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

快速反应研究基金（RAPID）项目将探索在各国国内和各国公民之间建立有效和快速的共识体系，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迅速从一个国家蔓延到另一个国家。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革命。 在这项研究中，我们将研究两个问题。首先，我们建议调查通过社交媒体的信息传播速度。第二，我们建议探讨其扩散和集体智慧的社会媒体空间内的机制的出现和组织。为了测量信息扩散速度，我们将采用曲线拟合回归方法。 我们今天看到的不仅仅是民间抗议活动从一个城市蔓延到另一个城市，而且还从一个国家蔓延到另一个国家，日复一日。我们认为，如果没有全球范围内的极其移动的和快速的信息传递和共享系统，这种类型的大规模抗议就无法实现。为了评估社会报道的出现、组织和传播模式，我们将进行社会网络分析。这将在两个不同的层面上进行：一个是在国内，另一个是在各国之间。必须迅速收集数据，因为数据是短暂的。审视跨境信息传播将使我们更好地了解社交媒体如何解构基于领土的传统国界概念。 这项研究将有助于增进知识，为如何在集体一级利用公民的潜力实现社会变革提供新的思路。 具体而言，本研究将试图了解信息传播速度，抗议者的自组织和通信技术的共同进化模式，并将实证显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.