the new war correspondents: the rise of civic media curation in urban warfare
DESCRIPTION
In this paper we examine the information sharing practices of people living in cities amid armed conflict. We describe the volume and frequency of microblogging activity on Twitter from four cities afflicted by the Mexican Drug War, showing how citizens use social media to alert one another and to comment on the violence that plagues their commu-nities. We then investigate the emergence of civic media “curators,” individuals who act as “war correspondents” by aggregating and disseminating information to large num-bers of people on social media. We conclude by outlining the implications of our observations for the design of civic media systems in wartime.TRANSCRIPT
The New War Correspondents:The Rise of Civic
Media Curation in Urban Warfare
Andrés Monroy-Hernández (@andresmh)
danah boyd, Emre Kiciman,
Munmun De Choudhury, Scott Counts
Microsoft Research
CSCW - February, 27 2013© Gael Gonzalez/Reuters
Outline
1. Context: Mexican Drug War2. Information War3. Tweeting the War4. Citizen News Curators5. Summary
© Associated Press
Role of social media in acute events: floods, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, shootings, political uprisings, etc
- Al Ani et al (2012)- Bruns et al (2012)
- Cheong et al (2010)- Lotan (2011)
- Starbird et al (2010, 2011) - Palen and Vieweg (2008)
Mexican Drug War
©Nadav Neuhaus
> 60,000 deaths1
> 230,000 displaced2
1 Semanario Zeta, Dec 12, 2011, 2 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2011,
3 Diego Valle with Official Numbers from PGR, SINAIS, INEGO.
3
3
Calderón Administration
El Mañana
Mexican Drug War
Crises as everyday life
Outline
1. Context2. Information War3. Tweeting the War4. Citizen News Curators5. Summary
Typical Crisis Response
EPI2oh on Flickr
“Fearing for their lives and the safety of their families, journalists are adhering to a near-complete news blackout, under strict orders of drug smuggling organizations and their enforcers, who dictate via daily telephone calls, emails and news releases what can and cannot be printed or aired.”
“The news blackout extends to government officials. In Nuevo Laredo, the mayor mysteriously disappears for days and refuses to discuss drug violence. The military general who presides over the soldiers patrolling the city does not hold news conferences, issue statements or answer questions from the media.”
1 Asociación Mexicana de Internet, 20112 Oxford Internet Institute, 2012
Internet Users1
17% (yr. 2000) 34% (yr. 2010)
34 million users
Social Media1
61% of Internet users
Twitter2
20% of SM users5th largest country
(cc) Lecates on Flickr
Increased Violence
Weakened Institutions
Social Media
Adoption
Based on photo by Eneas on Flickr
Outline
1. Context2. Information War3. Tweeting the War4. Citizen News Curators5. Summary
Information Ecosystem
AmateurArtGuy on Flickr d∂wn on Flickr
Eduardo Pavon on Flickr
MonterreyPopulation: 4,000,000
ReynosaPopulation: 600,000
VeracruzPopulation: 700,000
Sachavi on Flickr
SaltilloPopulation: 800,000
City Hashtag Tweets Users
1. Monterrey #mtyfollow211,27
8 27,170
2. Reynosa #reynosafolllow155,78
6 9,043
3. Saltillo #saltillo153,87
9 16,347
4. Veracruz #verfollow 87,801 12,522
Volume
Aug 2010 Nov 2011609,744 tweets
Content
Frequency Types of Words Spanish
1 placeszona, san, sur, altura,
garza, col., av.
2 shootings#balacera, balacera,
balazos, detonaciones
3 report reportan
4 people gente, alguien
Content
City Mentions Retweets
#mtyfollow 20.5% 40.1%#reynosafollo
w 24.8% 15.9%
#saltillo 19.9% 29.9%
#verfollow 22.5% 35.3%
Disseminating > Interacting
Types of messages
#reynosafollowDaily median: 249
#mtyfollowDaily median: 340
#saltilloDaily median: 219
#verfollowDaily median: 494
spread
Frequency& spread
Outline
1. Mexican Drug War2. Information War3. Tweeting the War4. Citizen News Curators5. Conclusions
Who is tweeting?
#reynosafollow#mtyfollow
#saltillo #verfollow
Curators
Average citizens
“Angela”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr
“Claudia”
Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr
Followers: 30KTweets: 60KHours/day:
“many”Age: ?
Interviews
Followers: 25KTweets: 35K
Hours/day: 15Age: early 20’s
(in Spanish)
“Angela”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr
“Claudia”
Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr
“…by chance. I heard on the radio
about how celebrities would interact with their
fans.” (Joined in mid 2009)
How did you get started with Twitter?
“It was through a friend. She
said: ‘you have to go to Twitter!
it’s so cool!’” (Joined in late
2009)
“Angela”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr
“Claudia”
Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr
“My role on Twitter is that of
yet another citizen. [People] tell me that I’m
like their ‘angel,’ for looking after
them”
How would you describe your role?
“I’m a journalist … It is as if I was
a war correspondent,
on social networks, of the
war we are living in Mexico.”
“Angela”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr
“Claudia”
Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr
Motivations
“I consider this as a community
service, even though people might laugh
about it.”
“…tweeting is an altruistic community service.”
“Angela”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr
“Claudia”
Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr
What are your sources ?
“Not all the information comes
from Twitter. There’s a lot of people who
know what I do. They have my number and they call me… they are 100% citizens.”
“Most of the information is from
los tuiteros, my followers. In other
cases, it’s the reporters on TV,
local news...”
Outline
1. Context2. Information War3. Tweeting the War4. Citizen News Curators5. Summary
Summary
• Violence, weak institutions, social media adoption civic engagement.
• Citizens form alert networks.• Information ecosystem. • Emergence curators ("war
correspondents“).• Rich opportunities: surfacing
latent hyperlocal communities (CHI ’13).