The 2014 UP TWSC Public Lecture Series on Natural Disasters Lecture 4-- Chaotic Networks, Networked Chaos: Crowdsourcing in the New Media on Natural Disasters

The 2014 UP TWSC Public Lecture Series on Natural Disasters

LECTURE 4

Chaotic Networks, Networked Chaos:  
Crowdsourcing in the New Media on Natural Disasters

25 November 2014 (Tuesday), 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
College of Mass Communication Auditorium, University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City

PROGRAM
2:00 – 2:05 

Opening Remarks

2:05 – 2:10 

Introduction of the Lecturer and Reactors

2:10 – 2:50 

Lecturer

Maria Ressa

Chief Executive Officer

Rappler

2:50 – 3:20 

Reactors
Susan Pancho-Festin
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Science
University of the Philippines Diliman

Danilo Arao
Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
College of Mass Communication
University of the Philippines Diliman

3:20 – 3:55 

Open Forum

3:55 – 4:00 

Closing Remarks

Moderator

Jely Galang

Deputy Director, Third World Studies Center and

Assistant Professor, Department of History

College of Social Sciences and Philosophy

University of the Philippines Diliman

ABOUT THE LECTURE

New media has been hailed as the “ultimate game changer” for natural disasters. Declared as having made possible “a real first for humanitarian response in the 21st century,” the new media, spanning social networking sites, Web 2.0 platforms, and mobile applications, have been the “go-to tools” in mapping out real-time information during natural disasters. They provide a bird’s eye view on the unravelling of the disaster, directing help to where it is needed in unprecedented fashion. The new media owes its success to a time when “access to information is as important as access to food and shelter,” as once argued by National Geographic Explorer Patrick Meier. In the Philippines, Typhoon Pablo witnessed new media’s crisis mapping capabilities, when the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) activated the Digital Humanitarian Network, a network of solutions teams that monitored over tens of thousands of tweets in a span of ten hours during the typhoon. From the “curated tweets,” the team produced a metadata containing information on media type (photo or video), the type of damage, analysis of the damage, GPS coordinates, date, as well as links to other media types. The database was created and shared with OCHA Philippines in less than 24 hours. The solutions teams attributed this to the rich “social media footprint” of Filipinos and a similar grassroots “information-sharing” dynamics was seen more recently during Typhoon Yolanda. While Facebook made possible a “donate button” in its newsfeeds and Google launched “Person Finder,” netizens streamlined the use of hashtags in Twitter for efficient online coordination of relief efforts offline—and success stories have been remarkable. A Filipina doctor, who posted a call for help during Typhoon Yolanda in a social networking website, received donations amounting to £30,000 in less than 24 hours. There seems to be no dispute to what the country can gain from what the new media makes possible in terms of disaster prevention and relief. Yet the new media also has its share of flak—”slacktivism,” where political engagement has been limited to a click of a button arguably reducing its merit; “trolling,” where racist comments have proliferated in the wake of natural disasters in an attempt to pull down efforts to rise above the disaster; as well as “information overload,” where netizens become saturated and rewired only to absorb not more than 140 characters of information. The backlash is they end up relying on other people to act and leave it at that. The end result is a virtual community where netizens find themselves “alone, together” in its “collective action and shared responsibility.” With the Philippines tagged as “the world’s most disaster-hit country,” and recently “the world’s most sociable online race,” how does this impact on the country’s present precarity? Who are the amorphous mass of Filipino netizens and how much of their real-time actions wield power, if at all, before, during, and after natural disasters? How can we re-imagine Philippine encounters of natural disasters with the future of new media?

KEY QUESTIONS 

1. What has been the role of new media on disaster prevention and relief in the Philippines? Some have characterized the new media as having revolutionized disaster response all over the world, but to what extent is it the ultimate game changer in disaster prevention and relief in a country with low internet penetration (35 percent of the total population)?

2. With the Philippines recently tagged as “the world’s most sociable online race,” how does this impact on the country’s precarious status as “the world’s most disaster-hit country”?

3. Who are the amorphous mass of Filipino netizens and how much of their real-time actions wield power, if at all, before, during, and after natural disasters?

4. While the new media has been a leverage with which netizens have demonstrated responsibility as a call for accountability, how sustainable are these collective actions in the transitory cycle of news feeds?

5. How can we re-imagine Philippines encounters of natural disasters with the future of new media?

See link for the concept paper of the public lecture series.