Journal ArticleDOI
A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data
TLDR
In this article, the authors present a quantitative assessment of reporting bias in a micro-level analysis of media-based event reports and those from military sources, showing that the purported violence-increasing effect of cellphone coverage is partly due to higher reporting rates of violence in cellphone-covered areas.Abstract:
Recent data collections about political violence are frequently based on media reports, which can lead to reporting bias. This is an issue in particular for the emergent literature on communication technology and conflict, since this technology may not only affect violence, but also the reporting about it. Using the effect of cellphones on violence as an example, this article presents a quantitative assessment of reporting bias in a micro-level analysis. Comparing media-based event reports and those from military sources, the results show that the purported violence-increasing effect of cellphone coverage is partly due to higher reporting rates of violence in cellphone-covered areas. A simple diagnostic procedure for this problem is implemented. Applied to the analysis of cellphones and violence in Africa, it produces a pattern that is consistent with reporting bias driving much of the effect found in the Pierskalla and Hollenbach (2013) study about this topic.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
How Social Media Is Changing Conflict
TL;DR: The authors provide a framework for understanding social media's influence on conflict through four interrelated points: (1) social media reduces the costs of communication, (2) it increases the speed and dissemination of information, (3) scholars should focus on the strategic interaction and competitive adaptation of actors in response to communication technology changes, and (4) the new data that social media provides are not only an important resource, but also fundamentally change the information available to conflict actors, thereby shaping the conflict itself.
Journal ArticleDOI
Predicting armed conflict: Time to adjust our expectations?
TL;DR: This Essay provides an introduction to the general challenges of predicting political violence, particularly compared with predicting other types of events (such as earthquakes).
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Reading between the lines: prediction of political violence using newspaper text
Hannes Mueller,Christopher Rauh +1 more
TL;DR: It is shown that the within-country variation of topics is a good predictor of conflict and becomes particularly useful when risk in previously peaceful countries arises, and allows for the avoidance of predicting conflict only in countries where it occurred before.
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Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provided the first comprehensive evaluation of UN peacekeeping success in protecting civilians at the subnational level, arguing that UN peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political and military costs for warring actors to engage in civilian targeting.
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Repression Technology: Internet Accessibility and State Violence
TL;DR: In this paper, a subnational analysis of the relationship between states' dynamic control of Internet access and their use of violent repression is presented, showing that higher levels of Internet accessibility are associated with increases in targeted repression, whereas areas with limited access experience more indiscriminate campaigns of violence.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Estimating site occupancy rates when detection probabilities are less than one
Darryl I. MacKenzie,James D. Nichols,Gideon B. Lachman,Sam Droege,J. Andrew Royle,Catherine A. Langtimm +5 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a model and likelihood-based method for estimating site occupancy rates when detection probabilities are 0.3 was proposed for American toads (Bufo americanus) and spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer).
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The Structure of Foreign News: The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers
Johan Galtung,Mari Holmboe Ruge +1 more
TL;DR: Using a simplified psychology of perception and some additional assumptions, a system of twelve factors describing events is presented in this paper that together are used as a definition of newsworthiness, i.e., "newsworthiness".
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Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset
TL;DR: The ACLED dataset as discussed by the authors is an Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset (ACLED) covering 50 unstable countries from 1997 through 2010, covering civil war and transnational violent events.
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The use of newspaper data in the study of collective action
TL;DR: This article discussed approaches to detecting bias, as well as ways to factor knowledge about bias into interpretations of protest event data, and found that a newspaper's decision to cover an event at all is influenced by the type of event, the news agency, and the issue involved.
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Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset
Ralph Sundberg,Erik Melander +1 more
TL;DR: The rationale for the new UCDP GED is introduced, the basic coding procedures as well as the quality controls are explained, and an example of how the data can be used is provided, by illustrating the association between cities and organized violence, taking population density into account.