## ICA Pre-Conference "The Future of Computational Message Science: Theoretical Advances, Computational Frontiers, and Grand Societal Challenges"
Organizers: Yingdan Lu (Northwestern), Kaiping Chen (UW-Madison), Sijia Yang (UW-Madison), Yilang Peng (UGA)
Time: June 19, 2024 (8:30am - 17:00pm) local time
Location: Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane (2-hour train ride to the ICA main conference venue)
No papers needed for participation! Join leading scholars and fellow participants for a whole day's focused discussion on the frontiers of cutting-edge computational methods applied to advance theories and practices concerning message effects, broadly defined as the production, reception, and retransmission of multimodal content situated within both evolving social dynamics (e.g., deepening inequalities, political polarization) and technological innovations (e.g., generative AI). This pre-conference features two keynote speeches, four thematic forum-style panels (Data and Platform, Digital Interventions, AI and Communication, and Computational Textual Analysis), and one open-floor discussion session designed to foster knowledge exchanges, collaboration, and method innovation involving all invited speakers and registered participants. In each of the programmed sessions, we strive to feature the perspectives from both established scholars and emerging junior researchers, while promoting live interactions between panelists and the audience.