论文标题
世界上未知的网络:委内瑞拉难民危机中的公共WhatsApp团体
Networks in a World Unknown: Public WhatsApp Groups in the Venezuelan Refugee Crisis
论文作者
论文摘要
到2020年3月上旬,有500万委内瑞拉人在其完整的经济和机构崩溃后逃离了本国,超过160万移民到哥伦比亚。移民努力在哥伦比亚开始生活,几乎没有经济资源,通常没有法律文件,几乎没有提供他们的法律文件。然而,委内瑞拉移民在很大程度上依赖移动电话和社交媒体网络作为信息,机会和资源的寿命 - 使WhatsApp成为移民解决和集成的关键工具,也是我们可以更好地了解移民体验的数据来源。本文探讨了委内瑞拉移民到哥伦比亚使用的公共WhatsApp小组的动态,以及他们可以告诉我们有关移民如何使用和共享信息的内容。我们将信息扩散和信任的研究集中,尤其是当它们与小组内的集中和地理异质性相交时。我们广泛分析信息和会员资格,然后探索群体内的互动,假新闻和经济骗局以及冠状病毒大流行的影响。我们的结果具有一系列政策影响,从对哥伦比亚在冠状病毒大流行中关闭边界的决定的反思到了解援助组织如何有效地通过社交媒体渠道共享信息的理解。
By early March 2020, five million Venezuelans had fled their home country after its complete economic and institutional collapse, and over 1.6 million have migrated to Colombia. Migrants struggle to start their lives over in Colombia, having arrived with few economic resources, and often no legal documentation, in cities with little to offer them. Venezuelan migrants, however, rely heavily on mobile phones and social media networks as lifelines for information, opportunities, and resources -- making WhatsApp both a critical tool for migrants' settlement and integration, as well as an invaluable source of data through which we can better understand migrant experiences. This thesis explores the dynamics of public WhatsApp groups used by Venezuelan migrants to Colombia, and what they can tell us about how migrants use and share information. We center our research on information spread and trust, especially as they intersect with concentration and geographic heterogeneity within groups. We analyze messages and memberships broadly, then explore interaction within groups, fake news and economic scams, and effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Our results have a range of policy implications, from reflections on Colombia's decision to shut its borders amidst the coronavirus pandemic, to understandings of how aid organizations can effectively share information over social media channels.