Jonathon Morgan comes on the show to talk about using data science to analyze and understand issues in the Middle East. Jonathon is the co-founder of CrisisNET, and recently co-authored the ISIS Twitter Census with J.M. Berger.

Topics:

• The data collection and verification involved in making the ISIS Twitter Census
• Dealing with multiple languages in their data set
• Information that can be learned from a large data set of ISIS supporters
• Potential to use data like this to study radicalization and improve countering violent extremism strategies
• Why journalists, scholars, and others should try using data science tools and techniques
• How to start using data science, even if you have no experience
• Limitations of data science and “big data”
• How to ask the right questions to make your data more valuable
• How subject matter experts can better work with data scientists

Links:

• The ISIS Twitter Census: Defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter - paper Jonathon co-authored with J.M. Berger for the Brookings Institution
• CrisisNET - an Ushahidi initiative to build a platform for the world’s crisis data, giving journalists, data scientists, developers, and other makers fast, easy access to critical government, business, humanitarian, and crowdsourced information.
• Partially Derivative - Entertaining and informative data science podcast Jonathon co-hosts with Chris Albon
• Resources — Partially Derivative - Great place to find out more about getting started with data science
• Jonathon Morgan (@jonathonmorgan) on Twitter
• Email Jonathon to find out more about organizations that link data scientists with subject matter experts
• Karl Morand (@KarlMorand) on Twitter

Thanks to Middle East Week patrons Alex Dunne and Michael Jorgensen! You can support the podcast by making a small donation on Patreon!