Session 3 - Researching away from the city: Innovative data and methodologies
From Vania Ceccato
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Chair: Prof Rob Mawby, Harper Adams University, UK
Police, text alert and community. Drawing the field of rural security in Ireland
Artur Pytlarz and Matt Bowden, Technological University of Dublin, Ireland
Emails: D13122709@mytudublin.ie, matt.bowden@TUDublin.ie
This paper will attempt to outline the field of security in rural Ireland. The presented data were obtained during a series of observations conducted in the Irish countryside during community meetings concerning the operation of the Text Alert Scheme, at the moment the dominant crime prevention initiative being a mixture of community engagement and use of informational technology. Conducted observations were used to map and analyse the politics of rural security using the concept of field, where the field should be understood as a symbolic and narrative space occupied by players within criminal justice. Therefore, the interactions between three main actors: the police force, NGO and rural dwellers recorded during the observations were used in the research of rural security governance with a strong emphasis on the nuanced and complicated nature of the interplay and negotiation between these three players who often play “the same” game but are hoping to achieve their own goals.
Using crowdsourcing to study the safety perceptions and experiences of tourists
Rob Mawby, Harper Adams University, UK, Email: professorrobmawby@hotmail.com
While much of the emphasis in criminology has been on crime in urban areas, non-urban locations can also be crime hotspots. One example of this relates to tourist resorts, especially those catering for international mass tourism. In such areas tourists may feature disproportionately as both victims and offenders. However, identifying tourists who have been the victims of crime is particularly difficult. We have therefore recently used crowdsourcing, specifically MTurk, to address the relationship between tourism and crime. This presentation addresses three questions: what do people feel about the risks entailed in opting for particular destinations; how much at risk are they when on vacation; and how can we explain why some tourists are more at risk than others?
Social media and emergency services: Information sharing about cases of missing persons in rural Sweden
Speaker: Vania Ceccato, KTH, Sweden, Email: vania.ceccato@abe.kth.se
In this presentation we discuss the nature of information sharing in social media about missing persons by using social media data (mostly Twitter) and conventional media coverage (media archives). By focusing on the cases of three people gone missing in rural Sweden, we show that the geography of information sharing in social media about a missing person is not random, revealing a globally dispersed pattern across the country. We also found that information sharing contains more emotional than informational content, hitting a peak of spread after a person is found deceased. This finding indicates that the value of information shared by social media as a problem-solving resource may have so far been overestimated in the process of finding missing persons. In addition, tweets show indications that voluntary organisations constitute a valuable resource in rural contexts but not without impact on the existing networks of stakeholders delivering emergency services.
Police, text alert and community. Drawing the field of rural security in Ireland
Artur Pytlarz and Matt Bowden, Technological University of Dublin, Ireland
Emails: D13122709@mytudublin.ie, matt.bowden@TUDublin.ie
This paper will attempt to outline the field of security in rural Ireland. The presented data were obtained during a series of observations conducted in the Irish countryside during community meetings concerning the operation of the Text Alert Scheme, at the moment the dominant crime prevention initiative being a mixture of community engagement and use of informational technology. Conducted observations were used to map and analyse the politics of rural security using the concept of field, where the field should be understood as a symbolic and narrative space occupied by players within criminal justice. Therefore, the interactions between three main actors: the police force, NGO and rural dwellers recorded during the observations were used in the research of rural security governance with a strong emphasis on the nuanced and complicated nature of the interplay and negotiation between these three players who often play “the same” game but are hoping to achieve their own goals.
Using crowdsourcing to study the safety perceptions and experiences of tourists
Rob Mawby, Harper Adams University, UK, Email: professorrobmawby@hotmail.com
While much of the emphasis in criminology has been on crime in urban areas, non-urban locations can also be crime hotspots. One example of this relates to tourist resorts, especially those catering for international mass tourism. In such areas tourists may feature disproportionately as both victims and offenders. However, identifying tourists who have been the victims of crime is particularly difficult. We have therefore recently used crowdsourcing, specifically MTurk, to address the relationship between tourism and crime. This presentation addresses three questions: what do people feel about the risks entailed in opting for particular destinations; how much at risk are they when on vacation; and how can we explain why some tourists are more at risk than others?
Social media and emergency services: Information sharing about cases of missing persons in rural Sweden
Speaker: Vania Ceccato, KTH, Sweden, Email: vania.ceccato@abe.kth.se
In this presentation we discuss the nature of information sharing in social media about missing persons by using social media data (mostly Twitter) and conventional media coverage (media archives). By focusing on the cases of three people gone missing in rural Sweden, we show that the geography of information sharing in social media about a missing person is not random, revealing a globally dispersed pattern across the country. We also found that information sharing contains more emotional than informational content, hitting a peak of spread after a person is found deceased. This finding indicates that the value of information shared by social media as a problem-solving resource may have so far been overestimated in the process of finding missing persons. In addition, tweets show indications that voluntary organisations constitute a valuable resource in rural contexts but not without impact on the existing networks of stakeholders delivering emergency services.
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