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.

1. 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
© Gael Gonzalez/Reuters
CSCW - February, 27 2013

2. Outline
1. Context: Mexican Drug War
2. Information War
3. Tweeting the War
4. Citizen News Curators
5. Summary

3. 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)
© Associated Press

4. Mexican Drug War
1
> 60,000 deaths
2
> 230,000 displaced
3
Calderón
Administration
3
1 Semanario Zeta, Dec 12, 2011,
2 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2011,
©Nadav Neuhaus 3 Diego Valle with Official Numbers from PGR, SINAIS, INEGO.

5. Mexican Drug War
Crises as everyday life
El Mañana

6. Outline
1. Context
2. Information War
3. Tweeting the War
4. Citizen News Curators
5. Summary

7. Typical Crisis Response
EPI2oh on Flickr

8. “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.”

9. “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.”

10. Internet Users1
17% (yr. 2000)  34% (yr. 2010)
34 million users
Social Media1
61% of Internet users
Twitter2
20% of SM users
5th largest country
1 Asociación Mexicana de Internet, 2011
2
Oxford Internet Institute, 2012
(cc) Lecates on Flickr

11. Weakened Increased
Institutions Violence
Social
Media
Adoption
Based on photo by Eneas on Flickr

12. Outline
1. Context
2. Information War
3. Tweeting the War
4. Citizen News Curators
5. Summary

14. Information
Ecosystem

15. Monterrey Reynosa
Population: 4,000,000 Population: 600,000
AmateurArtGuy on Flickr
d∂wn on Flickr
Saltillo Veracruz
Population: 800,000 Population: 700,000
Sachavi on Flickr Eduardo Pavon on Flickr

16. Volume
Aug 2010  Nov 2011
609,744 tweets
City Hashtag Tweets Users
1. Monterrey #mtyfollow 211,278 27,170
2. Reynosa #reynosafolllow 155,786 9,043
3. Saltillo #saltillo 153,879 16,347
4. Veracruz #verfollow 87,801 12,522

17. Content

18. Content
Frequency Types of Words Spanish
zona, san, sur, altura,
1 places
garza, col., av.
#balacera, balacera,
2 shootings
balazos, detonaciones
3 report reportan
4 people gente, alguien

19. Types of messages
City Mentions Retweets
#mtyfollow 20.5% 40.1%
#reynosafollow 24.8% 15.9%
#saltillo 19.9% 29.9%
#verfollow 22.5% 35.3%
Disseminating > Interacting

20. Frequency #reynosafollow
Daily median: 249
& spread
#mtyfollow
Daily median: 340
#saltillo
Daily median: 219
#verfollow
Daily median: 494

21. Outline
1. Mexican Drug War
2. Information War
3. Tweeting the War
4. Citizen News Curators
5. Conclusions

22. #mtyfollow #reynosafollow
Who is
tweeting?
#saltillo #verfollow

23. Curators
Average citizens

24. Interviews
“Angela” “Claudia”
Followers: 25K Followers: 30K
Tweets: 35K Tweets: 60K
Hours/day: 15 Hours/day: “many”
Age: early 20‟s Age: ?
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr
(in Spanish)

25. How did you get started with Twitter?
“Angela” “Claudia”
“It was through a “…by chance. I heard
friend. She said: on the radio about how
„you have to go to celebrities would
Twitter! it‟s so interact with their fans.”
cool!‟” (Joined in (Joined in mid 2009)
late 2009)
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr

26. How would you describe your role?
“Angela” “Claudia”
“I‟m a journalist … “My role on Twitter is
It is as if I was a that of yet another
war citizen. [People] tell
correspondent, on me that I‟m like their
social networks, of „angel,‟ for looking
the war we are after them”
living in Mexico.”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr

27. Motivations
“Angela” “Claudia”
“I consider this as “…tweeting is an
a community altruistic
service, even community
though people service.”
might laugh about
it.”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr

28. What are your sources?
“Angela” “Claudia”
“Not all the information “Most of the
comes from Twitter. information is from los
There‟s a lot of people tuiteros, my followers.
who know what I do. In other cases, it‟s the
They have my number reporters on TV, local
and they call me… they news...”
are 100% citizens.”
Photo: mr. toaster on Flickr Photo:CarbonNYC on Flickr

29. Outline
1. Context
2. Information War
3. Tweeting the War
4. Citizen News Curators
5. Summary

30. 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).