Social Media and Revolution by Julia Skinner. A multi-disciplinary look at the Haren riots.

I'm going to be honest here. This paper is so general that it basically becomes immune to scrutiny. All it really attempts to do is offer three paradigms that could be used to research social media as a communication platform during times of revolution. It never claims any of these three paradigms (physical research, cognitive research and social informatics) to be superior or better in any way, and provides legitimate criticisms to each of them.

Again this is a paper focusing on the importance of taking a multi-disciplinary approach to research. One single field or paradigm is not capable of answering all the questions, so getting 'disciplinary-tunnel-vision' and neglecting any field outside of your own expertise, will make you prone to missing out on valuable information.

Image courtesy goes to dutch news channel 'Hart van Nederland'

I feel that this was a very prominent problem in the public sector analysis of the Haren riots in the Netherlands that took place last year. For those of you who are not familiar with this riot, here's the skinny: A teenage girl living in the town of Haren had a birthday coming up, and invited her friends through a Facebook event. She forgot to manage the privacy settings on this event, making it a public event for the world to see. Within a very short amount of time, hundreds of people decided it would be fun to go, even though they did not know her. Pretty soon the local media caught on to what was happening, and the event page was immediately taken down from Facebook. At this point thousands of people had pledged to be present, so it wasn't long until new events made by others, detailing the party time and location under the name 'Project X Haren', popped up. During the day of the party there were thousands of people Face-booking and tweeting about it, and the government decided to severely limit public transport to Haren in an attempt to prevent chaos. Regardless, a mob of nearly 25.000 people showed up in the small town. The night ended in riots, looting, clashes with riot police and 25 arrests.

Image courtesy goes to dutch news site Nu.nl

Perhaps as expected, for a small country like the Netherlands this was big news. It wasn't long until several politicians had public statements to make about the riots in Haren. Chief of which was ex labor party leader Job Cohen, who pledged to lead an inquiry committee that would research the riots. Those who have seen interviews with Mr  Cohen at the time will probably remember his position on the matter; Facebook played a crucial part in this. A rather surprising comment came from the German minister for consumer protection, Ilse Aigner, who claimed that Facebook should  be partially held accountable for the damage caused in Haren on that night.

Me, and many peers, would openly discuss this view on the matter in days following his announcement. My major argument against Mr. Cohen and Mrs. Aigner remains that Facebook had no major part in the events and can not be held accountable. Their views seem to be grounded in the Physical paradigm, as described by Skinner, because they seem to discount the fact that it was people who responded to the event and went to Haren in the first place. To blame the main communication medium Facebook for these riots is like blaming the telephone for the battle of Beverwijk (a massive football hooligan riot in 1997).

As proposed by skinner, to provide answers to a question, one should not limit themselves to only one view. Yes, Facebook did play a part in these riots, in the sense that it made communications about the event possible. If we'd all be dependent on the mail service for communication these days these riots would arguably never have happened. This does not take away the social and cognitive aspects of the situation. From a cognitive perspective there's a lot to say about how people found out about the event, what drove the massive gain in publicity and what effects the underlying context had. A look from the social informatics could yield an even deeper people-centric understanding of this event. Skinner goes on to say "during the Egyptian revolution, Internet service was stopped in an attempt to hinder protests. As a response, protesters turned to older technologies such as citizen band radios, fax machines, and modems to connect and share information". This further supports my point that a medium can not be the sole blame for any event of this nature. Perhaps it's a bit extreme to compare the revolution in Egypt to a small town riot, but this does show how a tool is not necessarily to blame for its uses.


As a closing statement, here's one last quote from Skinner that Mr. Cohen and Mrs. Aigner should read.
It is hoped that readers will also consider the value in drawing from multiple approaches and will understand the importance of tailoring a method to a question, rather than the other way around.

-Julia Skinner