DMI Workshop: Wikileaks and the Myth of (Data-Driven) Citizen Journalism (wiki-leaks workshop)
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DMI Workshop: Wikileaks and the Myth of (Data-Driven) Citizen Journalism (wiki-leaks workshop)
- 1. WikiLeaks and the Myth of (Data-Driven) Citizen Journalism Catalina Iorga, Research MA in Media Studies ’11, University of Amsterdam
- 2. The Benefits of Open Govt. Data External Contributions • Specialised skills, local knowledge, ‘professional amateurs (Jennifer Bell, VisibleGovernment.ca, 2009) Citizen Empowerment • “these applications arm citizens with the information they need to make decisions every day” (data.gov, 2010) Software Innovation • Open licenses, existing technologies and communities (Jonathan Gray, Open Knowledge Foundation, 2010)
- 3. Data-driven Journalism Large datasets available online • The Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010 (WikiLeaks, 2010) Information visualisation tools • Guardian Data Explorer (Tony Hirst) Narratives powered by the Web • Using the Web “to tell a story, not just as a delivery medium” (Alan Maclean, The New York Times, 2010)
- 4. Data-driven Journalism Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Data_driven_journalism_process.jpg
- 5. Research Question What kind of stories do (data-driven) citizen journalists tell about the war in Afghanistan by referencing WikiLeaks documents?
- 6. Intended WikiLeaks ‘Assange himself has stated that WikiLeaks has deliberately moved away from the "egocentric" blogosphere and assorted social media and nowadays collaborates only with professional journalists and human rights activists.’ (Geert Lovink, ‘Twelve Theses on WikiLeaks’, 2010)
- 7. Distinction data-driven mainstream journalism vs. data-driven citizen journalism
- 8. Why Links? • Forms of citation • Indicators of (citizen / user) engagement
- 9. Afghan War Diary • “ an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.” • “ the most significant archive about the reality of war to have ever been released during the course of a war.” (WikiLeaks, 2010) Image source: http://wardiary.wikileaks.org
- 10. Afghan War Diary - Der Spiegel “Deadly Toll” (Der Spiegel, 2010: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bild-708314-114716.html)
- 11. Afghan War Diary - The Guardian “Afghanistan war logs: IED attacks on civilians, coalition and Afghan troops” (The Guardian, 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/jul/26/ied- afghanistan-war-logs)
- 12. Methodology • Observe the common root of all Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010 document URLs (‘http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/ event'). • Query Google with the Google Scraper to get the first 1000 results which contain this common root as a textual component. • Submit the top 100 results to the Link Ripper to extract all outlinks to specific Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010 document pages. • Insert the Link Ripper output in the Harvester to remove textual descriptions and alphabetize the obtained URL list. • Manually clean the output by searching for the 'http:// wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/event' and produce a list of Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010 document URLs. • Select all documents that receive at least two links and compile a final list of the 'most mentioned' warlogs.
- 13. Limitations • Searching for inlinks with Yahoo! Site Explorer or Google yielded similar results. • Finding inlinks with different descriptions is very difficult.
- 14. Types of Accounts Local Interest Descriptive Lists (James Barlow, Jul 26 2010: http://jamesbarlow.co.uk/british-entries-afghan- war-diaries)
- 15. Types of Accounts ‘Connect the Dots’ / Conspiratorial Reasoning (Peak of Elephants, Jul 26 2010: http://peakofelephants.posterous.com/post/ 861912878)
- 16. Most Linked Logs Idaho Soldier Captured in Afghanistan • WTOP (news radio, Washington, DC) • 8 mentions • KomoNews (news radio, Seattle, DC) • Only • SF Examiner (daily paper, San Francisco, CA) mainstream stories • Newser (US-based news site) • Lebanon Daily News (daily paper, Lebanon County, PA) • Las Vegas Sun (daily paper, Las Vegas, NV) • Yahoo! News • AP (press agency)
- 17. Most Linked Logs Four Canadians Killed in Friendly Fire • UberVu • 4 mentions • Ottawa Forums • Overlap of • Wikipedia mainstream and alternative comments • CyberPresse
- 18. Conclusion Data-Driven Citizen Journalism = Absent Possible Reasons • too much data • technical military terms • mainstream media filters
- 19. Credits Research done by: • Camilo Cristancho (PhD candidate in Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) • Matteo Cernison (PhD Candidate in Social and Political Science at European University Institute, Florence) • Catalina Iorga Wiki: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ DataDrivenUserJournalism
- 20. P.S. Go to http://wikileaks.ch/ (instead of the official website) for: • Guantanamo Files: http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/ • Cablegate: http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html • Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs: http://wikileaks.ch/iraq/ diarydig/
- 21. Thank you for your time and attention! E-mail: catalina.iorga@gmail.com Web: http://catalinaiorga.wordpress.com