1) “Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools.”

 

Yes, of course. It’s not like we call them “picketers” because they use sticks for their signs.

 

2) “Innovators tend to be solipsists. They often want to cram every stray fact and experience into their new model.”

… and you sir tend to be a lexicomane. Excuse us while we save the world.

 

3) “Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.”

 

#blacklivesmatter, because that is happening right now

4) “What mattered more was an applicant’s degree of personal connection to the civil-rights movement.”

Knowing someone affected is often critical. Father’s often become feminists when they have daughters! (http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/132384/men_who_have_baby_girls)

5) “The kind of activism associated with social media isn’t like this at all.” [This being, are you chicken or not, backing because of peer support]

 

 

6) “The platforms of social media are built around weak ties.”

“But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.”

Ramsey Orta was the filmer of the Eric Garner murder. He made the decision to film the arrest; which was high risk because he later found himself arrested by the police. While Orta had strong ties to Garner, video has a way of creating strong ties because it is a very expressive platform. Oftentimes, the filmer does not have strong ties and may just be a passer by, but is willing to engage because video is strong evidence.

 

7) “By not asking too much of them. That’s the only way you can get someone you don’t really know to do something on your behalf.”

 

Right. Because people don’t give to charity and things like that. Sometimes people are willing to do a lot; for a lot of people. Does philanthropy do nothing?

 

8) “it’s the kind of commitment that will bring only social acknowledgment and praise.”

Tell that to 4chan and reddit! They often engage in activism which brings a lot of scorn!

9) “The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960.”

“We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro.”

As a programmer, I probably spend more time on the internet than I do in cafes… so if the internet is the place where people are spending time, what’s wrong with that being an unsegregated place? If people are spending more time in fora where they are free to be who they want to be; what’s the wrong. Who needs lunch?

 

 

 

 

10) “The civil-rights movement was high-risk activism.”

But it was also high reward.

 

 

11) “Facebook and the like are tools for building networks, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies.”

This seems fair. The main units of organization are pages, groups, and events. None have a layered permission scheme, most likely because it is too complicated for most users. This seems not really fundamental to the technology though; perhaps things like DemocracyOS can change this!

 

12) “There are many things, though, that networks don’t do well. Car companies sensibly use a network to organize their hundreds of suppliers, but not to design their cars. No one believes that the articulation of a coherent design philosophy is best handled by a sprawling, leaderless organizational system. Because networks don’t have a centralized leadership structure and clear lines of authority, they have real difficulty reaching consensus and setting goals. They can’t think strategically; they are chronically prone to conflict and error. How do you make difficult choices about tactics or strategy or philosophical direction when everyone has an equal say?”

Not everyone needs an equal say in a meritocracy — your voice is louder if your opinion is correct. International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee didn’t do so great with the internet, but TCP/IP seems to be doing well! It was very much designed by network as opposed to central leaders; that’s why it is so great; it meets the needs of lots of users!

 

13) “Similarly, Al Qaeda was most dangerous when it was a unified hierarchy. Now that it has dissipated into a network, it has proved far less effective.”

I think this is just wrong. Al Qaeda, like all terrorist organizations used decentralized cells to isolate groups… central control wasn’t that important, decentralization made it more of a hydra than anything.

 

 

When I hear the word activist, I usually think of a passionately good-willed young adult holding a sign shouting at the top of their lungs.

Of course, my stereotypical image is a dated view because much of the activism today happens online — where keyboards and monitors replace cardboard signs and the clicking of keys rings louder than the physical voice.

My view is not only off target for this reason, but also the image of a “passionately good willed young adult” is not correct either. Activists take all shapes and forms, especially online activists. I can no longer count on an activist being passionate, for some online activism groups membership is simply getting the emails. Activists come in all ages, from adorable grade school girls to fat old men. Furthermore, I can no longer count on an activist being good willed. In fact, they can be quite evil. However, they can still be understood as an activist group, and indeed, the example I am writing about can be considered in some respects, a wildly successful online social movement which has gotten activists united and committing themselves to furthering the cause, all the while propagating a great deal of hatred. I’m talking about The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

If you haven’t heard about ISIS yet, prepare for your day to be ruined. It’s a new radical fundamentalist Islamic group which has been tearing through the Middle East[0]. Their goal is essentially to raise a Caliphate (or state governed under sharia law by a decedent of Mohammad and to bring about the apocalypse[1]. These folks are pretty bad. So bad, that the African terrorist group Boko Haram, who is also in the category of “really fucking bad”, pledged their allegiance to ISIS.

A part of what has made ISIS so successful has been their activity as an online social movement. Of course, I am not the first to notice how successfully they have been using social media.

 

Emerson Brooking notes that they used a translingual strategy, where they upped their presence in English materials in order to evade attention until they had captured a strategic victory at Mosul (a large Iraqi city).[2] This is probably one of the more novel techniques, and could use more analysis. It would be very interesting to study translingual techniques in an environment such as India, where there are N different local languages, studying diffusion patterns would be pretty cool to figure out optimal change-making. Projects like Global Language Network have already built some of the tools that would be needed to perform this study.[4]

One major change for these ‘activists’ has been the use of a global public forum, the likes of which (ie, twitter) have only recently become largely popular. Whereas organization used to take place on interest specific forums, these General-Purpose platforms provide much greater surface area with a broader public allowing an easier access for untrained soldiers.[2] There are negatives to such a platform being made easy for all to use, for instance one ISIS fighter revealed secret locations. [3]. Twitter emerged as an important platform in the region during the Arab Spring as a tool for positive social change, but this illustrates the potential for tools to do both good and bad.

ISIS also employs pro-government tweets as well, showing them performing services targeted at local audiences.[2] This is to raise confidence with the citizenry in ISIS’s ability to run the state, much like how Hamas provides a great deal of humanitarian services,

The Brookings institute has conducted a detailed analysis of the ISIS twitter strategy.[5][6][7] Some interesting notes from the study are that suspensions on the platform, performed by twitter, have been an effective means at reducing the amount of exposure ISIS receives. However, the effects of cutting these activists off from the platform is unknown (it could make things worse). Another interesting note is that there have been many instances with location metadata included, not just the mess-up previously mentioned[3]. Most notably, (in my opinion), is that the researchers posited that there is a small group of highly active individuals who are driving the social media drive. This hints that although it seems organic, it is not necessarily a flat structure: there may be a higher degree of structure to the tweeting as certain individuals act as ‘super retweeters’ to surface and curate the most powerful hashtags and images generated by the masses.

Notably they use Twitter and Facebook as recruiting platforms.[2] This is important because it means not only are they putting out media to scare the US, but also to recruit. This dualism represents a very interesting, perhaps novel, social media tactic where they must simultaneously put out horrifying content while appealing to another demographic.

 

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

[2] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/31/isis-s-use-of-social-media-to-reach-you-its-new-audience.html

[3] http://time.com/3651559/new-zealand-isis-twitter/

[4] http://language.media.mit.edu/visualizations/books

[5] http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan

[6]http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan/isis_twitter_census_berger_morgan.pdf

[7] http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/03/06-isis-twitter-census-berger

Space exploration is one of the grandest feats mankind has
pursued. Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, sent the
following message with the Voyager spacecraft:

This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of
America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more
than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still
divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a
single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a
billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly
altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200
billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some–perhaps many–may have
inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such
civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded
contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds,
our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We
are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope
someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of
galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our
determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

Space exploration has had immesurable impact on the connectivity
amongst citizens. The challenges of communicating to spacecraft have
driven immense amounts of research into communications protocols and
spawned generations of entrepreneurs. For instance, NASA was deeply
involved in the design of the ARPANET and its precursors, technology
which led to the internet. Andrew Viterbi, an MIT Alumnus who did lots
of Aerospace research, including designing the Viterbi algorithm which
was a method for deep space communications. Viterbi went on to found
an innovative telecommunications company Qualcomm, which is now one of
the largest companies in the world. The development of these
technologies is deeply rooted in space exploration, but greatly
enhances the communications between citizens. Space tech can’t claim
responsibility for the openness of the networks, but at least it is
responsible for its creation and rise in the first place.

These technical innovations not only improve the communication between
citizens, but also greatly improve the effectiveness of local and
national government by providing new tools for sharing information
more quickly. This can be used to great effect in everything from
coordinating responses to natural disasters to getting the pothole
down the street repaired more quickly.

The development of space technology is in a sense a perfect public
good.  Everyone in the world benefits from the innovations made from
space tech.  Space is the ultimate frontier. Innovations from space
tech include sustainable tech (such as solar panels), maker tech such
as 3-D printers, medical science, communication tech, better
insulating materials. Space also has the promise of permanently
blunting major inequality by mining resources from asteroids. This
paints space tech as a truly inclusive civic technology, because
everyone benefits from the fruits advanced scientific research bares.

Perhaps the most important public good produced by space tech is hope.
Hope that despite humanities differences and disagreements, we all
share a common goal. Up above the atmosphere, humans are able to put
all else aside and focus on the pursuit of exploration. For instance,
the International Space Station is as complex of a technical wonder as
it is a political miracle. Not only does it unite governments, but
also draws in the people of a nation to regain some faith in
government’s ability to focus on lofty, idealistic goals and achieve
miracles. By re-igniting faith in the process, space projects can
increase civic engagement. Interestingly, space projects actually must
engage the public to exist at all. The projects are expensive and make
a juicy target for politicians to cut when they are trying to balance
budgets. It takes angry Citizens who care deeply about this to raise
their voices and demand their country fund such projects. In order to
foster these dedicated citizens, space agencies must engage the public
at a deep level.

Overall, I think that it is a little bit silly to just use “space” as
a civic technology. But I think that is important to consider that mass
public scientific endeavors with lofty idealized goals make somewhat of a
perfect civic technology by not only benefiting the public good, improving
government, and communication between citizens, but also motivating public
engagement by inspiring hope.

What’s the safest speed to travel on a freeway? If you guessed the speed limit, you’re probably wrong! There is pretty strong evidence to suggest that the safest speed to travel is the speed the other cars are traveling. ( http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/06/texas_85_mile_per_hour_speed_limit_do_higher_speed_limits_cause_more_accidents_.html )

However, the cheapest speed to travel is definitely at or below the speed limit, because of aggressive police speed ticketing. For instance, Hampton, Florida (and a couple other small towns) had formed a notoriously corrupt police force where there was a department so large there was a police officer for every 25 residents. This police force performed one task, ticketing people speeding on the highway passing through, neglecting to keep drugs out of the community or perform other tasks. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/09/us/hampton-florida-corruption/).  Although the town faced many other oddities and corruptions that make it a less than stellar example, traffic & parking tickets have a bad reputation of existing solely to fund police departments, especially when civil asset seizure is also considered (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/) (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/02/kaley_v_united_states_terrible_supreme_court_decision_lets_the_government.html).

Enter Waze, collaborative community based traffic mapping system which addresses the lack of oversight of police. Waze allows users to let other users know where police are monitoring, so that drivers can be alert and not get caught ‘driving unsafely’. Not so subtly, the following image appears on Waze’s website:

 

Naturally, this isn’t too popular with police. It’s curious to see what arguments & strategies are used:

LAPD Police Chief argued that Waze endangers officers by letting would-be criminals track their locations. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102373083# . However, many critique law enforcement for defending an important source of revenue https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150126/08232429821/law-enforcement-wants-google-to-cripple-waze-because-it-lets-mean-old-public-stalk-police-officers.shtml. At Waze, however, the argument tends that knowing a police officer is around increases road safety as people are more likely to drive safely http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/08/opinion/navarrette-waze-speed-traps/ .

With this context, let’s discuss how Waze is and isn’t a networked public sphere.

Firstly, Waze is a community which does produce a shared common good. This is commons based production, but due to the central authority over the information, I think it fails to fully meet Benkler’s peer standard. However, much of the economics of peer production still applies. There are not only different types of users who will either use, not use, or use & add to the data but also car pooling groups, which may use Waze differently (perhaps shotgun resumes its role in defending from bandits).

This is a network which greatly helps individual liberty by helping users to avoid police interference. Although in its nascence, technology like Waze can be deployed to monitor police in other situations. For instance, Sukey was used and built to help UCL protestors avoid police kettling (a controversial crowd control tactic). In this case, the technology fits more into Benkler’s views on internet communities — Sukey facilitates a meatspace interaction, but leans heavily on the virtual space to ensure the freedoms of such groups.

In the Waze network, data is of utmost import. The data created, however, is centralized on Google servers. This means that it will serve google purposes, ie, knowing that people slow down near police markers Waze may choose to show police markers near google billboards, or play other tricks, such as inaccurately reporting police presence at the request of a local department.

Overall, I don’t think that Waze is an idealized Networked Public Sphere, but I do think that it serves an important role: it get’s people collaborating to solve a problem, and using internet technology to perform the collaboration. If Sukey is any guide it is that when specific, more serious, issues arise turning to a collaborative model will be natural, and we have the design techniques & software to be able to roll such a system out quickly and in an ad-hoc manner.

The idea is simple. The ramifications are not.

 

Twitch Plays Pokemon (http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon) is, by some rough measure, a digital public sphere. The essential idea is that we hook up a Gameboy emulator up to the game streaming service Twitch, and allow the comments entered to control the buttons. In the parlance, it was super-effective.

 

 

Almost overnight, thousands of people were playing. It was madness. But it worked.

 

You must watch (at least) watch this particular moment (1:28) to even begin to understand. Reading http://www.joystiq.com/2014/02/22/twitch-plays-pokemon-its-history-highlights-and-bird-jesus/ is probably a good idea too.

Why do I think this is so amazing and note worthy?

 

• It was an online system where anyone is welcome to participate
  • anyone could join twitch and send commands
  • twitch is free to join
• There was a common good (winning the game) which the moderates, or average player, wanted to produce
  • Of course, there were trolls too
• There was a main forum for discussion in the chat stream where commands were put
  • There were also many private or alternative forums, such as reddit
• If someone wanted to try to affect the public good, then they had to participate
  • but they could not do it alone
  • they needed cooperation from others
• There was rational discussion on how to strategize best.
• At times the discussion was not civil, but that did not dominate. Good strategies were favored. Tough situations were overcome (there were certain areas which were notoriously hard to navigate)
• There were disasters and unfavorable outcomes, such as the release of certain pokemon by accident or use of an incorrect evolution stone, to which the community responded with unity.
• There were debates & protests on Democracy and Anarchy, and governments were tried and toppled
  • The game, as they Joystiq article mentions, was originally just an anarchy mode where every command entered in the chat is executed
  • Eventually, after much discussion and requesting, a democracy mode was added where players voted in elections for the next move
  • The mode was rather unpopular with some people, who chose to obstruct progress by voting for the equivalent of a ‘no-op’
• Complex culture emerged
  • A religion http://helixpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Church_of_Helix, or two http://helixpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Disciples_of_Dome. ( http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/helixpedia/images/c/c0/19gx2claqgb7bpng.png/revision/latest?cb=20140317034921 )

 

 

Twitch Plays Pokemon is, of course, of almost zero real consequence. But what is amazing is that Twitch Plays Pokemon did it. The game was beaten. It took much longer than it would take a single player, but just as in real society, one person can’t call the shots. So in that regard, it is a pure success. To date, several other pokemon versions have also been beaten.

 

What are we to take from all this? Should we mirror real democracy after this? Perhaps we can let laws be written and passed in such a manner, ships launched, troops deployed, emergency services dispatched, and tax cuts granted?

 

Probably not. That sounds like a horrible fucking idea. Twitch did some really horrible things, whose real world equivalents would be irreparable.

 

But to the credit of Twitch Plays Pokemon, what I do think it illustrates is that an online public sphere, when it’s interests are aligned can actually get shit done. And maybe, with more close analysis on how certain subgoals were accomplished in Twitch Plays Pokemon, we can learn something about how to create a functioning internet democracy.

 

 

At 3:50 I briskly walked through central square to a small cafe tucked away on a side street.

There were 5 of gathered around a low-set coffee-table: two consultants, two MIT Course 6 Juniors, and a Northeastern CS sophomore on Co-Op. One of the consultants was female, the rest of us male. All were ‘white’.

Our conversation quickly delved into deep territory. We talked about motivations, happiness, and dreams. I won’t go too detailed here: although we were strangers, we quickly became comfortable and I don’t think it would be fair to the experience to divulge much. I will say this: I had a chai latte.

Although lengthy, the 2 hours seemed to pass quickly.

On the three questions I asked earlier:

• No one was lame
• Consultants are very busy, but they were able to make it, which is reassuring!
• Tech Early Adopters — This is definitely a factor. Everyone there was pretty technical

We talked about the kind of people who would come to this — I’ll admit, I did mention Putnam — and the general consensus was that we weren’t too diverse. However, there was excitement in learning from other groups. We were all pretty young, but there was excitement to be able to connect with an older generation as well. I mentioned to my mother that I was going to this, and she remarked that she would like to go on one — so perhaps this will be marketable to a general audience moreso (I know, I know, we aren’t supposed to say, “my mom could do it,” as a tech gender-norm patriarchy enforcing phrase, but I really did talk to my mom and that is what she said).

I’m not quite sure if I would go again soon — it seems like it is too small at the moment; I would quickly exhaust the set of hosts, however it is certainly an experience I’d recommend you try. If something like this really catches on with a more diverse audience, I think it would be a great avenue for bridging social activity. After all, who doesn’t like getting tea?

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam identifies a collapse in American community as a major civic crisis. The essence of this crisis is that Americans no longer engage with one another through activities (such as bowling groups — hence the title), which has diminished the country’s social capital, or value in its social network. In order to rejuvenate America, people must engage in activities which increase Bridging, or connections between differing types of people. Putnam argues largely that this type of activity increases trust and decreases inequality which keep the nation strong.

Something is brewing that could fix all that. Tea With Strangers (http://www.teawithstrangers.com/) is an initiative in its nascency which connects local strangers over tea. The description from the main page reads:

You look at sites like Humans of New York or Upworthy and think they’re super cheesy but you like/comment/share ’em anyway. Then you wonder where the hell these people are in the real world. Your social scene is awesome but it’s starting to feel stale. You’ve tried 3 different Meetup groups before you gave up and resorted to hoping for meaningful encounters at local bars. You can’t remember the last time you had a ‘no strings attached’ conversation. You regularly find yourself wanting to get to know the people around you — your friends, strangers, the barista, your waiter, the dude wearing the funky socks or the girl with the bright yellow pants. Whoever.

The nice thing about Tea With Strangers is that it’s self selective. Lames don’t show up because two hours is a pretty serious commitment for a group of people you don’t know. You’re probably curious about what the conversation is like, what other crazies would show up to sit with a group of strangers. You’re not sure what to expect, but you have a hunch it’ll probably be good. And you have stories to share yourself.

And yes, it’s tempting to just opt for Netflix, do nothing, or just hang with your typical crowd. It’s easier. You know what to expect. And you don’t have to think much. But tea time is kinda like going to the gym. It’s good for ya, you know you’ll be glad you went, and you’re a better person for it. You might go regularly and end up with a six pack, or it might just be a one time thang and you pat yourself on the back for it. Except at tea time, you’re working out your empathy/listening/acceptance/compassion muscles. Still trying to figure out what the analogous six pack is here. But we all want one.

It’s fairly obvious that this is an opportunity for building bridges, but it’s non obvious that it will work as expected, or if it will have a large impact. There are some simple issues with it up front:

• ‘Lames’: These are the people you *won’t* meet here. But will it be an echo chamber? How many people are truly ‘Lames’? Do they need to be bridged to? How can they engage
• Time: 2 hours is a lot of time to ask. I’m able to take it because I am taking a class which expects 12 hours a week, leaving me time to explore and investigate new sources. Perhaps for those less well to do, or busier, this commitment is too grand which cuts them out.
• Tech Circle-Jerk Early Adopters: Like any new technical project, the early adopters are in tech. Will I meet people outside this bubble? (A cursory check on my Facebook page shows that all my friends who like the page are in tech).

In order to evaluate how effective this is, I signed up to go to a meeting on Sunday. I’m posting this now to share my preconceptions, before I experience the reality.

Armed with a slight sense of adventure, and perhaps a notepad and camera, tomorrow I will disembark on a journey.

How many people will be there?

Who will I talk to?

What will I learn?

What kind of tea will I get?

 

Stay tuned for part 2.

An overly broad definition of citizen journalism is reporting and investigation performed by a member of a group about or pertaining to the group to which they are a member of. There are several key attributes which can be applied to narrow this definition to something
smaller, but more useful.

Topics:
The first way in which we can narrow the definition is by restricting the topic to items relevant to current events, policy, or government. While a discussion of the arts could very well fall under the category of citizen journalism, current events, policy,
and government tend to be more impactful.

Amateur:
Another way to narrow the definition is to restrict the space to authors who are not professional. It is entirely possible that someone became a professional journalist because a particular issue was important to them, and their writings would be considered citizen journalism. However, amateur journalism has the property that the author is deeply invested in the issue which they are documenting, not because they are making a profit.

This leaves us with the following definition: Citizen Journalism is reporting or investigation performed by a non-professional individual on a topic pertaining to current events, government, or policy. Importantly I do not see it vital to restrict medium. The
citizen journalist can use the medium of their choice, be it video, listicle, song, tweet, or public art, or traditional article; their works may be more effective in a medium native to their community. Nor do I restrict locality; citizen journalists can report on matters
relevant to a local or global stage.

A particular instance of citizen journalism I found compelling was twitter activity during the Boston Marathon bombing. In the days after it was a very confusing period of time with poor dissemination of information from mainstream media.

Citizen Journalists took part in two major ways:

1) Reddit Investigators
The Reddit community took full force in trying to investigate and locate the bomber. There were many amateur investigators who were launching theories about who they thought did it, working with very little information. They ended up strongly pushing that Sunil Tripathi, a missing Brown student, was one of the bombers. Mainstream media ended up picking this up and also pushing out the same narrative. It ended up being incorrect, but I think that it raises very interesting questions about how investigations should be held. The Redditors were able to construct a very compelling narrative and argument that the public took seriously. Government investigators, with more resources available as well as access to information ultimately properly identified the perps, but big questions on how investigations are run and reported on have been raised, and now demand an answer. Should Citizen journalists engage in public investigations at Mass scale? Should their efforts receive more support?

This is a clear instance of citizen journalism. A community of concerned citizens looked through and performed a mass amateur investigation. While the medium was Reddit, users were writing detailed articles trying to piece it all together.

2) Event Reporters
The Reddit, Twitter, and personal Facebook networks were instrumental in disseminating information on where police were enforcing blockades, the shooting at MIT, and the chase through Watertown.  While mainstream journalism was focused on the larger picture for a broader audience, the citizen journalists were more focused on information that was immediately pertinent to their community. Personally, I spent a lot of time tweeting/posting to Facebook information from the police scanners. Friends in the Stata center were posting pictures from the Stata center, which locked down after the Collier shooting. This social dissemination of information was not only more relevant to me, but faster and more trustworthy on agenda (my friend only wants to tell me that she is safe, not perpetuate islamophobia).

This is another clear cut case of citizen journalism; amateurs reporting on current events and government responses.

 

The reason that I chose this example is that it is the first time that I really deeply felt that civic organization could do much better than reputable journalism. The nimbleness, lack of ulterior motive, and legitimate care to disseminate the information was very unique. It can be hard to appreciate the strength of modern information networks and the role of citizen journalists, but tragic events like the Boston Marathon Bombings highlight their strengths as well as shortcomings. There are numerous examples which bear similarity, such as the use of twitter in Egypt during the Arab Spring. But the Marathon Bombings were compelling because it was tangible; I was a part of it.