Ep 47 - Youth and Gang Violence on Social Media, with Dr. Desmond Patton

Conversations from the Leading Edge

In this episode, Peter T. Coleman interviews Dr. Desmond Patton, an innovative social work researcher who focuses on youth violence research. He shares stories about his research on Internet Banging, as well as the potential utility of social media to identify certain hot zones or spots of violence as well as the implications and challenges of working with social media. He brings qualitative methods and data science to understand how and why youth and gang violence, trauma, grief and identity are expressed on social media and the real world impact they have on well-being for low-income youth of color. Dr. Patton tells about his partnership with the Data Science Institute at Columbia on his current research projects that examine how gang involved youth conceptualize threats on social media, the extent to which social media shapes and facilitates youth and gang violence, and how social media can be used to intervene in youth and gang violence. He explains how data is gathered and interpreted and how he also works with people on the ground, including outreach workers, community based organizations and others, in certain communities of high violence where the research is focused. One of the current pieces of his research, says Dr. Patton, is to invite us to "consider social media as an ecological system that we need to understand and see the implications for in social work practice." Dr. Patton discusses the current aims and challenges in his current research. He humbly shares about his previous work on Internet Banging. His previous research has been discussed on several media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, NPR, Boston Magazine, ABC News, and was most recently cited in an Amici Curae Brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in the Elonis vs United States case which examined the issues of interpreting threats on social media. Before coming to Columbia in July of 2015, Dr. Patton was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and School of Information. He received a BA in Anthropology and Political Science, with honors, from the University of North Carolina- Greensboro, MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work and PhD in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago.