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This work forms a part of a series of "on the ground" studies dealing with (post-)conflict situations, focusing on the iterative, participatory design of a tool, Cyberactivist, for protection for activists and the empirical research that led to it. Work on the development of privacy and security tools has not always recognized the fragile nature of the political processes in emerging democracies, frequent naivety about threat, nor the "occasioned" responses of activists because activism can be a "one time" endeavor, prompted by specific events. Researching political activism in Republika Srpska, we identified issues relating to the use of ICT and social media, leading to the redesign of our prototype which now raises awareness of privacy and security and supports activists by challenging ignorance, lowering exposure, and enabling remediation. We addressed "usable security" challenges to ensure simplicity of the tool and engaged with HCI researchers focused on international activism to assess the global applicability of the technical design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media usage during the recent uprisings in Arab countries has gained increasing attention in human–computer interaction research. This study adds to these insights by providing some findings on the use of information and communications technology (ICT), specifically mobile media, by opposition forces and political activists during the Syrian civil war. The presented study is based on 17 interviews with Syrian FSA fighters, activists, and refugees. A first analysis showed evidence for some very specific use patterns during wartime (compared to media usage of political activists under less anomic conditions). The study also describes a fragmented telecom infrastructure in Syria: government-controlled regions offer fairly intact infrastructures while rebel-controlled regions have been cut off from telephone and Internet. Moreover, the central and very critical role of mobile video for documenting, mobilization, and propaganda is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]