The International Conference on Social Media & Society, an annual gathering of leading social media researchers from around the world, will be held this weekend at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. It is the 8th year of the conference.

A number of faculty members, Ph.D. students, and M.S. students from the School of Information Studies (iSchool) will present and discuss their research at the event.

From its inception, the conference has focused on the best practices for studying the impact and implications of social media on society. This year, the event is organized by the Social Media Lab at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. The conference provides participants with opportunities to exchange ideas, present original research, learn about recent and ongoing studies, and network with their peers.

Conference Chairs Anatoliy Gruzd and Philip Mai are Syracuse University alumni. Gruzd is an associate professor at Ryerson University, and a 2005 graduate of the iSchool’s MSLIS program, and Philip Mai, director of Ryerson’s Social Media Lab received his B.S., M.A., and J.D. from Syracuse. iSchool Assistant Professor Jeff Hemsley also serves on the conference organizing committee, as the Work-in-Progress Papers Chair.

The conference’s intensive three-day program – from Friday, July 28 through Sunday, July 30 – will feature full papers, work-in-progress papers, panels, and poster sessions. The wide-ranging topics in social media showcase research from scholars working in many fields including communication, computer science, education, journalism, information science, management, political science, and sociology. 

Participants from the iSchool include:

Panel Discussion: Women in Social Media – Safe and Unsafe Spaces

Ingrid Erickson, Assistant Professor
Caroline Haythornthwaite, Professor
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Professor 

Paper Authors

Martha Garcia-Murillo, Professor
Jeff Hemsley, Assistant Professor
Ian MacInnes, Associate Professor
Nancy McCracken, Research Associate Professor
Jerry Robinson, Ph.D. student
Patricia Rossini, Research Associate
Bryan Semaan, Assistant Professor
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Professor
Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Ph.D. student         
Feifei Zhang, Ph.D. student

Posters

Suchitra Deekshitula, M.S. student
Ingrid Erickson, Assistant Professor
Daniela Fernandez Espinosa, M.S. student
Caroline Haythornthwaite, Professor
Jeff Hemsley, Assistant Professor
Yingya Li, Ph.D. student
Swati Nibban, M.S. student
Jennifer Sonne, Ph.D. student
Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Ph.D. student
Lu Xiao, Associate Professor
Yihan Yu, M.S. student