Kartikeya Bajpai, & Anuj Jaiswal. (2011). A framework for analyzing collective action events on Twitter. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Recent years have witnessed multiple international protest movements which have purportedly been greatly affected by the use of Twitter, a micro-blogging platform. Social movement actors in Iran, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand are thought to have utilized Twitter to spread information, co-ordinate protest activities, evade government censorship and, in some cases, to spread misinformation. We propose a framework for conceptualizing and analyzing Twitter data related to contentious collective action crises. Our primary research goal is to delineate a framework informed with a social movements lens and to demonstrate the framework by means of Twitter usage data related to the Thailand protests of 2010. Our proposed framework concerns itself with two aspects of protest activities and Twitter usage, namely, analyzing the content and structure of messages and our construct of Twitter protest waves.
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Andrea H. Tapia, Kartikeya Bajpai, Bernard J. Jansen, & John Yen. (2011). Seeking the trustworthy tweet: Can microblogged data fit the information needs of disaster response and humanitarian relief organizations. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Message data has, as yet, not been adopted by large-scale, international humanitarian relief organizations in an instrumental fashion. While the largest of these organizations have adopted messaging as part of their Public Relations functions, few have used any form of message data originating in the field, at the time of disaster. The message data being contributed by bystanders and those affected by a disaster, as it is happening, has largely been deemed as unverifiable and untrustworthy, and thus construed as unsuitable for incorporation into established mechanisms for organizational decision-making. In this paper, we describe the discursive barriers to the use of microblogged data by Humanitarian NGOs during times of disaster. We present data and findings from a study involving representatives from thirteen humanitarian organizations. Our analysis suggests that the organizational barriers, both in terms of function and structure, and the data itself, form barriers to organizational use of microblogged data. We propose three socio-technical solutions to surpassing adoption bottlenecks, namely bounded microblogging, microblogged data as contextual data, and/or use of computational solutions.
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Louis-Marie Ngamassi Tchouakeu, Carleen Maitland, Andrea H. Tapia, & Kartikeya Bajpai. (2011). Humanitarian organizational collaboration: Information technologies as necessary but not sufficient. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Organizations in the humanitarian relief field increasingly need to look outside their own boundaries and engage in a significant level of inter-organizational collaboration. In studying collaborative processes in the nonprofit context, researchers have used different theoretical approaches to investigate the motivations behind why organizations collaborate. Although these studies have contributed to shed some lights on these collaborative mechanisms, little is still known about the main factors that influence the decision of humanitarian organizations to engage into collaboration especially with regards to the implications of information technologies. In this paper, we explore factors for collaboration among members of the GlobalSympoNet, a network of organizations engaged in humanitarian information management. We analyze data collected through nineteen semi-structured interviews. We identified seven factors that could be grouped into three categories including structural, behavioral and organizational. Our findings also suggest that information technologies alone are not enough to motivate and maintain long lasting collaboration.
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Louis-Marie Ngamassi Tchouakeu, Carleen Maitland, Andrea H. Tapia, Kang Zhao, & Kartikeya Bajpai. (2010). Assessing humanitarian inter-organizational network effectiveness: The case of GlobalSympoNet. In C. Zobel B. T. S. French (Ed.), ISCRAM 2010 – 7th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: Defining Crisis Management 3.0, Proceedings. Seattle, WA: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: This paper reports on research in progress. The objective of the study is to assess the effectiveness of multidimensional humanitarian inter-organizational networks. Especially, it investigates how organizational characteristics and network structure properties impact network effectiveness. To this end, the research develops a model of network effectiveness in the humanitarian field, using the case of GlobalSympoNet, a network of organizations/agencies engaged in humanitarian information management and exchange. Data for the research come from a series of three surveys and semi-structured interviews conducted among organizations/agencies members of GlobalSympoNet. Social network analyses are done using UCINET (Borgatti et al., 1999). Some preliminary results are presented here.
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