WELCOME TO MISDOOM

We invite the authors of accepted and presented abstracts to extend their work to a full research paper (15 pages) for publication in the post-proceedings. The full paper will be subject to a peer review process. Post-proceedings will be published by as Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

January, 14: Abstract submission has been extended to January, 26, 2019

December, 14: Post-conference proceedings will be published as Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) volume.

December, 03: Registration is now online. Early Bird discount is available until January 31, 2019. For authors of extended abstracts, an extended early bird registration rate will be provided after the deadline.

Online media have become a politically, economically, and organizationally critical infrastructure. Internet users all over the world can directly interact with each other and share private and open discussions. They can participate in political discussion or find and contribute information. Through online media, journalists have access to enormous amounts of information and public sentiment that increasingly become part of 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 and resellers allow product reviews by users to provide crowd-based quality assurance.

In an ideal world, participation and openness can certainly 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 (so-called “trolls”) or semi- to fully-automated systems (so-called “social bots”) can bias or manipulate societal streams, perceptions, and multiplicators in society.

MISDOOM is a multidisciplinary international symposium that brings together researchers and practitioners from communication science, computer science, and economy, 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, economy, 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)
• Technical and organizational means for manipulation (e.g., technical state of the art and advances in artificial intelligence 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 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)

We invite researchers and practitioners to send original extended research abstracts, case studies, or position papers (max. 8 pages) before the Extended Abstract submission deadline. International recognized scholars evaluate all abstracts for suitability according to international research standards. All accepted abstracts are eligible for oral or poster presentation at the conference. In a post-proceeding process, selected work will be invited to become part of a follow-up book publication. Therefore, authors have to extend their work to a full research paper, which is then subject to a standard peer review process.