D3 1 Usage Patterns Of Social Media In Emergencies (original) (raw)
Using ICT & Social Media in Disasters: Opportunities & Risks for Government
Risk and Resilience Report, 2013
When a crisis is unfolding, people no longer wait for an official statement from government actors; rather they turn to the news media, they go to Twitter or Facebook, they log onto forums and blogs, etc., because they expect information and they can get it quickly from various sources. In such a dynamic information environment, if a government lacks a policy on how to use social media, particularly in crisis situations (meaning it does not act, or act appropriately), then it may face a loss of credibility and struggle with the management of a crisis. To get ahead of this curve, debating the risks and opportunities of using social media is a critical first step to building a sound social media policy and identifying certain engagement guidelines. This report examines four different issue areas to analyze how social media is used in the context of risk and crisis communication. These areas include: public safety and preparedness; emergency warnings, alerts and requests for assistance; recovery efforts; and, finally, monitoring and situational awareness. In the context of each of these areas, we highlight the key literature and real-life examples to explore the risks vs. opportunities in the utility of social media. These four areas capture the role of engagement and strategy in both the risk and crisis space.
International Conference on Information Systems Development (ISD), 2018
Learning and understanding what happened before, during, and after a crisis is extremely important for the improvement of the response process. For this purpose, social media has become an important communication medium used by both the affected persons and the emergency management services (EMSs). However, in different crises, different information may be needed, and the information shared in social media varies in its usefulness: It could be highly critical or completely irrelevant to the rescue operation. Supplying the best possible up-to-date information is crucial to the EMS, whose actions based on that information may save lives and resources. This paper studies a particular use case of extreme weather in Norway and identifies the information needs, the problem faced by EMSs, and how they use social media. It, further, pinpoints what different social media analysis platforms can provide in this type of crisis. The results of the research are criteria that social media analysis should follow to address EMSs' concerns. The output of this work can be used to more precisely describe social media communication for crises and to design more efficient platforms for information retrieval from social media.
Social Media and Emergency Services?
International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, 2015
Social media is much just used for private as well as business purposes, obviously, also during emergencies. Emergency services are often confronted with the amount of information from social media and might consider using them – or not using them. This article highlights the perception of emergency services on social media during emergencies. Within their European research project EMERGENT, the authors therefore conducted an interview study with emergency service staff (N=11) from seven European countries and eight different cities. Their results highlight the current and potential use of social media, the emergency service's participation in research on social media as well as current challenges, benefits and future plans.
The Transformative Power of Social Media on Emergency and Crisis Management
Advancements
There is a wind of transformation blowing across the world today. It is changing the face of emergency management and every field of human endeavor. It is called "social media". These days, social media is redefining crisis preparedness through the increasing participation of the masses in the creation and distribution of content in ways that surpass the capacity of the mass media and public authorities. Public-generated content has been found to be useful in all phases of preparedness. Unfortunately, most public safety authorities are still suspicious of using social media in engaging and disseminating information. This paper examines this new area of transformation that is having significant consequences on public safety and public life. As the scenario unfolds, emergency managers have a tough time choosing between the mass media and social media. Metaphorically, it is a race between a 'hippo' (mass media) and cheetah (social media).
CHAPTER 11: SOCIAL MEDIA AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Chapter 11 of "CRITICAL ISSUES IN DISASTER SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT: A Dialogue Between Researchers and Practitioners" reports on the challenges and opportunities made possible by social media in the field of emergency management. First, we consider the emergency practitioner and the challenges they face when using social media: difficulties in verifying social media data, liability risks, information overload, and a lack of resources to manage social media communications and data. To address these challenges, we propose the use of performance measures, standards, best practices, digital volunteers, training, and exercises. Attention then turns to the research around social media in times of crisis. This research investigates public activity (citizen reporting, community-oriented computing, and collective intelligence and distributed problem solving) and demonstrates how social media have shaped—and continue to shape—perceptions around how members of the public can participate in an emergency. We then look at research that studies emergency management organizations as they seek to understand how social media might be used in their practice. We conclude with descriptions of future research directions and next-generation tools for monitoring and extracting information from social media. Finally, we discuss the differences between practice and research perspectives and discuss how these differences can make it difficult to reach consensus regarding social media’s role in emergency response. We advocate that as practice and research work together expanding the research agenda, understanding roles, building relationships, considering organizational fit, and developing best practices, they will advance knowledge about the potential and realities of social media and move toward envisioning how social media may be used as a resource in emergency management.
Social Media Use in Emergency Management
Communication is an important part of the emergency planning, response and recovery prior to, during, and after a disaster and it must be done with care and effort. Social media is a great and easy way to accomplish these tasks to assure that the right information is disseminated to all people affected to help with the ongoing efforts. The use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube has made an impact on communication through social media. It is cost effective, easy to use, and reaches millions of people in a single click. However, biases of those who use this information can be strong and the perception of the reader can be challenging. With communication the person disseminating the information must also know who they are speaking to and know the critical assumptions of the receiver.
Use of Social Media for Disaster Management
Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, 2016
Social media is emerging as an important information-based communication tool for disaster management. Yet there are many relief organizations that are not able to develop strategies and allocate resources to effectively use social media for disaster management. The reason behind this inability may be a lack of understanding regarding the different functionalities of social media. In this paper, we examine the literature using content analysis to understand the current usage of social media in disaster management. We draw on the honeycomb framework and the results of our content analysis to suggest a new framework that can help in utilizing social media more effectively during the different phases of disaster management. We also discuss the implications of our study.
Support Frameworks for the Use of Social Media by Emergency Management Organisations Policy Report
Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are now widely recognised as playing an increasingly important role in the dissemination of information during crisis events. They are used by emergency management organisations as well as by the public to share information and advice. However, the official use of social media for crisis communication within emergency management organisations is still relatively new and ad hoc, rather than being systematically embedded within or effectively coordinated across agencies. This policy report suggests a more effectively coordinated approach to leverage social media use, involving stronger networking between social media staff within emergency management organisations. This could be realised by establishing a national network of social media practitioners managed by the Australia-New Zealand Emergency Management Committee (ANZEMC), reinforced by a Federal government task force that promotes further policy initiatives in this space. Support Frameworks for the Use of Social Media by Emergency Management Organisations. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317218806\_Support\_Frameworks\_for\_the\_Use\_of\_Social\_Media\_by\_Emergency\_Management\_Organisations [accessed May 30, 2017].
The Influential Use of Social Media Strategies in Crises and Disasters
Research Gate, 2019
Social media made radical changes and qualitative effects by its various tools and platforms, which enabled it to change the features of the crisis management media scene How can these social platforms be used effectively in times of crises and be integrated with crisis management communication strategy? What is the nature of this use? What are the consequent benefits to users of the various official and popular levels?