PLEAD 2012: politics, elections and data

What is the role of the internet in politics general and during campaigns in particular? And what is the role of large amounts of user data in all of this? In the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign the Democrats were far more successful than the Republicans in utilizing online media for mobilization, co-ordination and fundraising. For the first time, social media and the Internet played a fundamental role in political campaigns. However, technical research in this area has been surprisingly limited and fragmented. The goal of this workshop is to bring together, for the first time, researchers working at the intersection of social network analysis, computational social science and political science, to share and discuss their ideas in a common forum; and to inspire further developments in this growing, fascinating field. The workshop has Filippo Menczer as keynote speaker, it includes technical presentations of accepted papers and concludes with a panel discussion where scientists and media experts from different fields can interact and share views.