New Media, Accuracy and Balance of Power in Crises

I just read Nik Gowing’s book entitled “Skyful of Lies and Black Swans: The New Tyranny of Shifting Information Power in Crises.” The term “Black Swan” refers to sudden onset crises and the title of an excellent book on the topic by Nassim Taleb. “Skyful of Lies,” were the words used by the Burmese junta to dismiss the deluge of digital evidence of the mass pro-democracy protests  that took place in 2007.

Nik packs in some very interesting content in this study, a lot of which is directly relevant to my dissertation research and consulting work. He describes the rise of new media as “having an asymmetric, negative impact on the traditional structures of power.”

Indeed, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband labeled this “shifting of power from state to citizen as the new ‘civilian surge.’” To be sure, “that ‘civilian surge’ of growing digital empowerment is forcing an enhanced level of accountability that [...] is a ‘real change to democracy’.” As for authoritarian regimes, “the impact of new media technologies has been shown to be as potentially ’subversive’ as for highly developed democratic states.”

However, Nik recognizes that “the implications for power and policy-makers is not well developed or appreciated.” He adds that “the implications of this new level of empowerment are profound but still, in many ways, unquantifiable.” Hence the purpose and focus of my dissertation.

Time Lines out of Sync

Nik notes that the time lines of media action and institutional reaction are increasingly out of sync. “The information pipelines facilitated by the new media can provide information and revelations within minutes. But the apparatus of government, the military or the corporate world remain conditioned to take hours.”

Take for example, the tube and train bombings in London, 2005. During the first three hours following the incidents, the official government line was that an accidental power surge had caused the catastrophe. Meanwhile, some 1,300 blog posts were written within just 80 minutes of the terrorist attack which pointed to explosive devices as the cause. “The content of the real-time reporting of 20,000 emails, 3,000 text messages, 1,000 digital images and 20 video clips was both dramatic and largely correct.”

New Media and Accuracy

I find the point about accuracy particularly interesting. According to Nik, the repeated warnings that new media and user-generated content (UGC) cannot be trusted “does not seem to apply in a major crisis.”

“Far from it. The accumulated evidence is that the asymmetric torrent of overwhelming ‘amateur’ inputs from the new generators of content produces largely accurate, if personalized, information in real time. It may be imperfect and incomplete as the crisis time line unfolds.

There is also the risk of exaggeration or downright misleading ‘reporting’. But the impact is profound. Internal BBC research discovered that audiences are understanding if errors or exaggerations creep in by way of such information doer material, as long as they are sourced and later corrected.

In addition, the concept of trust can ‘flex’ in a crisis. Trust does not diminish as long as the ongoing levels of doubt or lack of certainty are always made clear. It is about ‘doing your best in [a] world where speed and information are the keys’. But the research concluded that the BBC needed to do more work to analyze the implications of the UGC phenomenon for accuracy, speed, personalization, dialogue and trust. That challenge is the same for all traditional media organizations.

Low Tech Power

Nik describes the onslaught of new media as the low tech empowerment of the media space. During the Burma protests of 2007, “the ad hoc community of risk-taking information doers became empowered. Those undisputed and widely corroborated images swiftly challenged the authority and claims of the regime.”

During the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, both foreign journalists and aid agencies were forbidden from entering the country. But one producer and camera operator from a major news organization “managed to enter the country on tourist visas. Before being arrested and deported they evaded security checks and military intelligence to record vivid video that confirmed the terrible impact and human cost of the cyclone. Hiding in ditches they beamed it out of the country on a new tiny, portable Bgan satellite uplink carried in a hiker’s backpack.”

The Question

This is definitely an example of the “asymmetric, negative impact on the traditional structures of power,” that Nik refers to in his introduction. Question is, how much of a threat does this asymmetry pose to repressive regimes? That is one of the fundamental questions I pose in my dissertation research.

Patrick Philippe Meier

MDG Monitor: Combining GIS and Network Analysis

I had some fruitful conversations with colleagues at the UN this week and learned about an interesting initiative called the MDG Monitor. The platform is being developed in collaboration with the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM).

Introduction

The purpose of the MDG Monitor is to provide a dynamic and interactive mapping platform to visualize complex data and systems relevant to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The team is particularly interested in having the MDG Monitor facilitate the visualization of linkages, connections and relationships between the MDGs and underlying indicators: “We want to understand how complex systems work.”

The icons above represent the 8 development goals.

The MDG Monitor is thus designed to be a “one-stop-shop for information on progress towards the MDGs, globally and at the country level.” The platform is for “policymakers, development practitioners, journalists, students and others interested in learning about the Goals and tracking progress toward them.”

The platform is under development but I saw a series of compelling mock-ups and very much look forward to testing the user-interface when the tool becomes public. I was particularly pleased to learn about the team’s interest in visualizing both “high frequency” and “low frequency” data. The former being rapidly changing data versus the latter slow change data.

In addition, the platform will allow users to drill down below the country admin level and overlay multiple layers. As one colleague mentioned, “We want to provide policy makers with the equivalent of a magnifying glass.”

Network Analysis

Perhaps most impressive but challenging is the team’s interest in combining spatial analysis with social networking analysis (SNA). For example, visualizing data or projects based on their geographic relationships but also on their functional relationships. I worked on a similar project at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) back in 2006, when colleagues and I developed an Agent Based Model  (ABM) to simulate internal displacement of ethnic groups following a crisis.

Agent Based Model of Crisis Displacement

As the screenshot above depicts, we were interested in understanding how groups would move based on their geographical and ethnic or social ties. In any case, if the MDG Monitor team can combine the two types of dynamic maps, this will certainly be a notable advance in the field of crisis mapping.

Patrick Philippe Meier

Global Vulnerability Alert (GVA): A New Early Warning Initiative?

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is calling for better real-time data on the impact of the financial crisis on the poor. To this end, he is committing the UN to the development of a Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System (or GVA) in the coming months.  While I commend the initiative’s focus on innovative data collection, I’m concerned that this is yet another “early warning system” that will fail to bridge alert and operational response.

The platform is being developed in collaboration with the World Bank and will use real time data to assess the vulnerability of particular countries or populations. “This will provide the evidence needed to determine specific and appropriate responses,” according to UNDP. UN-Habitat opines that the GVA will be a “vital tool to know what is happening and to hold ourselves accountable to those who most need our help.”

According to sources, the objective for the GVA is to “ensure that in times of global crisis, the fate of the poorest and most vulnerable populations is not marginalized in the international community’s response. By closely monitoring emerging and dramatically worsening vulnerabilities on the ground, the Alert would fill the information gap that currently exists between the point when a global crisis hits vulnerable populations and when information reaches decision makers through official statistical channels.”

GVA will draw on both high frequency and low frequency indicators:

“The lower frequency contextual indicators would allow the Alert system to add layers of analysis to the real time “evidence” generated by the high frequency indicators. Contextual indicators would provide information, for example, on a country’s capacity to respond to a crisis (resilience) or its exposure to a crisis (transmission channels). Contextual indicators could be relatively easily drawn from existing data bases. Given their lesser crisis sensitivity, they are generally collected less frequently without losing significantly in relevance.”

“The high frequency indicators would allow the system to pick up significant and immediately felt changes in vulnerability at sentinel sites in specific countries. This data would constitute the heart of the Alert system, and would provide the real-time evidence – both qualitative and quantitative – of the effects of external shocks on the most vulnerable populations. Data would be collected by participating partners and would be uploaded into the Alert’s technical platform.”

“The pulse indicators would have to be highly crisis sensitive (i.e. provide early signals that there is a significant impact), should be available in high periodicity and should be able to be collected with relative ease and at a reasonable cost. Data would be collected using a variety of methodologies, including mobile communication tools (i.e. text messaging), quick impact assessment surveys, satellite imagery and sophisticated media tracking systems.”

The GVA is also expected to use natural language processing (NLP) to extract data from the web. In addition, GVA will also emphasize the importance of data presentation and possibly draw on Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software.

There’s a lot more to say on GVA and I will definitely blog more about this new initiative as more information becomes public. My main question at this point is simple: How will GVA seek to bridge the alert-response gap? Oh, and a related question: has the GVA team reviewed past successes and failures of early warning/response systems?

Patrick Philippe Meier

OCHA’s Humanitarian Dashboard

I recently gave a presentation on Crisis Mapping for UN-OCHA in Nairobi and learned a new initiative called the Humanitarian Dashboard. The Dashboard is still in its development phase so the content of this post is subject to change in the near future.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Nick Haan, a colleague from years back, is behind the initiative. I had consulted Nick on a regular basis back in 2004-2005 when working on CEWARN. He was heading the Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) at the time.

Here’s a quick introduction to the Humanitarian Dashboard:

“The goal of the Dashboard is to ensure evidence-based humanitarian decision making for more needs-based, effective, and timely action.  The business world is well-accustomed to dashboards for senior executives in order to provide them with a real-time overview of core business data, alert them of potential problems, and keep operations on-track for desired results.

Stephen Few, a leader in dashboard design defines a dashboard as “a single-screen display of the most important information people need to do a job, presented in a way that allows them to monitor what’s going on in an instant.”   Such a single-screen or single-page overview, updated in real time, does not currently exist in the humanitarian world.”

The added values of the Dashboard:

1. It would allow humanitarian decision-makers to more quickly access the core and common humanitarian information that they require and to more easily compare this information across various emergencies;
2. It would provide a common platform from which essential big picture and cross sectoral information can be discussed and debated among key stakeholders, fostering greater consensus and thus a more coordinated and effective humanitarian response;
3. It would provide a consolidated platform of essential information with direct linkages to underlying evidence in the form of reports and data sets, thus providing a much needed organizational tool for the plethora of humanitarian information;
4. It would provide a consistently structured core data set that would readily enable a limitless range of humanitarian analysis across countries and over-time.

I look forward to fully evaluating this new tool, which is currently being piloted in Somalia, Kenya and Pakistan.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: The Future of Civil Resistance

The final presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on the future of nonviolent conflict. This future depends largely on the quality of our thinking.

There is a surprising development of civil resistance. To be sure, the frequency of occurrences is accelerating. At the same time, a consensus on concepts and dynamics is also surfacing. The definition of civil resistance which is gaining traction is as follows:

Civil resistance is a type of political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods. It is largely synonymous with certain other terms, including ‘non-violent action’, ‘non-violent resistance’, and ‘people power’. It involves a range of widespread and sustained activities that challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime—hence the term ‘resistance’. The adjective ‘civil’ in this context denotes that which pertains to a citizen or society, implying that a movement’s goals are ‘civil’ in the senes of being widley shared in a society; and it generally denotes that the action concerned is non-military or non-violent in charachter.

This definition is taken from the forthcoming book “Civil Resistance & Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Ghandhi to the Present” edited by Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash.

Civil resistance will increasingly be the preferred strategy for countering repression. This is due to the better success/failure ratio of civil resistance and the fact that nonviolent transitions have a more democratic outcome.

Skill of civil resistance will become increasingly ascendant over restrictive conditions. They will be less limited by the brutality of the regime. In addition, they will be less constrained by low civil society development. Hence the need for training in civil resistance.

Foreign policy elites will increasingly recognize civil resistance as a contest without a predetermined outcome. To this end, we need to do the following:

• End the sterile debate on whether to engage or not to engage rather than who to engage with;
• End the distinction between hard and soft power;
• Better understanding of the varieties of assistance to opposition movements;
• Create norms for requests for assistance rather than right to protect.

In conclusion, we are neither at “the end of history” nor “the return of history.” The advancement of civil resistance puts us at “the end of the return of history.” So how do we accelerate this process?

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Civil Resistance in Democracies

The fourteenth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on movements and elections. The talk was given by none other than Professor Doug McAdam from Stanford University. I’m a big fan McAdam’s research and have cited his work in my dissertation research.

What is absolutely stunning in the social movement literature is the almost complete lack of reference to the role of elections. Likewise, the literature on elections virtually ignores the role of social movements. These academic silos reminded of my dissertation proposal in which I note that the nonviolent civil resistance virtually ignores the role of communication technology.

There are five dynamic links between social movements and elections:

• Elections as a social movement tactic
• Proactive electoral mobilization
• Reactive electoral mobilization
• Elections shaping the longer-term waxing and waning of movement fortunes
• Party polarization via social movement pressures

The standard explanation for social movement mobilization, known as political process theory (PPT), emphasizes the role of political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes, along with protest cycles and contentious repertoires. Movements can use an electoral strategy to manage political transitions. Social movements can also become part of important coalitions in the election process.

One of the most brilliant campaign strategies, according to McAdam, is Freedom Summer in 1964.

“This was a campaign in Mississippi launched to register as many African American voters as possible, which up to that time had almost totally excluded black voters. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of four established civil rights organizations: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), with SNCC playing the lead role.”

One participant noted that at times social movements (e.g., indigenous movements in Mexico and Guatemala) explicitly boycotts elections or at the very least deliberately do not place any importance in the electoral process. I don’t think this necessarily contradicts McAdam’s point, those indigenous movements did have a strategy—one of non-engagement.

The way I see it, elections are critical processes in any case. As McAdam explains, “elections do create a moment when mobilization is more or less legitimate, they provide a cover.” More fundamentally, I would crystallize the importance of elections around the notion of predictability. In other words, elections are scheduled events and provide an anchor around which resistance movements can plan and prepare for.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Repressive Strategies, Democratic Assistance & Civil Resistance

The thirteenth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on international efforts to assist, defend and advance democratic development. The talk also focused on the strategies implemented by repressive regimes to prevent uprisings.

There are a number of issues that arise in democratic assistance:

• Is supporting democratic parties in advance of elections assistance or intervention?
• Fine line between democracy promotion and “picking sides”
• Difficult to identify who the democrats are
• Risk of futility: lost causes
• Risk of misuse of aid by corrupt and sincere actors; need to monitor.
• Risk of supporting Western-oriented NGOs to the exclusion of more authentic groups.
• Where does the initiative come from, the donor or the recipient?

The Color Revolutions

There are several well known successes in civil resistance movements. But to really understand what makes movements successful requires that we clearly understand why some movements failed, such as Burma 1990, Belarus 2006, Zimbabwe 2008. Iran is as yet undetermined.

There are some external conditions facilitating color revolutions:

• Democratic leverage: susceptibility to Western/democratic pressure as a result of economic or security ties.
• Relative lack of reciprocal leverage on West.
• Linkages: economic, geopolitical, social, communication and transnational civil societies.

Linkages make repression more costly by:

• Heightening Western attention and stakes.
• Increasing the prospect that Western governments will impose costs.
• Creating democratic constituencies with a stake in democratic reform.
• Strengthening demo actors in relation to autocrats.

The authoritarian backlash: Authoritarian learning. These regimes do the following:

• Preempt the favorable conditions for mass mobilization to bring about democratic change.
• Study and learn from other successful color revolutions. They have thus developed a number of counter-strategies.
• Restrict alternative political space more aggresively.
• Foment divisions among the political opposition.
• Forbid/criminalize the receipt of international grants by independent media and NGOs. This has placed a devastating role.
• Sever international democratic ties.
• Forbid international observation of elections.
• Forbid or harass domestic election monitoring.
• Shut down mobile networks, SMS, post-election, as crisis builds.
• Preemptively seize control of public spaces, block access for mass ralies; utilize force early and brutally.
• Redeploy security forces to ensure loyalty.
• Import and deploy powerful Internet monitoring and filtration systems.
• Borrowing and cooperation among authoritarian regimes.

Iran Conditions

There are favorable conditions and still some space for political pluralism. There are high levels of information and education. There is some unification of opposition. There are regime splits, unpopular incumbent. Extensive capacity is using new technologies.

There are however unfavorable conditions. Lack of a parallel vote tabulation to “prove” election fraud. Regime control of security forces so far. The regime is has the technical skill and capacity to monitor and block information. There is little Western leverage.

Tipping factors in Iran include:

• Courage, commitment, strategy of opposition leadership
• Opposition ability to craft and sustain campaign of non-violent civil resistance, vs “returning to normal”
• Further regime splits: where will the clerifcal establishment (Qom) and various security branches come down?
• Battle of information technology between regime and opposition: repression or evasion? Liberation technology: increasing use of Internet, cell phones, SMS and new social media?

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Media and Nonviolent Conflict

The twelfth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on the role of the media in civil resistance. The media can be a powerful force in supporting the principles of a nonviolent struggle. At the same time, the media can also frame issues in a very unhelpful way.

I should say that the tactics and strategies below are core to the field of digital activism. DigiActive provides training on how to use new media to frame your message and how to connect with mainstream media. One needs to set an “agenda of resistance” in all media interventions.

News framing is like a picture frame; new influences what people think and feel about but also influences what people do not think about. Words activate particular frames of seeing. The challenge for activists is to “mediatize” your own conflict.This means framing the conflict at home and abroad. Getting your values and vision across can substantially change the strategic balance of your struggle

In order to interact with the media, nonviolent movements have to understand what journalists need:

• Clear, molded messages: What are you trying to say?
• For clearly targeted audiences: Whom are you trying to reach? Your first audience is us in the press.
• With a local angle or news-peg: Why does it matter to me?
• Promotion is key: Storytelling is story selling double meaning.

Journalists in essence perform two functions: verification and justification. The challenge for the activists’ organization is to be able to feed both these appetites:

• Capacity to deliver the event/development journalists can themselves witness;
• Capacity to provide the “justifiable” sources and commentators.

Being able to provide both enables the nonviolent activist to trade in the media market at some competitive advantage.

What makes a good story?

• Information: what do people need to know? Why does a story matter to me?
• Human appeal: News is people, who they are, what they want, and how they get it. Issues need a human face.
• Buzz factor: what are people talking about? News is deviation from norm. Mode of delivery matches message. Nonviolence is often a deviation from the norm.

One participant asked whether the story of Neda in Iran helps or hurts the civil resistance? On the one hand, Neda has come to frame the current struggle. On the other hand, it does demonstrate that the regime is cracking down and may help spread fear. CNN turned the story of Neda into a story on “how CNN covers the Neda story” as opposed to the story behind Neda.

Don’t fight the media, figure them out:

• Understand who covers what
• Target your media audience: TV? Radio? Print? Internet?
• Make relationships, maintain them (not just when news breaks)
• Understand news cycles
• Pitch the right reporter at the right time
• Mold the message say it simply
• Personify your story: we cover people, not issues
• Keep deadlines in mind
• Know how journalists see their competition

Get your story out on the Internet: Why? How?

• Reach a new audience
• Free distribution
• Increase your numbers
• Get feedback
• Meet allies
• Signal adversaries
• Raise money
• Pitch to journalists
• Great blogs have new posts several times a day

In conclusion, understand what makes a story; remember who you’re trying to reach and how; treat the press like an ally, not an enemy; technology is your friend (but use it safely/securely); develop flexibility in your ability to get your message to people.

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Law, Justice and Nonviolent Conflict

The eleventh presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on Rule of Law and Justice in nonviolent action. This was an interesting talk on the commonalities between the strategies in nonviolent conflict and post-conflict constitution making, e.g., participatory and inclusive approaches increase legitimacy.

The presentation on Rule of Law was somewhat technical and formalistic, which was actually very helpful for those of us not well versed in this area. The process of constitution making is not one I’m familiar with but the discussion reminded me of a colleague’s interesting in setting up a platform to “crowdsource” a constitution.

The topic of Truth Commissions was also presented. These are often referred to Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. The reconciliation process is often not possible so seeking to establish co-existence is frequently preferable.

There are three primary intersections between nonviolent movements and the legal/justice process in post-conflict scenarios:

1. Movement’s goals/vision of tomorrow;
2. Indivisibility of means and ends;
3. Relationship with security forces.

Some important questions thus follow

• In what specific ways can a nonviolent campaign smooth the way for transnational justice while simultaneously contributing to the likelihood of success for the movement?

• What kinds of goals would specifically be included in a manifesto/vision of tomorrow?

Patrick Philippe Meier

FSI09: Role of Diplomats & Diasporas in Civil Resistance

The tenth presentation at the Fletcher Summer Institute (FSI) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict focused on how diplomats can assist democratic movements and what role the diaspora plays in the democracy movement.

The Diplomats Handbook is designed to give diplomats options regarding what they can do vis-a-vis diplomatic intervention. The golden rules for diplomats include listening, respecting, understanding and sharing. Guidelines are provided on how to demarche governments (like Iran’s currently) and how to inform the media (like in Burma); providing a space for meeting; attending rallies (like Ukraine) to act as a witness; ultimately to protect (like Italian embassy in Tehran).

The diaspora plays 4 important roles in the democratic process:

1. Act as the voice of conscience to the world.
2. Lobby diplomats for internationa support and cooperation.
3. Mobilize activists for grassrooots involvement both inside and outside the country.
4. Provide psychological and financial support to the movement.

In building a partnership with the international community, diasporas call for the:

1. Protecting human rights.
2. Spreading democracy.
3. Building of civil society.

Actions are also needed from foreign diplomats. These include:

1. Promoting the cause within one’s own government.
2. Sending a unifying message regarding human rights and democracy.
3. Exert pressure against human rights violations.
4. Engage democratic groups.
5. Support grassroots independent organizations.

One participant noted that the diaspora can also play a negative role by acting as spoilers in a particular process. Cuba doesn’t really qualify but I’m struck at how different the perspectives of Cubans in Miami are from those of Cubans on the island. Once the Castros are gone, how will the relationship between the diaspora and Cubans on the island be managed?

In the case of Vietnam, the nonviolent opposition groups in the diaspora make a point to go back to Vietnam on a regular place to work side by side with counterparts in country.

Another conversation that ensued was on the role of the US State Department, and specifically how nonviolent movements can manage that relationship. In one case, a participant mentioned that the State Department has been one of the most frustrating impediments. Another participant volunteered guidance: with the State Department, you need to apply a lot of pressure and make friends with the right people in State.

One final observation emphasized the need for the diaspora to be the voice of conscience both outside the country and also within the country.

Patrick Philippe Meier