“The Third Wave”: Big Data Analytics Multicenter Study Provided by EMC Academic Alliance in Russia and the CIS

Abstract

The article presents the results of the first phase of the Big Data Analytics Multicenter Study initiated by the EMC Academic Alliance in Russia and the CIS. The results show that unstructured arrays of keywords related to the Big Data reflect the actual global society processes in the Internet information environment. Arrays of special keywords can be used for prognostic assessment of the states in Big Data Analytics. Dataficated text’s words “mobile phone” related to 2011, when the Arab Spring started, turned out to be associated with social and democratic processes in the global society and not with a statistical increase in the number of mobile phone users in the Arab countries. A statistical measure of mobile phone subscribers correlates with several Big Data dataficated text’s words such as “terrorist”, “terrorism”, “violence”, and “democracy”. Contrary to the spread of mobile phones that contributed to the “Arab spring”, no relationship between the number of the Internet and social network users and the above-mentioned Big Data characteristics describing the Arab upheavals was revealed. These findings strengthen the importance of mobile communications in social processes and the existing approaches to counteract terrorism where a special attention is paid to the terrorist mobile communication. The spatiotemporal structure (surface diagram of correlation field) was defined to describe the Arab Spring as an Internet political phenomenon referring to the mobile phone penetration. This spatiotemporal structure is similar across four dataficated text’s words (“terrorist”, “terrorism”, “violence”, “democracy”). As it resembles a snail, it is called a Snail-structure. The Snail-structure demonstrates a strong correlation between four dataficated text’s words related to 2011 and mobile phones distribution in 2011 and later. It is concluded that the mobile phone penetration was so high in the MENA region that it became a catalyst for the Arab mass unrest. Another correlation was detected between dataficated text’s words related to 2014-2015 and mobile phones’ distribution in 2009. At present, it is difficult to explain this retrograde correlation. A further research based on the findings obtained is needed.