HT'26: 37th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media London London, UK, September 14-18, 2026

Conference website	https://ht.acm.org/ht2026/
Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ht26
Submission deadline	March 27, 2026

More than just a technological structure, hypertext embodies a way of thinking – nonlinear, networked, dynamic – that allows new forms of storytelling, new approaches to argumentation, new approaches to sense-making and knowledge.  

In the 1960s, Ted Nelson imagined hypertext as a technical manifestation of literature’s underlying interconnectedness; Douglas Engelbart saw hypertext as an augmentation of human intellect and transformative collaboration tool. As an estimated 98% of the world’s textual production moves to being generated by AI systems, we once again face fundamental questions about what it means to be connected and to think with (and through) networks.

At Hypertext 2026 we aim to discuss, reflect on and investigate hypertext as method: of data collection, of reading and writing, knowledge distribution, social media communication and beyond

What trends can be observed? How can hypertext enhance our approach to interfaces?  What issues can be better investigated by thinking through hypertext? How can user experience be enhanced by this way of thinking? What alternative, creative, fun, novel or paradigm-shifting applications does hypertext enable and facilitate? Answering these questions requires both applied science and liberal arts, a broad, philosophical angle, and the development of next-generation hypertext systems – a trademark approach of the ACM Hypertext conferences for 36 years.

We welcome the following types of submissions:

• Main Conference Tracks (see below)  
• Late Breaking Results Track  
• Summer School
• Demos, Workshops & Exhibitions

Please note that this edition does not offer a generalist social media track but welcomes contributions targeted on all track topics. We consider social media as a form of hypertext thus any reference to hypertext content and systems is implicitly extended to social media.

All accepted contributions in all tracks will be published by ACM and will be available in the Proceedings via the ACM Digital Library in the format in which they are submitted (e.g., long paper, short paper, extended abstract). To be included in the Proceedings, at least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference, present the paper there and agree on ACM’s T&C. Selected contributions will be invited to submit an expanded version after the conference to follow on special issues.

Important Dates

• Workshops
  • Submission: 27/02/2026 AOE
  • Notification: 20/03/2026 AOE
• Research tracks
  • Submission: 27/03/2026 AOE
  • Notification: 22/05/2026 AOE
• Practitioner tracks, Late Breaking, Blue Sky & Provocations
  • Submission: 29/05/2026 AOE
  • Notification: 19/06/2026 AOE
• Student travel awards
  • Submission: 26/06/2026 AOE
  • Notification: 06/07/2026 AOE
• Camera ready
  • Submission: 03/08/2026 AOE
• Registration
  • Early bird rate: 24/07/2026 AOE
  • Regular rates until 08/09/2026 AOE

RESEARCH TRACKS: 

As in previous years, we aim to reflect the diversity of practices embraced by different communities and welcome submissions in a variety of areas. 

Submission: 27/03/2026 AOE

Notification: 22/05/2026 AOE

Agentic Media

Hypertext research offers essential methods for structuring, tracing, and interpreting machine-mediated information flows. We invite contributions that deepen hypertext theory and systems design in order to address contemporary forms of algorithmic mediation – not as general AI studies, but as rigorous extensions of hypertext’s historical commitment to scalable knowledge management and human-centred augmentation.

Topics including (but not limited to):

• Hypertext in AI interfaces: machine-assisted linking, summarisation, and trail formation.
• Augmentation: principles of human–machine collaboration.
• Hypertext models for exploring multimodal corpora.
• Hybrid systems (human/AI) and environments for preservation of meaningful reader agency.
• Generative Engine Optimisation strategies to support AI understanding of content.
• Agentic narratives using generative AI to realise unique, interactive traversal experiences across content and/or media.
• Computational cognitive models of narratives digital creativity and computational storytelling

Authorship, Readership, Publishing

Hypertext has transformed authoring, reading, and publishing by disrupting, subverting, or complementing book and media culture and practice. In an era when authorship is increasingly hybrid and machine-assisted, hypertext research provides essential tools for preserving legibility, provenance, and interpretive focus across evolving reading and publishing ecosystems. Submissions may focus on specific case studies or theories of new emerging practices, rhetorical analyses, or methodological reflections that take inspiration from fields such as book history, digital humanities and/or media studies or the study of literature. Hypertext as a paradigm can ensure that digital writing cultures remain participatory, accountable, and meaningfully structured.

Topics including (but not limited to):

• Authorship models: contextualising the production of hypertexts.
• AI, Readers and Authorship: Redrawing relationships and creating new forms of textuality. 
• Book history: historically-informed frameworks, theories, and concepts for understanding hypertextual production, dissemination, and reception.
• Publishing workflows: hypertext as a paradigm in editorial practices, cross-platform infrastructure and critical literacy.
• Scholarly editions and adaptations: hypertextual representations and reconceptualisations of extant texts.
• Rhetorics and poetics: how hypertexts are framed in popular and scholarly discourse, as well as theoretical considerations on forms of expression supported by hypertextual formats.
• Text, paratext, and multimodality: impact of digital forms on intra- and intertextual connectivity. 
• The future of reading: how reading is likely to evolve, change and adapt in response to cultural and material change. 

Technical Applications of Hypertext

Technical hypertext research continues to provide robust architectures for organising, traversing, and preserving large and heterogeneous datasets. As textual corpora grow exponentially and machine-generated materials permeate every domain, hypertext systems offer versioning, annotation, provenance tracking, and long-term knowledge stewardship. We welcome contributions that further these capabilities through rigorous engineering, formal modelling, and system innovation—advancing hypertext as a foundational technology for the next generation of data-intensive applications.

Topics including (but not limited to):

• Large-scale knowledge systems: hypermedia models, protocols, and architectures
• Dataset curation: alignment and interpretability
• Semantic ontologies: linking and graph-based knowledge representations
• XR/VR/AR: hypertext as spatial linking, and non-Euclidean navigation frameworks
• Legacy systems: interoperability and long-term digital preservation

Principles, Directions, Reflections

Hypertext has always been both a technology and a philosophy for engaging with network textuality: from Bush’s epistemology of associative reasoning to Engelbart’s augmentation paradigm to Nelson’s rethinking of text. This track invites research that critically extends these foundational ideas to address the conceptual, ethical, and experiential challenges of contemporary text ecologies shaped by automation and scale. We encourage submissions that deepen hypertext theory itself – its models, histories, and future trajectories – and treat hypertext as a methodological anchor in the contemporary media landscape and the production of cultural objects.

Topics including (but not limited to):

• Philosophical foundations: semiotic and epistemological contexts
• New directions: Unexplored correspondences with adjacent academic domains or disciplines
• Future of text: proposals for future hypertext applications and paradigms
• Hypertext pioneers: Bush, Engelbart, Nelson, today
• Culture, memory, and cognition in large-scale text environments
• History of hypertext in cultural, academic, and technical contexts
• Frameworks for preserving human interpretive agency in automated textual systems

Communities (Digital Practice and Social Media)

At its core, hypertext research has examined how linking structures shape communities, collaboration, and the circulation of knowledge. Social media platforms and algorithmic agents increasingly govern how these social connections are formed and interpreted. The insights of hypertext research help design communicative systems that support transparency, diversity, and collective intelligence. We welcome submissions that advance hypertext-centred understandings of community dynamics and socio-technical infrastructures, ensuring that hypertext remains a framework and a paradigm for studying and improving digital culture and scholarship.

• Research Communities: text remediation in scholarly practice (e.g. impact of AI applications on formulating and tackling research questions)
• Link analysis and networked discourse grounded in hypertext models
• Community knowledge systems: collaboration, digital practice, and collective memory
• Transparency and interpretability in social media ecosystems
• Visual and big-data: approaches to analysing social link patterns
• Decentralised, grass-root and alternative community infrastructures
• Hypertext as resistance: designs for civic discourse and diversity

Student Authors

Student authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit a request for the SigWeb travel grant. If accepted, the grant will cover travel costs, accommodation, subsistence and registration fees up to £500 (five hundred pounds). Students receiving support will be asked to dedicate a small amount of their time to the conference organisation.

Submit the proposal via EasyChair.

Subsidised Article Processing Charges

All contributions that are APC-eligible, i.e. that carry an ArticleProcessing Charge, and not (yet) covered by ACM Open, will havesubsidized APCs—$250 for ACM and SIG members and $350 for non-members.

In addition, authors from developing countries may be eligible forgeographic waivers, financed by ACM. Furthermore, SIGWEB and other SIGsdecided to support financial hardship waivers. The official ACM criteriafor geographic and financial hardship waivers is explained here:https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/policy-on-discretionary-open-access-apc-waivers 

ACM T&C 

1. “By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.”
2. “Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper.  ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors.  The collection process has started and will roll out as a requirement throughout 2022.  We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.”

On AI

All submissions must be prepared in line with the ACM policy on authorshop and generative ai: https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/frequently-asked-questions