Trust, Perceptions, and Effects of News Sources and Social Media: A Data Driven Study of the Recent Unrest in Kashmir

Abstract

In recent times, the Kashmir Valley in India has seen a resurgence of mass protests and separatist violence. Some experts believe that the new wave of separatism may have its roots in social media which provides a fertile platform to catalyze mass protests. While the penetration of the Internet is fairly even throughout the Kashmir Valley, certain regions and subdivisions have been affected more adversely by the recent unrests. We seek to model dichotomies in both the demographic factors and regional effects, and external factors such as the influence of social and traditional media in the form of television broadcasting and print. We describe a data driven approach to model the propensity of Kashmiri youth to secessionism based on an extensive survey that includes basic demographic data and their use, belief in social and news media. The proposed approach helps us uncover interesting patterns of activity with in the Kashmir Valley.