Reconstructing Crisis Narratives

The emergence of a crisis is often accompanied by unexpected events, uncertain signals, malicious misinformation, and conflicting reports that must be collectively interpreted and analyzed to understand the complex nature and scope of the situation, and its potential implications for society. This research jointly conducted between Aalto University and THL seeks to analyze and reconstruct crisis narratives through a mixed methods approach using qualitative research and social media analytics. We are designing a platform representing and visualizing such information to engage decision-makers, front-line responders, stakeholders, and the general public in making sense of crises and perceptions of risk and trust. Temporal interactive visualization of crisis narrative threads are used to support participatory narrative building and multiple hypotheses, facilitate discovery of unusual patterns, and collaborative sense-making for devising cooperative crisis preparedness and response.
 

Crisis Narratives is a multidisciplinary research consortium between Aalto University and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and collaboration with University of Helsinki. Research conducted in this project provides insightful information about stories and discourses of crisis. The project is funded by Academy of Finland. Further details can be found on the project website: https://crisisnarratives.fi/en/

Nitin Sawhney

principal investigator

MInttu tikka

Post doctoral researcher

Ali Unlu

senior researcher

Henna Paakki

doctoral researcher

Kaisala Kaijava

doctoral researcher

uttishta varanasi

design researcher