Crisis informatics

Tracking and Unpacking Rumor Permutations to Understand Collective Sensemaking Online

This research addresses empirical and conceptual questions about online rumoring, asking: (1) How do online rumors permute, branch, and otherwise evolve over the course of their lifetime? (2) How can theories of rumor spread in offline settings be extended to online interaction, and what factors (technological and behavioral) influence these dynamics, perhaps making online settings distinct environments for information flow?

Understanding Online Audiences for Police on Social Media

While the use of social media as a community policing tool has gained attention from precincts and law enforcement oversight bodies, the ways in which police are expected to use social media to meet these goals remains an open question. This study seeks to explore how police are currently using social media as a community policing tool. It focuses on Twitter – a functionally flexible social media space – and considers whether and how law enforcement agencies are co-negotiating norms of engagement within this space, as well as how the public responds to the behavior of police accounts.

Dr. Spiro Awarded NSF Grant

Dr. Spiro and Dr. Starbird were awarded an NSF grant to study Collective Sensemaking Online. The research project will address empirical and conceptual questions about online rumoring, asking: (1) How do online rumors permute, branch, and otherwise evolve over the course of their lifetime? (2) How can theories of rumor spread in offline settings be extended to online interaction, and what factors (technological and behavioral) influence these dynamics, perhaps making online settings distinct environments for information flow?

Mass Convergence of Attention During Crisis Events

This project employs a longitudinal study of social network structures in a prominent online social media platform to characterize instances of social convergence behavior and subsequent decay of social ties over time, across different actors types and different event types.

Welcome Summer REU Students

New research published in PNAS

Detecting Misinformation Flows in Social Media Spaces During Crisis Events

This research seeks both to understand the patterns and mechanisms of the diffusion of misinformation on social media and to develop algorithms to automatically detect misinformation as events unfold.

Upcoming Presentation: What Should Count?

Upcoming Presentation: Online Information Behaviors During Disaster Events

Next week I will be speaking at the UW Center for Statistics and the Social Science Seminar. I will be presenting recent joint work with Harrison Reeder, Carleton Colleege and Tyler McCormick, UW Department of Sociology and Statistics. Online Information Behaviors During Disaster Events: Roles, Routines, and Reactions Abstract: Social media and Internet-based messaging systems are increasingly important platforms for risk communication. A global audience turns to these tools to seek, disseminate, and curate time-sensitive, emergency information during periods of crisis.

New Research: Online Information Behaviors During Disaster Events

Working paper now published as part of the Center for Statistics and the Social Science Working Paper Series: Online Information Behaviors During Disaster Events: Roles, Routines, and Reactions Harrison, McCormick and Spiro Abstract: Social media and Internet-based messaging systems are increasingly important platforms for risk communication. A global audience turns to these tools to seek, disseminate, and curate time-sensitive, emergency information during periods of crisis. Moreover, emergency management organizations report adopting these tools to augment their typical public information functions.