16:00 Master Welcome Event

Group Presentation

by Professors and Coordinators of our Master programmes with Q&A session

Meet & Greet

with Student Representatives

Alumni World Café

with Graduates and Senior Students

 18:00 Distinguished Lecture by Annie Waldherr

Social Issue Emergence and Digital Activism

Abstract:

Digital platforms such as online social networks have changed how social issues emerge and how activists mobilize for them. In this talk, I will first introduce a complexity framework of digital public spheres. I argue that public spheres are complex, adaptive systems where networked, heterogeneous actors self-organize and generate emergent, nonlinear macro phenomena such as waves of public attention, outrage and protest. I will then demonstrate how processes and patterns of social issue emergence and digital activism are studied using digital data and methods of computational social science such as large-scale text and data mining, network analysis, and agent-based modeling and simulation.

Bio:

Annie Waldherr is Professor of Computational Communication Science at the University of Vienna. Before, she worked as Assistant Professor at the University of Münster (2017–2020) and held research and teaching positions at Freie Universität Berlin (2010–2016) and the University of Hohenheim (2006–2010). With her team, she studies the changing structures and dynamics in today’s digitized public spheres combining computational with conventional empirical methods.

The lecture is followed by an Evening Reception with Snacks and Drinks

 Annie Waldherr's Profile

https://publizistik.univie.ac.at/en/department/staff/directorate-of-studies/waldherr-annie/