Virality and influencers in digital communication

How technologies can carry and amplify messages, becoming viral? Who are the so-called Influencers and how they use the social media to increase the number of their Followers. Join the event of the European Science-Media Hub on 3 April in the European Parliament in Brussels.

on March 27, 2019

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Virality and influencers in digital communication: a workshop organized by the European Science-Media Hub, Wednesday 3 April 2019

Besides the technological aspects, the workshop is also involving social sciences considerations to deal with the psychological aspects of “viral media communication” and its social impact, with special attention to political influence, e.g. the “Gilets Jaunes” movement. The workshop will also explore the potential of social media listening methodology, going beyond keywords and sentiment, and looking at the full social discourse, which helps to understand the broad themes that attract and motivate people to join the conversation and gives insight into their behaviour.

Eva KAILI and Paul RUBIG, respectively STOA Chair, and STOA First Vice-Chair will provide their views on the topic as Members of the European Parliament.

Science of Virality

A first session of the workshop will focus on the Science of Virality, with various experts in the fields of communication technologies and social sciences. Giorgos Markopoulos, Associate Professor at Department of Linguistics of School of Philosophy National and Kapodistrian at the University of Athens will present an analysis of text virality in social media. Michael Bossetta, Social Media Expert and Podcaster, Political and Data Scientist at the University of Copenhagen will tackle the potentials and pitfalls for politics, stemming from virality on social media. An insight into people’s sharing behaviour on-line will be provided by Kristof Varga, Director, Public Division at Bakamo.Social.

Practice of Virality

In a second session dedicated to the Practice of Virality, communication practitioners and social media representatives will offer their inside on the topic. Diarmaid Mac Mathuna, Communication Expert on Digital campaigns and content strategy, Director at Indiepics will offer an introduction “from theory to practice”. On a hot topic of our days, Emmanuel Rivière , Chairman, Centre Kantar sur le Futur de l’Europe, will talk about the “Gilets Jaunes” movement, starting from social networks and developing in the streets. Meg Chang, Public policy Manager at Facebook, will explain how Facebook can be a tool to convey more effectively messages to the outside world.

The workshop will be moderated by Philippe Felix, Senior Online Communications Expert at Web-Minded. The event is open to the public, with the opportunity to interact in the discussion (see the link for registration below). It will be also webstreamed.
After the workshop, the ESMH will publish an event report including interviews with the speakers and summarising on the discussion.

Check the Presentations from the event:

pdf_icon Booklet : ESMH/STOA workshop Virality and influencers in digital communication
pdf_icon Michael Bossetta : “Virality on Social Media : Potentials & Pitfalls for Politics”
pdf_icon Georgios Markopoulos : “Analysing Text Virality in Social Media”
pdf_icon Emmanuel Riviere : “Gilets jaunes, from social networks to the streets”
pdf_icon Diarmaid Mac Mathuna : “From Theory to Practice”
pdf_icon Kristof Varga : “What is in it for them? Insights into social media users’ online sharing behavior”