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Digital wildfires: propagation, verification, regulation, and responsible innovation
Webb H., Burnap P., Procter R., Rana O., Stahl B., Williams M., Housley W., Edwards A., Jirotka M. ACM Transactions on Information Systems34 (3):1-23,2016.Type:Article
Date Reviewed: May 25 2016

“Digital wildfire” describes the rapid spread of “rumor and false/malicious information.” The authors provide an excellent review of research concerning how this occurs and where the gaps are in contemporary research. They subsequently discuss their own research agendas. Digital wildfires is truly an interdisciplinary topic, and both students and researchers in the computational and social sciences will want to read this excellent paper.

The authors proceed in a very logical and easy-to-read format with major headings and subtopics. The major headings are “Introduction: Social Media, Unverified Content, and Digital Wildfires”; “The Propagation of Digital Wildfires on Social Media”; “Responses to Digital Wildfires by Individuals and Agencies”; “Ethical Dimensions of Digital Wildfires and Social Media Governance”; “Addressing Gaps in the Responsible Governance of Social Media: A Research Agenda”; and a “Conclusion.” The authors provide excellent summaries of past research literature and open questions for future research.

The authors state: “it is necessary to build on an empirically grounded methodology for the study and advancement of the responsible governance of social media. This requires an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates relevant contemporary developments in computational science, the social sciences, computer ethics, and RRI [responsible research and innovation].” They briefly outline six of their own research activities. These include the following: “scoping ethical questions in relation to digital wildfires”; “scoping existing governance mechanisms, their limitations, and possibilities for further mechanisms”; “continuing case studies of digital wildfires through the quantitative and qualitative examination of social media data sets”; “a Delphi panel” [stakeholder groups look for areas of consensus]; “ethnographic interviews and observations”; and an “ethical security map” [a practical tool to aid policy decision making]. The paper concludes with an exhaustive list of references.

This presentation is worthy of your time.

Reviewer:  Brad Reid Review #: CR144446 (1609-0706)
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