Collaborative Research: Collective Sense Making Following a Terrorist Attack: The Immediate and Long-Term Impact on Public Resilience

社交媒体已经成为公众应对恐怖主义的核心。从突发新闻的传播，到提供社会支持，再到激进、仇恨信息的传播，人们越来越多地转向社交媒体来分享和了解恐怖事件。这个项目利用社交媒体数据来调查2015年11月巴黎袭击事件中个人的反应。它既分析了他们对袭击的即时社会和情感反应，也分析了他们沟通行为的长期变化。调查主要集中在三个问题上。首先，在袭击发生后的即时反应中，在袭击发生后的混乱和情绪背景下，如何以及如何有效地进行临时后勤沟通，例如使用#PorteOuverte标签为陌生人提供庇护。其次，个人对袭击的不同方面的关注，比如特定的新闻报道，不同种族群体的作用，或者袭击后社交媒体讨论的其他突出方面，对他们对恐怖主义威胁的长期态度有什么影响？第三，政府当局和专业新闻媒体如何以及在多大程度上广泛地影响公众对特定社会群体的关注。这一研究成果既可以改善对特定恐怖袭击的反应，也可以增强公众对恐怖主义施加社会影响的具体手段的理解。该项目推进了集体语义的理论研究，在这里被理解为在认知上理解、情感上接受和逻辑上回应令人惊讶的破坏性事件的突发的、共同的尝试。该项目通过关注时间和主题的差异，以一种新颖的方式解决了集体意义。分析将集中于短期和长期的通信行为变化，例如情绪表达的变化或对特定url的引用的变化。通过利用文本挖掘、网络科学方法和技术以及社交媒体的传播理论，将解决方法问题，如选择偏差和不同意义构建行为的测量。这样做，该项目将大大提高对公民对恐怖袭击的即时和长期行为反应的理解。

Social media has become central to the public's response to terrorism. From the transmission of breaking news, to the offering of social support, to the dissemination of radical, hateful messages, people increasingly turn to social media to both share and gain understandings of terrorist events. This project utilizes the social media data to investigate the reactions of individuals located in Paris during the November 2015 attacks. It analyzes both their immediate social and emotional reactions to the attacks as well as longer-term changes in their communication behavior. The investigation focuses on three questions. First, in immediate response to the attacks, how, and how effectively, did improvised logistical communications, such as the use of the #PorteOuverte hashtag offering shelter to strangers, emerge in the chaotic and emotional context of the attack aftermath. Second, what effect did attention by individuals to different aspects of the attack, such as particular news stories, the role of different ethnic groups, or other salient aspects of social media discussion after the attacks influence their longer term attitudes toward the threat of terrorism. Third, how and to what extent did government authorities and professional news outlets sway this public attention both broadly and for specific social communities. This research outcome will both improve responses to specific terrorist attacks as well as enhance public understanding of the specific means through which terrorism wields social influence. The project advances the theoretical study of collective sensemaking, understood here as the emergent, communal attempt to cognitively understand, emotionally accept, and logistically respond to surprising, disruptive events. The project addresses collective sensemaking in a novel way by focusing on both temporal and subject based differences. Analysis will focus on both short-term and longer-term communication behavioral changes, such as changes in the expression of sentiment or of reference to specific URLs. Methodological issues such as selection bias and the measurement of different sensemaking behaviors will be addressed by leveraging text mining, network science methods and techniques, and communication theories of social media. In so doing, the project will greatly improved understanding of both the immediate and longer-term behavioral responses of citizens to a terrorist attack.