1st Edition

Social Media, Crisis Communication, and Emergency Management Leveraging Web 2.0 Technologies

By Connie M. White Copyright 2012
    334 Pages 95 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    Although recent global disasters have clearly demonstrated the power of social media to communicate critical information in real-time, its true potential has yet to be unleashed. Social Media, Crisis Communication, and Emergency Management: Leveraging Web 2.0 Technologies teaches emergency management professionals how to use social media to improve emergency planning, preparedness, and response capabilities. It provides a set of guidelines and safe practices for using social media effectively across a range of emergency management applications.

    Explaining how emergency management agencies can take advantage of the extended reach these technologies offer, the book supplies cutting-edge methods for leveraging these technologies to manage information more efficiently, reduce information overload, inform the public, and ultimately save lives. Filled with real-world examples and case studies, it is an ideal self-study resource. Its easy-to-navigate structure and numerous exercises also make it suitable for courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.  

    From crowdsourcing and digital volunteers to mapping and collective intelligence, Social Media, Crisis Communication, and Emergency Management: Leveraging Web 2.0 Technologies facilitates a clear understanding of the essential principles of social media. Each chapter includes an example of a local-level practitioner, organization, or agency using social media that demonstrates the transformative power of social media in the real world. The book also includes numerous exercises that supply readers with models for building their own social media sites and groups—making it a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about the communication and information structures supported by social media.

    Visit the author’s homepage: http://sites.google.com/site/conniemwhite/Home

    Why Social Media?
    Introduction
    What Is Social Media?
    Who Uses Social Media?
    What Can Social Media Do for Practitioners?
    What Does Top Management Think?
    An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure
         Six Safety Tips to Follow When Using Social Network Sites
    Trash In, Trash Out
    Onsite Contributions
    Case Studies
    Exercises
    Technical Notes
    Five-Minute Tutorials

    Designing Social Media Sites for Emergency Management: Back to Basics
    Introduction
    Functions of Social Media
    Level of Government
    Identify Goals
    User Roles and Permissions
         Administrators 
         Guests 
         Participant 
         Officers
    Groups
    Keywords and Hashtags
    Disabilities and Vulnerable Populations
    Comprehensive Emergency Management Approach
    Citizen Engagement: To Use or Not To Use
    Applications
    Logins and Passwords
    Conclusion
    Exercises
    Summary

    Social Sites for Group Support: Facebook
    Introduction
    What Can Social Sites Do To Support Group Communications and Information Sharing?
    What Can Facebook Do for Practitioners?
    Communication
    Types of Group Support 
         Open Groups 
         Closed Groups 
         Secret Group
    One Way or Two Way Communications?
         One Way 
         Two Way
    Chat
    Categorizing
    What Sort Information Do You Share?
    What Can You Do and How Do You Do It?
    Get Donations
    How Much Is Enough?
    Smart Technology
    Partnering
    Who to Partner with?
    Pavlov and Notifications
    Case Study
    Talladega National Superspeedway
         Twitter
         Dissemination of Useful Information from Experts 
         Facebook 
         E-mail 
         Mapping Information through Social Media 
         YouTube
    Case Questions
    Summary
    Tutorial
    Video 1
    Video

    Twitter and Microblogging: The Basics
    Introduction
    Definitions
    You Have Created an Account, Now What?
    What to Tweet about?
    What to Tweet from a Practitioner’s Point of View
    Best Practices 
         Too Much Tweeting Is a Turn Off
         Too Little Tweeting 
         Same Subject 
         Organizing Tweets 
         ReTweeting 
         Technique for Reducing Tweets
    GeoLocation Devices
    NOAA Twitter Case 
         Case Example Exercise 
         Tweet the Heat: A Collaborative Tracking Project
    Rules
    Exercises

    Design Strategies: Twitter for Teams and Information Exchange
    Introduction
    Case Study 
         Case: Storm Chasers
    One-to-Many; Many-to-One
         Original Log of Transactions of Team
         How Can the Original Prior Transcript Be Implemented By Using Twitter? 
         Six Twitter Accounts Are Required 
              Following 
         How Tweeting Would Be Implemented for the Case
         Added Benefits to This Particular Case
    Creating a Flow Diagram for Crisis Communications
    Complex Group Support
    Twitter Is Over Capacity
    Summary
    Exercises

    Collaboration and Document Management
    Introduction
    Collaboration
    Social Media Reduces Information Overload
    Groups of Experts Sharing Information
    e-Mail
    Tasks
    Word Files, Presentations, and Spreadsheets
         Open Office 
         Google Documents, Presentations, and Spreadsheets
    Forms and Spreadsheets
    An Example Form for Resource Aggregation
    Slideshare
    Skype
    Wikis
    Doodle and Scheduling
    QuestionPro
    Collaborative Tools and Community Resilience 2.0
    How to Engage with the Public
    Summary
    On Book Website 
         Managing Documentation for Emergency Management Purposes
              authorStream Video Lecture
              Five-Minute Tutorials
    Exercises

    Visuals, Mapping, and Disaster Management Systems
    Introduction
    Photography
    Video
    Equipment
    Web Sites
    Sharing
    Publishing
    PowerPoint with Narration
    Jing
    YouTube
    Streaming Live Video
    Statistics
    Keywords
    Mapping, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence 
         Google Maps 
         Google Earth 
         Collaborative Mapping
    Open Source and Communities of Practice
         RHoK
         Crisis Mappers 
         OpenStreetMaps 
         Wikimapia
    Free Web-Based Disaster Management Systems
    Haiti Earthquake Case Study
    Free and Open Source Disaster Management Systems
    Ushahidi
    Summary
    Exercises
         Team Assignment:
              Part I: Paper Submission
              Part II: Video Submission 
         Problem

    Free and Open Source Software: The Building Blocks of Customization
    Introduction
    Summary

    Testing the System: Knowing When to Use or Not Use Social Media
    Introduction
    An Online Social Media Exercise in Emergency Response
    Some Challenges of Social Media 
         Aggregating Information 
         Marketing Your Social Identities 
         Stakeholder Acceptance
    Best Practices, Considerations, and Observations
         Consider the Tech Savvyness of Population 
         Some Best Practices
    Conclusion     
         Book Online Site Extras
    Exercise: Create a Unified Site; Aggregating Information

    Index

    Biography

    Connie White earned her PhD in Information Systems from the College of Computing Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Dr. White is a Research Fellow in the Crisis Communications Research Project, School of Media Arts, Columbia College Chicago, Illinois. She is also the director of Information Technology Solutions for Emergency Management (ITSFEM), an education and consultation firm. She has published work in the Journal of Emergency Management (JEM), The International Association of Emergency Manager’s Bulletin (IAEM), and the International Journal for Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (IJISCRA M).

    Her current work explores how collaborative applications, social media, Free and Open Source Systems, and Web 2.0 technologies can be leveraged together to support the decision-making needs of crisis managers. Another research focus is in using spatial-temporal geographical information systems and social media to help provide information on the outer rural areas that have the least amount of connectivity through crisis mapping. Other research efforts explore using virtual worlds, such as Second Life, as a teaching tool for practitioners. Her dissertation, A Dynamic Delphi System to Support Decision Making by Large Groups of Crisis Management Experts, focused on the creation of a crisis management system that is used by large groups dispersed geographically where decisions must be made under uncertainty and among domain driven subgroups. The end result of this effort produced an application contributed to the Sahana Disaster Management System, Eden, a free and open source system created in response to the Asian tsunami (which has been used all over the world), most recently in the Haiti earthquake response, and the floods of Pakistan. Her research interests include social media, decision making, scales, Sahana, Thurstone’s law of comparative judgment, artificial intelligence, and emergency management. Her homepage is http://sites.google.com/site/conniemwhite/

    "There are gems throughout the book. The exercises at the end of each chapter are valuable if this book is used as a text (strong recommendation from the experience of several courses in EM and homeland security) in a course on crisis communication or emergency management or by an agency as a self-assessment of implementation. One of the strongest parts of this book is the input from field practitioners. I offer to you a book to be read and not to become another bookshelf dust target."
    —Dean Larson, Ph.D., CEM, in IAEM Bulletin

    "This book offers a unique look into the world of emergency management through the prism of social media.  To achieve this perspective, the author infused her work with contributions from more than a dozen professionals in emergency management and information technology. The result is a comprehensive guided tour … would benefit managers or directors in the safety, security, or emergency management field who are looking to venture into the world of social media."
    Security Management Magazine