SNSC 2012 - Symposium on Social Networks and Social Contagion

With the emergence of computational social science as a field of collaboration between computer scientists and social scientists, the study of social networks and processes on these networks (social contagion) has been gaining interest. Many topics of traditional sociological interest (such as the diffusion of innovation, emergence of norms, identification of influencer) can now be studied using detailed computational models and extensive simulation. The advent and popularity of online social media also allows the creation of massive data sets, which can inform models and underlying sociological theory. The ubiquity of "smart devices" (such as smart phones) also provides opportunities to gather extensive data on the behaviors and interactions of humans in "real space".
The goal of this symposium is to bring together a community of researchers interested in addressing these issues and to encourage interdisciplinary approaches to these problems. Papers are invited on topics including, but not limited to, the following:
Social Contagion
the spread of ideas or beliefs
emotion contagion
diffusion of information
the spread of changes in language
diffusion of innovations
emergence of norms
interventions to prevent contagion
influence maximization
complex contagion
virtual agents, agent-human contagion
Social Networks
collaborative tagging
collaborative filtering
community structure
social capital in networks
correlating demographics and structure
Game Theory in Social Networks and Social Contagion
influence maximization
influence blocking maximization game
other game-theoretic approaches
Network Evolution
homophily and heterophily
relation between structure and dynamics
Network Formation
models based on sociological theory, for example, structural balance
organizations, formal versus informal networks
network structure inference and label inference
network generation models
Human Data Elicitation
expression of attitudes/personality from online sources (such as Twitter and Facebook)
using social media for tracking social contagion, developing social networks, etc.
crowdsourcing as a means to learn about humans
Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) as "virtual laboratories" to study social contagion
reality mining for social networks
The symposium will consist of two and a half days of events, including oral presentations of accepted papers, invited talks, and a poster session.