
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In addition to keynote talks and panel discussions, we particularly invite researchers and practitioners to present their work at the symposium.
Given that we welcome both social scientists and computer scientists, and that the publication strategies of these fields differ, we solicit two types of contributions that both, upon acceptance, result in the same opportunity to present at MISDOOM:

1. Extended abstracts: up to 1 page A4, briefly describing the work that will be presented. The abstract can be based on previously published work, ongoing work in progress or even a new research idea or agenda. No template is provided, but at least title, authors, their affiliation, the text of the abstract and, especially in case of previously published work, reference(s) should be included. Submissions are non-archival, and not formally published. Type 1 submissions will be judged based on relevance for the MISDOOM symposium.

2. Full papers: up to 15 pages in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) format describing original unpublished and new research. The work should be structured like a research paper, and cover the context of the problem studied, the research question, approach/methodology and results in 6 to 15 pages. It should be formatted according to the LNCS Word or LaTeX template. Type 2 submissions will be judged based on scientific quality and relevance for the MISDOOM symposium.

A program committee of international recognized scholars evaluates all abstracts for suitability according to international research standards. All accepted extended abstracts and full papers are eligible for oral presentation at the symposium.

Organizers
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Frank Takes (general chair)
Suzan Verberne (general chair)
Max van Duijn (program chair)
Viktoria Spaiser (program chair)
Mike Preuss (publication chair)
Christian Grimme (sponsor chair)
 

Important dates
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Submission deadline: February 1, 2020
Acceptance notification: February 29, 2020
Symposium dates: April 20-22, 2020

Submission instructions
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Submissions for both Track 1 and Track 2 (extended abstracts and full papers, see above) should be made in PDF through Easychair using the following link:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=misdoom2020