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From the Academic Debate toReal-World Use and back:

Theoretical and Practical Implications of Social Media as Communication Channel in Crisis

and Disaster Management

Verena Grubmüller-Régent, Irmgard Wetzstein (presenter), Karin Rainer & Katharina Götsch: CeDEM Asia 2014, Dec 4-5, 2014, Hong Kong

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Introduction, Research Interest & Relevance

• ICTs have been applied to crisis and disaster management institutionalizeduse of social media in practice and as an interdisciplinary research area (forexample touching upon the social sciences and especially media communicationsat the crossroads of information and computer science)

• Social media have changed the way, speed and dynamics of how information isspread (grass-root/bottom-up communication, active participation of citizens in crisis communication and management e.g. crowd tasking)

• Multi-perspective metastudy of research and practices in the realm of social mediaand crisis communication/disaster management

• Focus on academic research (basic research), third-party funded research projectson the European level (applied research), social media use in crisis communicationpractice

• Identify (research) gaps and potentials of research enriching practice

Research Questions

Method Approach• Meta-study of existing research and practical

case examples (Wetzstein et al 2014)

• Three sub-studiesWhich role do social media play in disaster management practice?

In which aspects is the current academic debate supportive to practical social media use in disaster management?

In which aspects is further research needed to enrich practice?

Research enrichments for

practice

(3) Social mediapractice (cases)

(2) European researchproject abstracts

(1) Academic researchpublications

Procedure & Sample

(1) 66 papers written in English (journal articles, periodicals, conference papers from 01/2005-08/2013, full survey) extractedfrom CMMC with pre-defined search terms and focus on citizen-generated content/interactivity/public response andinvolvement, coding/analysis with SPSS, no pre-determination of „crisis“

(2) 24 project abstracts extracted from the European Commission‘s database CORDIS (2005-2013), coding/frequency analysiswith Atlas.ti

(3) Collection, description and analysis of practical case examples drawn from professional experience and based on in-depthliterature search and systematic reviews using trusted open source information (retrieved with specified search terms in English and German language), social media appearances of governmental agencies and NGOs, emergency first responseorganizations and disaster management platforms.

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Disaster Management Practice & Social Media I• Several paradigmatic changes within the discussion and practice of communication in

crisis and disaster management in the past

• Strategic risk and crisis communication developed from the 1960s (rational decision-making in crisis communication, top-down approaches)

• Ideas of „dialogue“ and „feedback“ entered crisis communication in the 1990s

• Rapid development of Web 2.0 technology/social media: active participation of citizensin crisis communication, change of communication patterns

• Nowadays several social media sources (social networks, content sharing sites, collaboration/knowledge sharing sites, blogging/micro-blogging, specialized crisismanagement platforms) are used as information and communication channels in crisissituations

• Social media analytics/monitoring tools are used to automatically collect, filter andanalyse relevant content produced by social media users (Grubmüller et al 2013, Wetzstein & Leitner 2012)

• Arising challenges: ethics, privacy, data protection, coordination of fast spreading andunverified messages, implementation of citizens in crowd tasking activities

Disaster Management Practice & Social Media II

Social media initially often used for an ad hoc, basic and unstructured crisis communication, mostly initiated by directly affected personsduring or in the aftermath of an incident

Successful systematical implementation ofsocial media in first responder and crisismanagement organizations‘ practice (Sutton et al 2008)

Social media potential of mutual exchange ofinformation rather unused (used rather as one-way communication channel), coordinative/organizational challenges

Systematic integration of social media in crisisand disaster management/bottom-upevolution (e.g. in context of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, London Bombings 2005, Hurricane Katrina 2005)

Organizational implementation of social mediain everyday interaction with communities(Queensland Police)

Traditional model regarding information, communication and interaction in crisis situations enriched by new social media layer (Rainer et al. 2013: 121)

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Practice: Remaining Challenges and Gaps

• Although the possibility of ‘many to many’-communication is one of the core strengthsof social media the collaborative potential of social media has not yet been fullyexploited (see also Ethnis & Bunker 2012) and includes several crucial aspects.

• Social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) or micro-blogging sites (e.g. Twitter) weremainly employed for traditional information distribution and/or gathering, probablydue to necessities or insecurities in emergency management organizations regardinglegal and resource aspects such as accountability with misled calls for assistance in crisissituations via non-prepared social media channels (see QuOIMA).

• Need for trusted first-hand information from the affected areas and coordination of help with crowd-tasking become more and more attractive and important for disaster management institutions and their daily emergency routine and are implemented via pilot projects and research approaches.

Research enriches practice.

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Research I: Academic Publications (1)• The area of social media and crises is dealt with interdisciplinarily, but a large number of

academic studies in the area of social media and crisis communication have been conductedin the field of media communications.

• Crisis as a term is often used arbitrarily, in a multi-faceted way, for complex situationspapers dealing with any situation or event defined as „crisis“ were considered. However, many of the crises addressed natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamisas case examples rather than health crises, terroristic and criminal acts respectively, technology malfunctions, human errors, and social movements and protests.

• Number of academic texts published in journals, periodicals and conference proceedingsrelevant to the media communications discipline has generally been increasing since 2005, mostly focusing on the micro-blogging service Twitter.

• Crisis communication via social media is generally strongly connected to PR in mediacommunication studies.

• Use and emergence of social media during crises/message strategies, stakeholders/communicators, users/citizens, behavioral and systemic perspectives prevail.Functions, potentials, limitations and risks of social media in crisis situations, intersectionsand comparisons between traditional media sources and social media, and evaluation studiesand the elaboration of models and concepts in terms of shaping „good“ crisis communicationwith social media occur less often.

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Research I: Academic Publications (2)• Used methods: Mostly content/discourse/text analyses, quantitative method approaches and

literature studies without empirical research generally predominate in the analyzed material in contrast to the use of qualitative methods. The topic of functions, potentials, risks andlimitations of social media in context with crisis communications, however, most oftenappears as literature study only.

• Negative or rather negative attitudes towards social media hardly occur in the analyzedjournal articles, periodicals and conference papers, while there is an upward trend ofambivalent evaluations from 2008 until 2012. Positive/rather positive evaluation reached its peak in 2010 and decreased afterwards critical addressing of social media in crisis communication as important task in relevant academic (basic) research.

• Gaps in academic research: Lack of qualitative approaches Focus on societal macro-perspectives (society as a whole) and meso-level from a stakeholder/communicator

perspective (organizations) rather than on individual perspectives (meso- and micro-level, e.g. community and individual coping with crises)

Limits and potentials of social media in crisis situations are not issues that are addressed empirically, whereasempirical research might support the development, evaluation and improved social media applications to be usedfor crisis communication.

Specific social media tools for crisis communication are hardly ever discussed in the analyzed papers Academic discourse takes place most often in the USA, followed by Europe-based researchers, while African,

Asian, Australian and South and Latin American-based authors/researchers are hardly or even not at all involvement of authors based in respective regions as an important future task in order to be able to provideeven more manifold perspectives on crises in context with social media

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Research II: European Research Projects• 24 funded projects under the work programs of „Information and Communication

Technologies“, „Security“ and „European Knowledge Based Bio-Economy“

• Project aims (occuring frequently 2007-2012): Shaping „good“ crisis communication as mostprominent project aim (e.g. connecting existing communication systems, improving theinteroperability of communication means, developing a standardized environment, communication guides and support for policy makers, and establishing effectivecommunication and collaboration strategies), followed by enabling information gathering fordecision making/service provision (e.g. data mining techniques, social mediaanalytics/monitoring).

• Project aim of fostering citizen participation/using social media specifically for involving andempowering citizens as „in situ first responders“ only occured in projects submitted to the2012 Security call for proposals.

• Strong focus on crisis handling/response rather than prevention or post-crisis situations.

• Majority of the projects cover more than one crisis type referring rather broadly to naturaland man-made crises. „Terroristic/criminal act“ as most often referred crisis type (all submitted to the 2007 Security call for proposals).

• Target groups: Mostly support of first responders/decision-maker authorities/(security) policymakers with ICT and social media technologies. More recent projects are aiming at involvingand empowering citizens as first responders (e.g. Alert4All)

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Research I & II: Common Characteristics and Differences

• Different research foci: security (projects), PR (academic papers). Computer-scientificapproaches (data mining, social media analytics) considered in projects from 2012.

• Prevalence of project aims differs: use and emergence of social media during crises(academic papers), evaluating/shaping „good“ crisis communication (projects)

• Perspective/target groups: stakeholders (projects), stakeholders and citizens/users (academicpapers). Citizen-orientation occurs within projects from 2012 in the realm of datamining/social media monitoring and analytics

• Differing purposes: critical reflection (academic papers), practical implementation/case studypilots (projects)

• Similarities regarding fostered crisis phase (crisis handling/response), various crisis typescovered (oftentimes natural disasters)

• Limitations of the two research substudies: Only academic media communication-focusedpublications considered (projects therefore appear to be more interdisciplinary), books, chapters were completely excluded, restriction on publications written in English, smallsample of analyzed research projectsno generalization of results, but insights into trends and perspectives into social media and crisis communication as a research area

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Conclusion: How can research enrich practice?

• Practice is lagging behind research in several aspects, functions of social media are far frombeing fully exploited in actual crisis management and communication.

• Complex use cases in research vs. authorities and first responder organizations limitingthemselves to using social media as „just another“ media channel for distributing informationExamples of a more complex social media communication strategy are rare and mostlylimited to organizations participating in consortia of highly innovative research projects.

• Several of the analyzed projects aim at connecting existing communication systems, improving interoperability and developing standardized environmentspracticalimplementation beyond case study pilots takes time.

• Academic publications rather take a critical standpoint towards social media usage (e.g. legal and ethical aspects) since aspects such as the interplay of security and surveillance are concerned communication strategies need to be fathomed in the public interest, closely considering societal developments and the potentially economically-driven practical implementation of social media tools. Prevalence of quantitative research approaches and macro-level in academic publications in-depth micro level knowledge (e.g. individuals using social media in crisis situations) can be useful for practice.

• Practical and research approaches show a focus on stakeholders, increasingly aiming at enhancing citizens’ participation in crisis from which practice can benefit.

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Thank you for your attention.

Dr. Irmgard Wetzstein, MA Senior Lecturer

Department of Communication/University of ViennaWähringerstraße 29, 1090 Vienna/Austria

+43 (0) 1 4277 49349irmgard.wetzstein@univie.ac.at

Verena Grubmüller-Régent, Irmgard Wetzstein (presenter), Karin Rainer & Katharina Götsch:

CeDEM Asia 2014, Dec 4-5, 2014, Hong Kong

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References

Alter4All, http://www.alert4all.eu/ (Retrieved: 09.06.2014).

Ehnis, C., Bunker, D. (2012). Social Media in Disaster Response: Queensland Police Service – Public Engagement During the 2011 Floods. 23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems.3-5 Dec 2012, Geelong. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30049056/ehnis-socialmedia-2012.pdf (Retrieved: 09.06.2014).

Grubmüller, V., Krieger, B., Götsch, K. (2013). Social Media Analytics for government in the light of legal and ethical challenges, CeDEM – Conference for eDemocracy and Open Government, Krems/Austria.

Rainer, K., Grubmüller, V., Pejic, I., Götsch, K. and Leitner, P. (2013). Social Media Applications in Crisis Interaction. Systems. Connecting matter, life, culture and technology, 1, 1, 110-127.

QuOIMA, Integrated Open Source Multimedia Analysis. http://www.kiras.at/gefoerderte-projekte/detail/projekt/quoima-quelloffene-integrierte-multimedia-analyse/ (Retrieved: 10.11.2014)

Sutton, J., Palen, L., Shklovski, I. (2008). Backchannels on the Front Lines: Emergent Uses of Social Media in the 2007 Southern California Wildfires. Proceedings of the 5th International ISCRAM Conference – Washington, DC, USA, May 2008.

Wetzstein, I., Leitner, P. (2012). Best practices report. Deliverable to the European Commission within the FP7-ICT-project UniteEurope Social Media Analytics and Decision Support Tools Enabling Sustainable Integration Policies and Measures. July 2012 (password protected).

Wetzstein, I., Grubmüller, V., Götsch, K., Rainer, K. (2014): Crises and social media. A meta-study on pertinent research and practice. Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humans in ICT Environments (forthcoming).