How is social media facilitating xenophobia in sub-Saharan Africa?

我的研究的广泛目标是在低强度但致命的群体间冲突中研究社交媒体对公民行为的影响。我将采用一种混合的方法，结合网络和内容分析与焦点小组，具体调查如何Twitter可能是促进种族他者在尼日利亚的农牧民冲突。所选案例具有深刻的相关性，有可能丰富我们对社交媒体文化及其对撒哈拉以南非洲暴力冲突影响的理解。这种理解对于帮助我们超越经合组织世界中关于社交媒体和选举政治的持续讨论至关重要。然而，在非经合组织国家，社交媒体对政治行为的影响程度超出了选举，其暴力特征明显可见-煽动种族仇恨和恐惧，加剧人类的不安全感，往往增加集体暴力的风险。值得注意的是，我们对社交媒体与武装冲突之间的这种不利关系的理解很差。拟议的研究承诺发展一个理论的连接暴力作为一个框架，以解决研究问题。我的理论基础上的假设，冲突丰富的叙事囤积的潜力转换为正在进行的（或未来）冲突的积极参与者的公共部分。在这方面，我将对关于尼日利亚农牧民的Twitter叙述进行内容分析，然后研究这些叙述对在线媒体消费者的流动和影响。对拟议研究的一个智力期望是，连接暴力理论可以卓有成效地加强正在进行的关于危机期间社交媒体使用的学术和政策辩论。这种贡献在查明仇外言论的来源方面可能证明是可行的，而且总是有助于促进适当的媒体管制、对紧张局势的早期预警以及控制或缓解冲突的反制措施。此外，拟议的研究的理论相关性可以超出研究项目的地理范围，并可能是有用的，在其他情况下，需要一个最重要的需要了解信息流和消费的连接行为。

The broad aim of my research is to examine the effects of social media on citizens' behaviour during low-intensity, but deadly intergroup conflicts. I will employ a mixed method, combining network and content analyses with focus group, to specifically investigate how Twitter might be facilitating ethnic othering in the Nigeria's farmers-herders conflict. The selected case bears profound relevance with the potential to enrich our understanding of social media culture and its impact on violent conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. Such understanding is crucial to help us move beyond sustained discussions about social media and electoral politics in the OECD world. In non-OECD countries, however, the magnitude in which social media shape political behaviour is beyond elections, and noticeably evident in its violent character - inflaming ethnic hatred and fear, aggravating human insecurity and often raising the stakes for collective violence. Notably, our understanding of this adverse relationship between social media and armed conflict is poorly developed. The proposed research promises to develop a theory of connective violence as a framework to address the research questions. I base this theory on the assumptions that conflict-rich narratives hoards the potential of converting public segments into active participants of ongoing (or future) conflicts. In this regard, I will conduct a content analysis of Twitter narratives about the farmers-herders in Nigeria and then examine the flow and impact of such narratives on online media consumers. One intellectual expectation of the proposed research is that the theory of connective violence can fruitfully enhance ongoing academic and policy debates on social media use during crisis. Such contribution may prove viable in identifying sources of xenophobic narratives, and invariably serve to facilitate appropriate media regulations, early warnings of tensions, and counteracting measures to control or mitigate the conflict. Moreover, the theoretical relevance of the proposed study can exceed the geographical scope of the research project and may be useful in other contexts that requires a paramount need to understand the connective behaviour of information flow and consumption.