INSPIRE Track 2: Computational Modeling of Grievances and Political Instability through Global Media

INSPIRE 轨道 2：通过全球媒体对不满和政治不稳定进行计算建模

• 批准号: 1343123
• 负责人: Gary LaFree
• 金额: $ 259.45万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1343123&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: INSPIRE; Track; Computational; Modeling; Grievances

This INSPIRE award brings together research areas typically supported by the Political Science Program of the Social and Economic Sciences Division of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate; the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems and Office of Cyberinfrastructure of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate; and the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Directorate. Although the relationship between grievances and political instability has concerned and fascinated policymakers and scientists for more than a century, prior research has been limited to comparative analysis of countries and a limited number of social surveys conducted within select countries. These traditional methods are expensive, labor intensive, and slow. A stark example of the weakness of traditional approaches are the events of the so-called "Arab Spring" which resulted in the outbreak of mass protests across North Africa and the Middle East; led to the overthrow of regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya; fomented a brutal and prolonged civil war in Syria; and triggered severe crack-downs in Bahrain. The Arab Spring caught both policymakers and academics by surprise, even though these events appear to have developed in large part out of grievances that built over decades of autocratic rule, widespread corruption and economic stagnation. The main purpose of this research is to exploit the recent availability of worldwide, individual-level data from social media outlets such as Twitter and from the massive availability of worldwide news outlets to assess the possibility of measuring perceptions of grievances at the micro-level in real time for purposes of forecasting instability. It brings together researchers in computer science, mathematics, and the social sciences to generate theoretical and empirical advances. Hundreds of millions of people around the world are now using social media to communicate, making this technology-enabled forum a major de facto platform for political participation, expression, advocacy, and mobilization. In addition, the widespread availability of online news reports now offers the ability to collect content from newspapers and other print media worldwide and code for perceived grievances. By triangulating measures across social media, the news online, and traditional databases, the project evaluates their relative strength in terms of ascertaining and measuring grievances to forecast political instability. The overarching purpose of this research is to assist policymakers in developing improved methods for identifying and anticipating hot zones of instability and conflict. This has important implications for research but also for national policy, in terms of strategic thinking about defense, diplomacy, and humanitarian assistance, as well as in developing potential interventions and assessing their effectiveness once implemented.

该启发奖将社会，行为和经济科学社会和经济科学部门政治科学计划（SBE）局的政治科学计划（SBE）局汇集在一起​​；计算机和信息科学与工程局（CISE）局的信息和智能系统以及网络基础设施办公室；以及数学和物理科学的数学科学（MPS）局。尽管申诉与政治不稳定之间的关系涉及并着迷于一个多世纪的政策制定者和科学家，但先前的研究仅限于对国家的比较分析以及在某些国家内进行的数量有限的社会调查。这些传统的方法昂贵，劳动密集型且缓慢。传统方法弱点的一个例子是所谓的“阿拉伯春天”的事件导致北非和中东爆发大规模抗议活动。导致推翻埃及，突尼斯和利比亚政权；在叙利亚引起了残酷而漫长的内战；并触发了巴林的严重破裂。阿拉伯春季使政策制定者和学术界都感到惊讶，尽管这些事件似乎在很大程度上发展出了数十年来的专制统治，广泛的腐败和经济停滞的不满。这项研究的主要目的是利用来自Twitter等全球范围内的个人级别数据的最新可用性，以及来自全球新闻媒体的大量可用性，以评估为预测不稳定的目的，以实时的时间来衡量对微观级别的不满观念的可能性。它汇集了计算机科学，数学和社会科学领域的研究人员，以产生理论和经验进步。现在，世界各地数亿人正在使用社交媒体进行交流，这使该技术支持该论坛成为政治参与，表达，倡导和动员化的事实上的主要平台。此外，在线新闻报告的广泛可用性现在还提供了从报纸和其他印刷媒体和其他印刷媒体和代码的申诉的能力。通过对社交媒体，新闻在线和传统数据库进行三角措施，该项目在确定和衡量不满以预测政治不稳定的情况下评估了其相对的力量。这项研究的总体目的是协助决策者开发改进的方法来识别和预测不稳定和冲突的热区。这对研究具有重要意义，也对国家政策具有有关国防，外交和人道主义援助的战略思考，以及制定潜在干预措施并评估其有效性曾经实施的重要意义。