Yasmine Houri, PhD candidate in the Sociology cluster at CREST, has received the Best Paper Award at the 18th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci’26), held in Braunschweig, Germany, from May 26 to 29, 2026.
The award recognises the paper co-authored with Upasana Dutta (University of Pennsylvania): “Framing the Fringe: Dynamics of Ingroup and Outgroup Narratives in Fringe Telegram Channels”.
About the paper
The research examines the narrative dynamics at work in so-called “fringe” Telegram channels — spaces at the margins of mainstream platforms where radical, conspiracist, or extremist discourse circulates. Drawing on large-scale computational analysis, the authors investigate how these communities construct and mobilise group narratives, distinguishing between representations of the ingroup and the outgroup, in order to reinforce internal cohesion and delegitimise outside figures.
This work sits at the intersection of media sociology, web science, and natural language processing — a rapidly growing field seeking to better understand online radicalisation mechanisms and the ways in which alternative platforms shape collective identities.
About WebSci
The ACM Web Science Conference is one of the leading academic venues for the study of interactions between the web and society, covering online behaviour, misinformation dynamics, recommendation algorithms, and the societal impact of social media. The Best Paper Award is selected by a peer review committee from among all submitted contributions.
CREST warmly congratulates Yasmine Houri on this distinction, which reflects the quality and relevance of her doctoral research.