In Mexico’s deadly war on drugs, the use of information technology has become widespread. For instance, once journalists became targets of the cartels and reduced their reporting in traditional media, information began flowing from Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and YouTube videos. After the Mexican government decided to stop publishing information about the number of people killed by organized crime, websites started using Google Maps to track patterns of violence. Andrés Monroy-Hernández and Javier Osorio will present their research on the use of new media and technology in reporting and finding trends in drug violence in Mexico. Karla Zabludovsky of the New York Times’s Mexico City Bureau will comment on the role that alternative media has played in the coverage of the war on drugs.

You can follow the discussion on Twitter with the hashtag #MexViolence.

• Presentation from Javier Osorio
• Presentation from Andrés Monroy-Hernández (PPT)
• Remarks by Karla Zabludovsky (PDF)