C+J2017: 2017 Computation + Journalism Symposium Northwestern University Evanston, IL, United States, October 13-14, 2017

Conference website	http://cj2017.northwestern.edu/
Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cj2017
Submission deadline	August 1, 2017

The Computation+Journalism Symposium brings together academics and professional journalists to share research and explore the ways that computing technology is transforming all of the key functions of journalism: reporting, analysis, verification, storytelling, publishing, distribution and audience engagement.

This year’s 2017 conference will include a major focus on “fake news,” misinformation and fact-checking, given the attention these topics have gotten in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The symposium should be of interest to scholars and practitioners from many disciplines because journalists increasingly use tools and approaches from the academy — for instance, statistics, network analysis, natural language processing, and data visualization — while scholars increasingly grasp the fundamental importance of key technical challenges posed by journalism as an application area, as well as the social implications of this new area.

We invite the participation of a broad range of thinkers, doers and storytellers to this interdisciplinary meeting, a hybridization of journalism and the computing and data sciences. We want to hear from journalists with an interest in, or experience in, developing new technologies or applications, and from data and computer scientists working in news, or storytelling broadly, and who would like to collaborate with journalistic organizations.

Submission Guidelines

We’re pleased to invite paper proposals that explore the interface between data and computer science and journalism, covering the entire process and practice of journalism in context, including:

• Computation and reporting, analysis, and sensemaking
• Computation and storytelling
• Computation and publishing
• Computation and distribution, including social media
• Computation and audience engagement with news

We encourage submissions from a wide variety of academic and professional perspectives and modes of practice, including:

• Case studies of stories, visualizations, or other interactive experiences exemplary of outstanding journalism produced about or with data and algorithmic methods.
• Applications and platforms that support journalistic work and which enable new ways of finding, producing, curating, or disseminating stories and other news content.
• Research in network science, social science, and other areas which explores the larger context in which computational journalism must function, the impact of specific technologies or practices, or other questions of interest at the intersection of computation and journalism.

TOPICS

This year’s conference will include a major focus on “fake news,” misinformation, and fact-checking, given the attention these topics have received in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Beyond that topic area, we are trying to cast the widest possible net in mapping out the interplay between computation and journalism.  Consider the following topic areas as inspiration, but please don’t be limited by them.

• Accuracy and Verification
• Algorithmic Accountability and Investigation
• Audience Studies
• Automated/Robot Journalism
• Behavioral Modeling and Profiling of News Readers
• Computation and Data Journalism Education
• Data and Computing in Different News Domains: Sports, Health, Business, Economy, Politics, Etc.
• Data Mining, News, and Social Media
• Data Visualization and Storytelling
• Editorial Support Systems
• Fact-Checking
• Journalism Ethics
• Media Bias and Diversity

• Natural Language Processing/Computational Linguistics
• News and Mobile Computing
• News Analytics, Metrics, Impact, and Propagation
• News Bots and Chatbots
• News User Experiences and Interactivity
• Open Data, Civic Data, and APIs
• Personalization and Recommendation
• Platform Algorithms & Distribution
• Prediction and Simulation in the News
• Rumor Detection and Tracking
• Sensor and Drone Journalism
• Source Finding (e.g., eyewitnesses, experts)
• Tools, Platforms, and Services to Support Journalistic Work
• Transparency, Trust, and Credibility

PUBLISHING: Papers will be published as part of an online proceedings linked off this site but should be considered "non-archival" for the sake of journal submissions elsewhere. At the same time, we highly encourage unique and novel contributions with limited overlap to other related publications the author may have or intend to publish. You can view selected papers from C+J 2015 and C+J 2016 online.

FORMAT: All submissions must be in PDF format, follow a standard set by the Association for Computing Machinery, and should not exceed five (5) pages, including references.

POSTERS: We will be accepting submissions for a Poster session that will occur the evening of October 13.  Submitted papers not chosen for inclusion in the conference content may be invited to present as a Poster.  Contributors wishing to present a Poster are invited to submit a 1-page Executive Summary in PDF format.

Committees

Program Committee

• Maneesh Agarwala, Stanford University
• Emily Bell, Columbia University
• Larry Birnbaum, Northwestern University (co-chair)
• Meredith Broussard, New York University
• Sarah Cohen, The New York Times
• Nicholas Diakopoulos, Northwestern University
• Irfan Essa, Georgia Institute of Technology
• James Hamilton, Stanford University
• Mark Hansen, Columbia University
• Bahareh Heravi, National University of Ireland - Galway
• Jessica Hullman, University of Washington
• Rich Gordon, Northwestern University (co-chair)
• Cheryl Phillips, Stanford University

Host Committee

• Pablo J. Boczkowski, School of Communication, Northwestern U.
• Nick Diakopolous, School of Communication, Northwestern U.
• Steven Franconeri, Department of Psychology, Northwestern U.
• Liz Gerber, Segal Design Institute, Northwestern U.
• Rayid Ghani, Center for Data Science and Public Policy, University of Chicago.
• Kristian Hammond, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Northwestern U.
• Rachel Davis Mersey, Medill School, Northwestern U.
• Sara Owsley Sood, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Northwestern U.
• Brian Uzzi, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern U.
• Zach Wise, Medill School, Northwestern U.
• Emily Withrow, Medill School, Northwestern U.
• Noshir Contractor, School of Communication, Northwestern U.

Venue

The conference will be held at the James L. Allen Center on the Northwestern Evanston Illinois campus on October 13 & 14, 2017.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to cj2017@eecs.northwestern.edu.