RAPID: An Investigation of Information Diffusion Speed and Collective Intelligence During the Citizen Protests of Egypt and Middle East 2011

快速反应研究补助金(RAPID)项目将探索在国家内部和国家之间的公民之间高效和快速地建立共识的系统，并研究如何在短时间内动员如此大规模的自组织公民实现共同目标。在阿拉伯国家，一场激烈的民间抵抗运动在各国迅速蔓延。从2010年12月在突尼斯开始，它蔓延到埃及、阿尔及利亚、也门、伊朗、巴林、利比亚和摩洛哥。主流媒体和社交媒体都认为这是人类历史上规模最大的公民抗议活动，并争论社交媒体在阿拉伯国家引发了一场革命。在这项拟议的研究中，我们将研究两个问题。首先，我们建议调查信息通过社交媒体的传播速度。其次，我们建议探索其在社交媒体空间中的扩散和集体智力的产生和组织机制。为了衡量信息扩散速度，我们将应用曲线拟合回归方法。我们今天看到的不仅是民间抗议活动从一个城市蔓延到另一个城市，而且还每天从一个国家蔓延到另一个国家。我们认为，如果没有全球范围内极具流动性和速度极快的信息传递和共享系统，这种大规模抗议活动是不可能实现的。为了评估社交报道的出现、组织和传播模式，我们将运行社交网络分析。这将在两个不同的层面上完成：一个是在国家内部，另一个是跨国家。必须迅速收集数据，因为它是短暂的。考察跨境信息传播将使我们更好地理解社交媒体如何解构以领土为基础的传统的国家边界概念。这项研究将有助于知识，为在集体层面利用公民的潜力带来社会变革提供新的线索。具体地说，本研究将试图了解信息传播速度、抗议者的自组织和传播技术的协同进化模式，并将实证地展示集体社交媒体的潜力。

This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project will explore the efficient and rapid consensus building systems among citizens within and across countries, and examine how such a large scale of self-organized citizens can be mobilized in a short period of time with common goals. In the Arabic countries, an intensive campaign of civil resistance has spread rapidly from country to country. Starting in December 2010 in Tunisia, it spread to Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Iran, Bahrain, Libya and Morocco. Both mainstream media and social media agree that it is the largest citizen protest in human history, and debate that social media has caused a revolution in Arabic countries. In this proposed research, we will study two issues. First, we propose to investigate information diffusion speed through social media. Second, we propose to explore the emergence and organization of mechanisms of its diffusion and collective intelligence within social media space. To measure the information diffusion speed, we will apply the curve fitting regression method. What we observe today is not just the spread of civil protests from one city to another, but also from one country to another, on a day to day basis. We believe that this type of large scale protest cannot be enabled without the extremely mobile and fast information delivery and sharing systems that are available on a global scale. To assess the patterns of emergence, organization, and spread of social reporting we will run social network analyses. This will be done at two different levels: one within country, and the second across countries. Data must be collected rapidly because it is ephemeral. Examining cross-border information spread will enable us to better understand how social media can de-construct the territory based traditional concept of national borders. This research will contribute to knowledge by throwing new light on the way of harnessing citizens' potential at the collective level to bring about social changes. Specifically, this research will attempt to understand the co-evolution pattern of information diffusion speed, self-organization of protesters, and communication technology and will empirically show the potential of collective social media.