Segnaliamo l’apertura della call for abstract dell’11th Social Science Methodology Conference del Research Committee 33 (Logic and Methodology in Sociology) dell’International Sociological Association (ISA).
La conferenza si terrà dal 22 al 25 settembre 2025 a Napoli.
Qui il link per maggiori informazioni
A seguire sono segnalate le sessioni proposte dai componenti dell’Osservatorio FAST
Disinformation Studies: Methodological Challenges and New Research Frontiers ( Acampa, Foà, Couraceiro)
Panel Session
Disinformation Studies: Methodological Challenges and New Research Frontiers Panel Session Sì “The study of disinformation, concerning its sources, dynamics, and impacts, presents complex methodological and conceptual challenges, particularly in today’s evolving digital landscape. As disinformation increasingly shapes public discourse and democratic processes, understanding its production, consumption, and effects requires interdisciplinary and innovative approaches.
This session aims to delve into the methodological strategies necessary for advancing disinformation research. It invites contributions that address conceptual frameworks and empirical challenges in studying information disorders (Wardle et al., 2017) and how disinformation circulates across social media, digital news, and other platforms. Particular attention will be given to innovative approaches in data collection and analysis to explore patterns of disinformation spread, consumption, and their societal implications.
The session intends to illustrate the practical relevance of studying disinformation by focusing on its role in shaping public opinion during electoral periods (e.g., Cardoso et al., 2019 ISCTE) and how emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence, are transforming both the production and detection of disinformation (Montoro-Montarroso et al., 2023; Magallón-Rosa at. al., 2024). We encourage contributions that explore innovative methods to uncover the dynamics of disinformation spread. This session invites empirical, theoretical, and methodological work aimed at advancing the understanding of disinformation phenomena. By emphasizing rigour and methodological innovation, we seek to address the ethical, political, and social implications of this issue in democratic societies.” disinformation studies methodological challenges media studies
Suania Acampa, University of Naples Federico II, suania.acampa@unina.it, Italy
Caterina Foà, University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL); Universitá della Svizzera Italiana (IMEG), caterina.foa@iscte-iul.pt, Portugal
Paulo Couraceiro, Universidade do Minho; OberCom – Portuguese Communication Observatory, paulo.couraceiro@obercom.pt, Portugal
Algorithm Awareness and Literacy Research: Methodological Innovations, Challenges, and Future Perspectives (Felaco, Catone, Ambrosio)
Panel Session
Algorithms are deeply embedded in contemporary society, shaping diverse aspects of daily life, from social interactions and online recommendations to decision-making across various sectors. While these systems offer significant benefits, such as improved efficiency and personalization, they also pose considerable challenges regarding privacy, fairness, and individual and collective autonomy. As a result, understanding algorithms and their role in governing digital technologies has become both a social and technical imperative.
Despite the growing interest in algorithm awareness in the literature, studies offering methodological reflections still need to be expanded. Recent research, however, has introduced innovative techniques to investigate algorithm awareness and actively elicit it. Among these, Human-Computer Interaction and Explainable Artificial Intelligence experiments aim to co-create awareness by fostering interactions between users and algorithmic platforms. Similarly, creative qualitative methods engage individuals in understanding algorithmic systems through active participation, while scenario-based methods elicit reflections on algorithmic processes and their societal implications. These methods also serve a pedagogical function, fostering digital and algorithmic literacy.
This session is open to all contributions addressing methodological advancements in algorithm awareness research, as well as innovative approaches, methods, and techniques that provide evidence of its multidimensional aspects and can promote literacy development.
Contributions addressing the following topics are welcome (but not limited to):
– Methods for measuring aspects of algorithm awareness.
– Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding algorithm awareness.
– Case studies on algorithmic literacy initiatives and their societal impact.
– Best practices for integrating algorithm literacy into formal and informal learning contexts.
Keywords: algorithm awareness, algorithmic literacy, human and algorithms interactions
Cristiano Felaco, University of Naples Federico II, cristiano.felaco@unina.it, Italy
Maria Carmela Catone, University of Salerno, mcatone@unisa.it, Italy
Caterina Ambrosio, University of Naples Federico II, caterina.ambrosio@unina.it, Italy
Territory and Social Phenomena in the Digital Age: Opportunities and Challenges of User Spatial Content (De Falco, Lenzi)
Panel Session
The evolution of digital technologies and the increasing availability of User Spatial Content—geolocated data generated by users through social media, digital platforms, and other applications—are transforming the study of territory and social phenomena. These data enable the observation of behaviors, perceptions, and social practices with unprecedented detail. By addressing some of the limitations of traditional methodologies, they provide new research perspectives on how social phenomena develop and are distributed across physical and virtual spaces.
This innovative approach builds upon a well-established body of research demonstrating the significant influence of territory on individual and collective trajectories. Territorial characteristics, such as economic structures, access to services, and social composition, shape social processes through mechanisms like structural, contextual, spatial, compositional, and neighborhood effects. These frameworks highlight the relevance of territory (Tickamyer, 2000) and its complex impact (Galster, 2011).
Integrating traditional methods with User Spatial Content offers unprecedented opportunities but also raises critical challenges: addressing methodological biases, reflecting on data ethics, ensuring the quality and relevance of sources, and identifying reliable pathways to access geolocated data. Understanding where and how to retrieve these data is essential to unlock their potential while navigating issues such as platform constraints, data availability, and privacy concerns.
This session invites contributions exploring the potential and limitations of geolocated data sources through case studies or methodological reflections. The goal is to enrich the debate on existing and future research strategies for analyzing social phenomena in relation to territory, focusing both on innovative uses of user-generated spatial content and on strategies for acquiring and managing these resources effectively.
Keywords: User Spatial Content, geolocated data
Ciro Clemente De Falco, University of Naples “Federico II”, ciroclemente.defalco@unina.it, Italy
Francesca Romana Lenzi, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, francescaromana.lenzi@uniroma4.it, Italy
Methodological Challenges and Approaches for Sociodigital Research (Halford, Aragona, Coleman)
Panel Session
The history of research methods in Sociology is closely tied to the changing nature of the empirical world that we study and concurrent shifts in the conceptual frameworks used to investigate this world.
The progressive embedding of digital data, devices and infrastructures within the social world is a defining feature of the 21st Century, to date, that shows no sign of slowing. Relatedly, current theorizations emphasise the ongoing intra-action of ‘the social’ and ‘the digital’. The separation of ‘the social’ from ‘the digital’ becomes an ontological ‘cut’, rather than a self-evident fact.
Taking this ‘sociodigital’ world seriously poses some significant methodological challenges in all phases of the research process, from the selection of the objects of study to data construction, analysis and outputs. Our panel will explore the methodological challenges of this ‘sociodigital’ world, and the methods that sociologists can use and develop to advance these in their research. Topics might include (but are not constrained to):
- How to research sociodigital intra-actions
- How to research live/lively and emergent sociodigital phenomena
- How to conduct engaged and participatory sociodigital research?
- How to research sociodigital practices across sites, scales and infrastructures
- How to explore emergent sociodigital futures, as well as pasts and presents
We welcome exploration of the contribution that conventional, non-digital and digital methods might make to researching sociodigital phenomena, as well as consideration of innovative, engaged and creative methods that entail collaboration with engineering, arts and humanities, and those that facilitate interventions with non-academic partners (e.g. in communities, government and industry).
Keywords: sociodigital futures, theory, methodology, methods
Susan Halford, University of Bristol, susan.halford@bristol.ac.uk, UK
Biagio Aragona, Federico II, University of Naples, aragona@unina.it, Italy
Rebecca Coleman, University of Bristol, rebecca.coleman@bristol.ac.uk, UK
The 3 P’s, tools and techniques based on Big Data and Social Network Analysis for measuring political polarization, populism and post-truth in social media (Robles, Casas.Mas, De Angelis)
Panel Session
Polarization, Populism and Post-Truth have become central sociopolitical phenomena in political communication processes around the world. A scenario in which the 3Ps (Political Polarization, Populism and Post-Truth) are shown in a clearer and more accentuated way is in the debates on digital social networks such as X, BlueSky, Facebook or Instagram, which take place around relevant social and political issues or during electoral processes in democratic countries. Therefore, these phenomena affect the development of democratic processes and must be analyzed in depth and with the utmost empirical rigor. However, and despite their importance, we do not have tools that have fully operationalized the diversity and complexity of these phenomena. Consequently, we still require developments that allow us to offer satisfactory results on the scope and impact of the 3Ps. This session offers a space to present techniques and tools that help us advance in the knowledge of these current and central processes especially focused on the analysis of polarization, populism, and post-truth in debates on digital social networks.
Keywords: Social Network Analysis, Political polarization, Populism, post-truth
José Manuel Robles, Complutense University of Madrid, jmrobles@ucm.es, Spain
Belén Casas-Mas, Complutense University of Madrid, bcasas@ucm.es, Spain
Mattia De Angelis, University of Naples, mattia.deangelis@unina.it, Italy
Machine Learning and Social Research: Methodological Challenges and Innovative Applications (Amato, Miracula)
Panel Session
In recent years, Machine Learning (ML) has become a central tool in social sciences, offering advanced tools to analyse complex and multidimensional data, such as those from social media or IoT sensors (Mazzeo Rinaldi, F., Celardi, E., Miracula, V., & Picone, A., 2025) These methods allow the identification of hidden relationships and patterns, improving the predictive capabilities of social research. However, using ML raises methodological questions, such as the validity and generalizability of models and ethical issues related to the risk of algorithmic bias.
This session will explore how ML can be integrated into quantitative and qualitative approaches, innovating traditional analysis methods. Among the topics covered will be the applications of ML to build predictive models of complex phenomena, analyse unstructured data, and generate new hypotheses in large datasets (Felaco, Amato & Aragona, 2024). The session will provide an opportunity to reflect on the potential and limits of ML, promote an interdisciplinary dialogue, and contribute to methodological innovation in social sciences.
Submissions may address but are not limited to:
-Automated Data Processing: Using ML for data collection, cleaning, and imputing missing data to enhance reliability.
-Data Triangulation: Combining ML and qualitative methods, like sentiment analysis, to enrich research.
-Mixed Strategies: Integrating diverse datasets with algorithms to analyse complex social phenomena.
-Explainable AI: Applying XAI to interpret and increase transparency in complex models.
-Ethical Analysis: Addressing the ethical risks of black box models, especially for vulnerable groups.
-Language Models: Using LLMs to analyse public discourse, detect fake news, and study political rhetoric.
Keywords: Machine learning, Innovative methods, Explainable AI, Hybrid approaches
Francesco Amato, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, francesco.amato2@unina.it, Italy
Vincenzo Miracula, Università di Catania, vincenzo.miracula@phd.unict.it, Italy