RAPID: Social Media: Learning from the Boston Marathon Bombing

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The April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing (BMB) is a fresh reminder that societies can be shocked not only by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes but also by acts of terrorism. The bombing engaged the public in multiple ways, and social media platforms (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) enabled the public to become both informed and to some extent involved. Digital traces that can be collected from these sites present a brief window of opportunity for research on how, and to what extent, this involvement emerged. This RAPID project will collect data from social media such as Twitter and other linked sources to address questions about the flow of information about the event across traditional and social media, the propogation and amplification of unsubstantiated information and misinformation, differences between official and popular social media use, self-organization of efforts for assistance or suspect tracking and changes in public sentiment over time. Data from this event may reveal differences in the dynamics of social media use in the wake of terrorist events vs. natural disasters. The intellectual merit of the proposed project is that it combines emerging methods and techniques for social media research with recent research on disaster response coordination and planning to develop a conceptual model of the BMB information flows to guide data collection and analysis. Because the Boston Marathon attracted participants from around the world, this bombing has a global dimension that may affect the nature and reach of the social media communications. Broader impacts of the project include educational benefits from students involved in the project and in courses that will be informed by the project findings. The collected data will be made available to other researchers and the principal investigators plan to coordinate their work with others examining this event, thus contributing to the infrastructure for science. The proposal includes funding for dissemination of the results of preliminary analysis of the collected data. Results from analysis may offer an improved guide for research on communication and information flows in crises and disasters (whether natural or human-initiated), thus benefiting society.