Editing Humanitarianism (section)

==Digital humanitarianism==
{{See also|Digital Humanitarian Network|Internet activism|Relief 2.0}}

In 2005, a question was raised as to whether [[Wikipedia]] can be seen as digital humanitarianism.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Pink|first1=Daniel H.|authorlink=Daniel H. Pink|title=The Book Stops Here|url=https://www.wired.com/2005/03/wiki/|magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]|access-date=6 January 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Koerner|first1=Brendan I.|authorlink=Brendan I. Koerner|title=The Best of Technology Writing 2006|date=9 August 2006|publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]]|isbn=0472031953|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HWlhWVD4gdYC&pg=PA108&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false|access-date=6 January 2017|language=en}}</ref>

[[Patrick Meier (humanitarian)|Patrick Meier]] used the term 'digital humanitarianism' to describe [[crowdmapping]] for the [[2010 Haiti earthquake]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Shringarpure|first1=Bhakti|author-link=Bhakti Shringarpure|title=The rise of the digital saviour: can Facebook likes change the world?|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/digital-saviour-saving-lives-internet-age-save-darfur|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=6 January 2017|date=18 June 2015|archive-date=28 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428175524/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/digital-saviour-saving-lives-internet-age-save-darfur|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Crisis Mapping Pioneer Focuses on Humanitarian Uses For Drones|website=NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495992706/crisis-mapping-pioneer-focuses-on-humanitarian-uses-for-drones|publisher=NPR|access-date=6 January 2017|date=29 September 2016|archive-date=7 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107170952/http://www.npr.org/2016/09/29/495992706/crisis-mapping-pioneer-focuses-on-humanitarian-uses-for-drones|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Meier|first1=Patrick|title=How Crisis Mapping Saved Lives in Haiti|url=http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/02/crisis-mapping-haiti/|publisher=National Geographic Society (blogs)|access-date=6 January 2017|date=2 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211043039/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/02/crisis-mapping-haiti/|archive-date=11 February 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2011, Paul Conneally gave a [[TED talk]] on digital humanitarianism in which he states that humanitarianism's "origins are firmly rooted in the analogue age" with "a major shift coming".<ref>{{cite web|title=Digital Humanitarianism|url=https://olc.worldbank.org/content/digital-humanitarianism|publisher=World Bank Group|access-date=6 January 2017|archive-date=7 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107100853/https://olc.worldbank.org/content/digital-humanitarianism|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=wired1>{{cite magazine|last1=Collins|first1=Katie|title=How AI, Twitter and digital volunteers are transforming humanitarian disaster response|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/digital-humanitarianism|magazine=Wired UK|access-date=6 January 2017}}</ref> In 2015 he authored the book ''Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data Is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response''.

Vincent Fevrier notes that "[[social media]] can benefit the humanitarian sector... by providing information to give better [[situational awareness]] to organisations for broad strategic planning and logistics" and that "[[crisis mapping]] really emerged in 2010 during the Haiti earthquake" with "software and digital humanitarian platforms such as Standby Task Force, [[OpenStreetMap]], and many others" being active during many disasters since then.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Illingworth|first1=Sarah|title=Is Digital Humanitarianism All Good?|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-illingworth/is-digital-humanitarianis_b_9612576.html|work=Huffington Post|access-date=6 January 2017|date=5 April 2016|archive-date=7 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107100316/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-illingworth/is-digital-humanitarianis_b_9612576.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In fact, the role of social media in digital humanitarian efforts is a considerable one. Ten days after the 2010 earthquake, the "[[Hope for Haiti Now]]" telethon event was launched in the United States, effectively taking over the mediasphere and reaching hundreds of millions of households and viewers. It focused on appealing to the viewing public's empathy for the survivors of the disaster, allowing ordinary citizens to help in a collective relief effort by contributing money donations to [[NGOs]] providing Humanitarian aid to earthquake survivors.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McAlister |first1=Elizabeth |title=Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, and the Haiti Earthquake |journal=Small Axe |date=2012 |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=22–38 |url=https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/_flysystem/fedora/2023-03/28739-Original%20File.pdf |doi=10.1215/07990537-1894078 |s2cid=144995319 |access-date=28 June 2019 |archive-date= |archive-url= |url-status= |url-access= }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=McAlister |first1=Elizabeth |title=Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, and the Haiti Earthquake |url=https://works.bepress.com/elizabeth_mcalister/39/ |website=bepress.com |access-date=28 June 2019 |archive-date=4 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151004062644/https://works.bepress.com/elizabeth_mcalister/39/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> The telethon attracted support through a variety of celebrity musical performances and staged calls for empathy, using digital social networks to disseminate its appeal to the moral responsibility of the viewer-consumers who are able to reinforce identification with a national identity of the American 'savior' through participation in this Humanitarian project.

During the summer of 2010, when open fires raged across Russia, causing many to die from smog inhalation,<ref name="Meier2015">{{Cite book|title=Digital Humanitarians|last=Meier|first=Patrick|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|location=New York|pages=49}}</ref> the use of social media allowed digital humanitarians to map the areas in need of support. This is because Russians who were hoping to be evacuated were posting online about the conditions they were in which prompted thousands of Russian bloggers to coordinate relief efforts online.<ref name="Meier2015" /> The digital humanitarian efforts in Russia were crucial to responding to the fires in 2010 considering the Russian government was vastly unprepared to deal with such a large-scale disaster.<ref name="Meier2015" />

Within digital humanitarianism, [[big data]] has featured strongly in efforts to improve digital humanitarian work and produces a limited understanding of how a crisis is unfolding. It has been argued that Big Data is constitutive of a social relation in which digital humanitarians claim both the formal humanitarian sector and victims of crises need the services and labor that can be provided by digital humanitarians.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Burns|first1=Ryan|title=Rethinking big data in digital humanitarianism: practices, epistemologies, and social relations|journal=GeoJournal|date=9 October 2014|volume=80|issue=4|pages=477–490|doi=10.1007/s10708-014-9599-x|s2cid=40297692|url=https://burnsr77.github.io/assets/uploads/burns_rethinking_big_data.pdf|access-date=6 January 2017|archive-date=6 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160706090056/http://burnsr77.github.io/assets/uploads/burns_rethinking_big_data.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>