[Air-L] CfP: ICA 2024 - Panel on cumulative effects in online opinion formation

[Svetlana S. Bodrunova]

Dear colleagues,

please see below the call for panel abstracts for ICA 2024 at Gold 
Coast, Australia. Apologies for cross-posting!

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CFP: ICA 2024 PANEL SUBMISSION ‘CUMULATIVE PATTERNS AND EFFECTS IN 
ONLINE OPINION FORMATION’

We cordially invite those who study online discussions and opinion 
formation on social media to submit an abstract to the prospective 
panel for the ICA Annual conference of 2024 at Gold Coast, Australia, 
on June 20-24, 2024.

The panel focuses on cumulative patterns and effects in online opinion 
formation and the factors that shape opinion cumulation, both 
discursive, structural, and contextual (including platform affordances 
and outer socio-political contexts). In our approach, we follow the 
concept of cumulative deliberation (Bodrunova 2021, 2023) that sees 
opinion formation on social media as primarily non-deliberative, and 
sees the latter more as normal than as negatively deviant from the 
classic views on public sphere. We also see the temporal dimension of 
opinion formation as crucial and focus on linking temporal patterns of 
opinion formation to patterns of user participation (including 
participation of political and media actors), polarization of views, 
discursive features of online talk, parasocial relations that emerge 
in time, dissipative and viral logics etc. We try to show that 
emergence of online influencing, majority/minority formation similar 
to ‘spirals of silence’, echo chambering and other effects are 
manifestations of the cumulative, rather than rational deliberative, 
nature of online opinions, and aspire to discussing the new 
socially-normative and democratic dimensions of the cumulative part of 
public deliberation.

The topics for the panel are (not limited to) the following ones:

• Detection of cumulative patterns in opinion formation: Methods and 
suggestions
• Negativity vs. opinion cumulation: The effects of online 
(in)civility
• Network structures and opinion cumulation: Is there an independent 
‘network logic’?
• Time in opinion cumulation: Discussion outbursts, polarization, 
reputation crises, cascades, and viral spread of information seen in 
time
• Opinion cumulation vs. connective action: The thresholds – from 
protest spillovers to emergence of social action
• Affect vs. opinion cumulation: Affective publics and their inner 
patterns
• Normativity in cumulative deliberation: Distinguishing between 
natural user behavior and strategic distortions
• Previously known as ‘the spiral of silence’: Effects and 
micro-effects in opinion cumulation
• Cumulation of publics: From ad hoc discussion milieus to 
transnational diaspora
• Contextual dependence of opinion cumulation: Comparing patterns of 
opinion emergence across media systems and cultures

The abstracts of 150 to 200 words (in free format) should be sent to 
Svetlana Bodrunova (s.bodrunova at spbu.ru) by October 24, 2024; 
notifications on inclusion to the panel will be sent out by October 
27.

The abstract submissions should not be anonymized, as we will need 
your names for the inclusion into the panel submission. Please include 
your name, affiliation, and email into the submission and title your 
letter as ‘ICA 2024 panel abstract on cumulative effects in opinion 
formation.’

And good luck in your other submissions to ICA 2024! :)


--
Svetlana S. Bodrunova, Prof., D.Polit.Sci.
Head, Center for International Media Research
School of Journalism and Mass Communications,
St.Petersburg State University

+7 921 933 02 14
s.bodrunova at spbu.ru, spasibo-tebe at yandex.ru