Citizen Journalism, Citizen Activism, and Technology

Positioning Technology as a ‘’Second Superpower’ in Times of

Disaster and Terrorism

by Sharon Meraz

Context• How can the new power of the Internet be

leveraged in times of – Disasters– Terrorism

• How has technology been shaped and utilized by citizens to frame– Disaster response management– Citizen journalism– Global Web initiatives– Self help, self organizing, emergent networks– Collective wisdom

Social Computing

• Not a new phenomenon• Way back in 1940s to Memex (Allen, 2005)• BBSs, Usenets, IRC (Rheingold, 1993)

• Current enthusiasm due to– Web 2.0 as collaboration/sharing– Architected for participation (SOA)– Toolkit for lightweight apps (AJAX, APIs, RSS)– Rapid application development (Web services)

• Mounting interest in social computing– Blogs, wikis, social software, mobile technologies

Social Computing

• Allows users to participate more (BYOC)• Visible spirit of collaboration/generosity

– Gift economy, p2p development, bazaar design, hacker ethic

• Technologies of Cooperation (Saveri et al)• Trigger network effects in vulnerable times

– Emergent– Spontaneous– Citizen-led– Citizen-shaped

Theoretical Model

• Interdisciplinary approach– Science Studies Theories

• Science, technology, capitalism, control, power• Technological determinism vs social shaping

• Emergence in Networks (Spontaneous)– Distributed, decentralized, bottom-up– The Wisdom of crowds (James Suroweicki)– The Power of many (Christian Crumlish)– Small pieces loosely joined (David Weinberger)– Linked: The science of networks (Albert-Laszlo

Barabasi)

Events

• 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake– Tsunamis affecting Southeast Asia and

Africa, over 175,000 deaths

• July 2005 London Bombings– Dubbed 7/7

• August 2005 US Hurricane Katrina– New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama, over

1,400 deaths

Methodology

• How was social software/technology used/shaped for disaster management?

• 3 pronged with snowball sample.– Used technorati for tag-based searching

• Multiple user-generated tags for each event

– Monitored ‘A-list’ blogs for information on media/c-journalism happenings

– Searched Lexis Nexus for Big Media reports

• In addition for Hurricane Katrina (live):– Monitored c-journalism/A-list blogs in RSS reader

Results

• MSM reports on Citizen Journalism – Indian Ocean Earthquake

• Unanticipated event• Vivid, immediate reporting from blogs • Accidental, unintentional, incidental c-journalists

– London Bombings• Gap between amateur/professional shrinking• Democratization of news• Sea change in journalism practice (genie out of bottle)

– Hurricane Katrina• MSM and C-Journalism as different/shared perspectives• Complementary vs oppositional relationship

Results

• Mobile Technologies– SMS used to post to

• Blog, send text messages for relief/aid/fundraising coordination, find missing (Morquendi)

– Phone cameras/video• 7/7 incident, 20,000 emails, 1000 photos to BBC, 20

videos, used on Sky News, BBC, Guardian, AP

– Less in Hurricane Katrina• Possibly less of a mobile phone culture• More of the poor left stranded in region• Infrastructure wiped out

Results

• Blogs as inside eyes/ears of disaster– Rise of video blogging in 2004– Global connections (SEA-EAT blog)

• 21,000 visitors in 24 hrs, 10th most visited humanitarian site on Internet

– Photo blogging growth, Flickr pools– First hand reporting (Brian Oberkirch,

Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog, Michael Barnett, The Interdictor)

– Relief coordination• 1,347,493 (right), 200,000 (left)

Results

• Wiki journalism--can this work?– Exchange of resources, safety bulletin boards,

missing person’s reports/registry– Wikipedia entry on 7/7 incident edited 5,000 times– Global, transparent connections

• Group collaboration• Skype phone banks• Shelters/Databases for the missing• Virtual lightposts

• Recovery 2.0 wiki after Katina– Clearinghouse for disaster recovery efforts

Results

• Tech Development– Global in Scope: Taran Rampersad and

Dan Lane on Alert Retrieval Cache (ARC) built in one night

– Responsiveness of citizen-initiatives– Jonathan Mendez/Greg Stoll using Google

Maps API for housing damage mapping• Katrina, Rita, Wilma

Results

• KatrinaPeopleFinder Project– Correct problems of distributed redundancy– Create a central database– David Geilhufe, Ethan Zuckerman, Zack Rosen, Jon

Lebowsky– Volunteer programmers, project leaders, data entry

volunteers– Data entry chunks of 25 records with over 3,000

volunteers, 620,000 records– PeopleFinder Interchange Format (PFIF)

• Need tactics to swarm better (Jeff Jarvis)

Conclusion

• Social software significant to– Emergent alternative journalism – Citizen disaster management response– Self organization, smart, networked mob

• Citizen Paparazzi (Sousveillance)– Many little brothers and sisters – See, snap, send impulse (Spy, Scoopt, Cell J)– Private/public space boundaries

• Accessibility of the technology– Needs a smart network with focal nodes