MODIS 2024 – How to build digital public spaces: Modelling, Data analysis, and qualitative approaches

The workshop is a satellite workshop at the Conference on Complex Systems 2024 in Exeter and a joined activity of the HORIZON EUROPE projects SoMe4Dem and TWON.

The workshop will take place at Tuesday, September 3rd in Room 10. 

The workshop will explore current methodologies and future directions for theoretically grounded and empirically supported analyses of the impact of social media on public discourse. Furthermore, we will discuss potential (re)designs of social media platforms to mitigate undesirable social dynamics.

Program:

Approaches to assess the impact of social media 

  9:45 - 10:00   Michael Mäs/Eckehard Olbrich: Introduction
10:00 - 10:30   Philipp Lorenz-Spreen (Max Planck Institute or Human Development, Berlin): What do we really know about the causal impact of digital media on democracy worldwide? (online talk)
10:30 - 11:00   Michael Mäs (Karlsruhe Institute for Technology): Digital Twins of online social networks. Technical, scientific, and ethical challenges 

11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break 

Modelling the impact of social media 

11:30 - 12:00  Guillaume Deffuant (Laboratoire d'Ingeniérie des Systèmes Complexes): Attitudes based on abundant information tend to be extreme 
12:00 - 12:30  Veronika Batzdorfer (Karlsruhe Institute for Technology): Success-driven activity? 
12:30 - 13:00  Sven Banisch (Karlsruhe Institute for Technology): Models as data generating processes: the dynamics of platform choice 

13:00 - 14:00 Lunch 
14:00 - 14:30 Invited talks main conference 

Future perspectives 

14:45 - 15:15  Stephen Lewandowsky (University Bristol): Inoculating against misinformation at scale 
15:15 - 15:45  Gregor Betz (Karlsruhe Institute for Technology): Improving Deliberative Quality with Critical Thinking AIs? 

16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break 

16:30 -18:00 Discussion: Redesinging social media platforms