Social media use in emergency management

Area of Science:

• Social Media Studies
• Emergency Management
• Communication Strategies

Background:

• Traditional emergency communication relies on face-to-face contact and established media outlets.
• The academic research on emergency management messages across all phases is fragmented.
• Social media offers novel avenues for emergency communication and situational awareness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and illustrate the range of strategies and tactics for emergency managers utilizing social media.
• To provide a foundation for a more complete typology of emergency management messages.
• To explore the use of social media for monitoring, information dissemination, and public engagement.

Main Methods:

• Content analysis of over 80 academic articles, research reports, and government documents.
• Content analysis of more than 120 newspaper articles sourced via LexisNexis.
• Synthesis of existing literature and news reporting to identify best practices.

Main Results:

• Three key strategies for emergency managers: information dissemination, real-time data monitoring, and public engagement/crowdsourcing.
• Identification of various message types disseminated during emergency response phases.
• Discussion of social media monitoring for situational awareness and public interaction for collective action.

Conclusions:

• Integrating fragmented knowledge suggests a three-step process: information dissemination, data monitoring, and diverse actor engagement for risk reduction.
• These social media strategies can augment traditional communication practices.
• Obstacles to implementation include the demand for time, personnel, and resources, particularly for agencies with scarcity.