1. WikiLeaks and the Myth of
(Data-Driven) Citizen
Journalism
Catalina Iorga, Research MA in Media Studies ’11, University of Amsterdam

2. The Benefits of Open Govt. Data
External Contributions
• Specialised skills, local knowledge, ‘professional
amateurs (Jennifer Bell, VisibleGovernment.ca, 2009)
Citizen Empowerment
• “these applications arm citizens with the information
they need to make decisions every day” (data.gov,
2010)
Software Innovation
• Open licenses, existing technologies and communities
(Jonathan Gray, Open Knowledge Foundation, 2010)

3. Data-driven Journalism
Large datasets available online
• The Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010 (WikiLeaks,
2010)
Information visualisation tools
• Guardian Data Explorer (Tony Hirst)
Narratives powered by the Web
• Using the Web “to tell a story, not just as a
delivery medium” (Alan Maclean, The New York
Times, 2010)

4. Data-driven Journalism
Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Data_driven_journalism_process.jpg

5. Research Question
What kind of stories do (data-driven)
citizen journalists tell about the war in
Afghanistan by referencing WikiLeaks
documents?

6. Intended WikiLeaks
‘Assange himself has stated that WikiLeaks has
deliberately moved away from the "egocentric"
blogosphere and assorted social media and
nowadays collaborates only with professional
journalists and human rights activists.’
(Geert Lovink, ‘Twelve Theses on WikiLeaks’, 2010)

7. Distinction
data-driven mainstream journalism
vs.
data-driven citizen journalism

8. Why Links?
• Forms of citation
• Indicators of (citizen / user) engagement

9. Afghan War Diary
• “ an extraordinary secret
compendium of over 91,000 reports
covering the war in Afghanistan
from 2004 to 2010.”
• “ the most significant archive about
the reality of war to have ever been
released during the course of a
war.”
(WikiLeaks,
2010) Image source: http://wardiary.wikileaks.org

10. Afghan War Diary - Der Spiegel
“Deadly Toll”
(Der Spiegel, 2010: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bild-708314-114716.html)

11. Afghan War Diary - The
Guardian
“Afghanistan war logs: IED attacks on civilians, coalition and Afghan troops”
(The Guardian, 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/jul/26/ied-
afghanistan-war-logs)

12. Methodology
•
Observe the common root of all Afghan War Diary 2004 -
2010 document URLs (‘http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/
event').
•
Query Google with the Google Scraper to get the first 1000
results which contain this common root as a textual
component.
•
Submit the top 100 results to the Link Ripper to extract all
outlinks to specific Afghan War Diary 2004 - 2010 document
pages.
•
Insert the Link Ripper output in the Harvester to remove
textual descriptions and alphabetize the obtained URL list.
•
Manually clean the output by searching for the 'http://
wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/event' and produce a list of Afghan
War Diary 2004 - 2010 document URLs.
•
Select all documents that receive at least two links and
compile a final list of the 'most mentioned' warlogs.

13. Limitations
• Searching for inlinks with Yahoo! Site Explorer
or Google yielded similar results.
• Finding inlinks with different descriptions is
very difficult.

14. Types of Accounts
Local Interest Descriptive Lists
(James Barlow, Jul 26 2010: http://jamesbarlow.co.uk/british-entries-afghan-
war-diaries)

15. Types of Accounts
‘Connect the Dots’ / Conspiratorial Reasoning
(Peak of Elephants, Jul 26 2010: http://peakofelephants.posterous.com/post/
861912878)

16. Most Linked Logs
Idaho Soldier Captured in Afghanistan
• WTOP (news radio, Washington, DC)
• 8 mentions
• KomoNews (news radio, Seattle, DC) • Only
• SF Examiner (daily paper, San Francisco, CA) mainstream
stories
• Newser (US-based news site)
• Lebanon Daily News (daily paper, Lebanon County, PA)
• Las Vegas Sun (daily paper, Las Vegas, NV)
• Yahoo! News
• AP (press agency)

17. Most Linked Logs
Four Canadians Killed in Friendly Fire
• UberVu
• 4 mentions
• Ottawa Forums • Overlap of
• Wikipedia mainstream and
alternative comments
• CyberPresse

18. Conclusion
Data-Driven Citizen Journalism = Absent
Possible Reasons
• too much data
• technical military terms
• mainstream media filters

19. Credits
Research done by:
•
Camilo Cristancho (PhD candidate in Political Science at the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
•
Matteo Cernison (PhD Candidate in Social and Political Science at
European University Institute, Florence)
•
Catalina Iorga
Wiki: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/
DataDrivenUserJournalism

20. P.S.
Go to http://wikileaks.ch/ (instead of the official website)
for:
• Guantanamo Files: http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/
• Cablegate: http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
• Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs: http://wikileaks.ch/iraq/
diarydig/

21. Thank you for your time and
attention!
E-mail: catalina.iorga@gmail.com
Web: http://catalinaiorga.wordpress.com