Emergency Management, Twitter, and Social Media Evangelism

Author(s):  
Mark Latonero ◽  
Irina Shklovski

This paper considers how emergency response organizations utilize available social media technologies to communicate with the public in emergencies and to potentially collect valuable information using the public as sources of information on the ground. The authors discuss the use of public social media tools from the emergency management professional’s viewpoint with a particular focus on the use of Twitter. Limited research has investigated Twitter usage in crisis situations from an organizational perspective. This paper contributes to the understanding of organizational innovation, risk communication, and technology adoption by emergency management. An in-depth longitudinal case study of Public Information Officers (PIO) of the Los Angeles Fire Department highlights the importance of the information evangelist within emergency management organizations and details the challenges those organizations face engaging with social media and Twitter. This article provides insights into practices and challenges of new media implementation for crisis and risk management organizations.

Author(s):  
Mark Latonero ◽  
Irina Shklovski

This paper considers how emergency response organizations utilize available social media technologies to communicate with the public in emergencies and to potentially collect valuable information using the public as sources of information on the ground. The authors discuss the use of public social media tools from the emergency management professional’s viewpoint with a particular focus on the use of Twitter. Limited research has investigated Twitter usage in crisis situations from an organizational perspective. This paper contributes to the understanding of organizational innovation, risk communication, and technology adoption by emergency management. An in-depth longitudinal case study of Public Information Officers (PIO) of the Los Angeles Fire Department highlights the importance of the information evangelist within emergency management organizations and details the challenges those organizations face engaging with social media and Twitter. This article provides insights into practices and challenges of new media implementation for crisis and risk management organizations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Uren ◽  
Daniel Wright ◽  
James Scott ◽  
Yulan He ◽  
Hassan Saif

Purpose – This paper aims to address the following challenge: the push to widen participation in public consultation suggests social media as an additional mechanism through which to engage the public. Bioenergy companies need to build their capacity to communicate in these new media and to monitor the attitudes of the public and opposition organizations towards energy development projects. Design/methodology/approach – This short paper outlines the planning issues bioenergy developments face and the main methods of communication used in the public consultation process in the UK. The potential role of social media in communication with stakeholders is identified. The capacity of sentiment analysis to mine opinions from social media is summarised and illustrated using a sample of tweets containing the term “bioenergy”. Findings – Social media have the potential to improve information flows between stakeholders and developers. Sentiment analysis is a viable methodology, which bioenergy companies should be using to measure public opinion in the consultation process. Preliminary analysis shows promising results. Research limitations/implications – Analysis is preliminary and based on a small dataset. It is intended only to illustrate the potential of sentiment analysis and not to draw general conclusions about the bioenergy sector. Social implications – Social media have the potential to open access to the consultation process and help bioenergy companies to make use of waste for energy developments. Originality/value – Opinion mining, though established in marketing and political analysis, is not yet systematically applied as a planning consultation tool. This is a missed opportunity.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Milad Mirbabaie ◽  
Stefan Stieglitz ◽  
Felix Brünker

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate communication on Twitter during two unpredicted crises (the Manchester bombings and the Munich shooting) and one natural disaster (Hurricane Harvey). The study contributes to understanding the dynamics of convergence behaviour archetypes during crises.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected Twitter data and analysed approximately 7.5 million relevant cases. The communication was examined using social network analysis techniques and manual content analysis to identify convergence behaviour archetypes (CBAs). The dynamics and development of CBAs over time in crisis communication were also investigated.FindingsThe results revealed the dynamics of influential CBAs emerging in specific stages of a crisis situation. The authors derived a conceptual visualisation of convergence behaviour in social media crisis communication and introduced the terms hidden and visible network-layer to further understanding of the complexity of crisis communication.Research limitations/implicationsThe results emphasise the importance of well-prepared emergency management agencies and support the following recommendations: (1) continuous and (2) transparent communication during the crisis event as well as (3) informing the public about central information distributors from the start of the crisis are vital.Originality/valueThe study uncovered the dynamics of crisis-affected behaviour on social media during three cases. It provides a novel perspective that broadens our understanding of complex crisis communication on social media and contributes to existing knowledge of the complexity of crisis communication as well as convergence behaviour.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-49
Author(s):  
Lu An ◽  
Junyang Hu ◽  
Manting Xu ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Chuanming Yu

The highly influential users on social media platforms may lead the public opinion about public events and have positive or negative effects on the later evolution of events. Identifying highly influential users on social media is of great significance for the management of public opinion in the context of public events. In this study, the highly influential users of social media are divided into three types (i.e., topic initiator, opinion leader, and opinion reverser). A method of profiling highly influential users is proposed based on topic consistency and emotional support. The event of “Jiankui He Editing the Infants' Genes” was investigated. The three types of users were identified, and their opinion differences and dynamic evolution were revealed. The comprehensive profiles of highly influential users were constructed. The findings can help emergency management departments master the focus of attention and emotional attitudes of the key users and provide the method and data support for opinion management and decision-making of public events.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (S1) ◽  
pp. 36-36
Author(s):  
Miranda Pierre ◽  
Jackie McCormack ◽  
Jennifer Dickson ◽  
Lindsay Lockhart ◽  
Noreen Downes

IntroductionThe Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) provides advice on which new medicines should be accepted for routine use by the NHS in Scotland. To help increase the accessibility of the advice, SMC produces public information summaries, which have been published on the SMC website since 2018. We conducted an evaluation to investigate if the public summaries are achieving their purpose and subsequently help inform improvements from a user perspective. The objectives were to determine how the public summaries are being used; what users like and what could be improved; and if they have achieved a greater understanding of decisions.MethodsThe first stage of the evaluation involved surveying patient groups (organizations that represent the interests of patients, families and carers) to investigate how they use the public summaries. We then conducted workshops with patient groups and Public Partners (members of the public that volunteer with Healthcare Improvement Scotland) to gather perspectives on the content, language and layout of a selection of public summaries.ResultsThe survey responses (n = 14) illustrate that the public summaries are being used in a variety of ways. The majority (n = 10) of patient groups reported using the public summaries to help explain SMC decisions to the people they support.The workshops highlighted that participants found the public summaries clear and helpful. In general, patient groups felt the level of detail and language used in the public summaries improved their understanding of SMC decisions compared to other sources of information, such as the press release or Detailed Advice Document.There were a number of suggested improvements, including changing the layout (so the SMC decision appears first) and providing definitions for some technical terms. Where actionable, these recommendations have been implemented.ConclusionsWorking in partnership with patient groups and Public Partners has enabled SMC to further strengthen public summaries, and patient engagement more broadly. Improvements have ensured that SMC's decisions are communicated clearly, helping to increase accessibility.


Author(s):  
Shalin Hai-Jew

With the popularization of the Social Web (or Read-Write Web) and millions of participants in these interactive spaces, institutions of higher education have found it necessary to create online presences to promote their university brands, presence, and reputation. An important aspect of that engagement involves being aware of how their brand is represented informally (and formally) on social media platforms. Universities have traditionally maintained thin channels of formalized communications through official media channels, but in this participatory new media age, the user-generated contents and communications are created independent of the formal public relations offices. The university brand is evolving independently of official controls. Ex-post interventions to protect university reputation and brand may be too little, too late, and much of the contents are beyond the purview of the formal university. Various offices and clubs have institutional accounts on Facebook as well as wide representation of their faculty, staff, administrators, and students online. There are various microblogging accounts on Twitter. Various photo and video contents related to the institution may be found on photo- and video-sharing sites, like Flickr, and there are video channels on YouTube. All this digital content is widely available and may serve as points-of-contact for the close-in to more distal stakeholders and publics related to the institution. A recently available open-source tool enhances the capability for crawling (extracting data) these various social media platforms (through their Application Programming Interfaces or “APIs”) and enables the capture, analysis, and social network visualization of broadly available public information. Further, this tool enables the analysis of previously hidden information. This chapter introduces the application of Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel (NodeXL) to the empirical and multimodal analysis of a university’s electronic presence on various social media platforms and offers some initial ideas for the analytical value of such an approach.


2019 ◽  
pp. 379-393
Author(s):  
Mike Dillon

American news organizations have long been criticized for failing to anticipate, appreciate and exploit the Internet as it became a fact of daily life in the mid-1990s. This chapter explores and analyzes the lack of planning that stymied the development of journalism on the Web and cast doubt on the viability of traditional public-service journalism with its enduring values of accuracy, fairness and advocacy. Specifically, the essay documents and analyzes the online debuts of two venerable “old media” news outlets (The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times) and two “new media” Web news outlets (Salon and Slate) in the mid-1990s by exploring the claims they made about their aims, purposes and expectations as they introduced themselves to the public via their salutatory editorials. It is a cautionary tale for a digital world that reconfigures itself in ever-quickening cycles.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián Durazo Herrmann

Freedom of expression and access to diverse sources of information are seen as critical elements of democracy, although their concretization on the ground is subject to strong interference. Recent regime change in Maranhão, one of Brazil’s poorest states, has led to the emergence of new media and some expansion of the public sphere. The traditional oligarchy continues to dominate the media, however, and the opposition media replicate its exclusion of nonelite actors. The Maranhão experience confirms that normative approaches to the media either as automatic contributors to democracy or as instruments of elite manipulation have little value for understanding media dynamics. Liberdade de expressão, bem como o acesso a diversas fontes de informação, são considerados elementos críticos da democracia, ainda que a concretização desses fatores esteja sujeita a forte interferência. A recente troca de regime no Maranhão, um dos estados mais pobres do Brasil, tem levado ao surgimento de uma nova mídia e a uma certa expansão da esfera pública. Contudo, a oligarquia continua dominando a mídia tradicional e a mídia alternativa imita a prática de exclusão de atores não pertencentes à elite. A experiência do Maranhão confirma que tratamentos normativos que veem a mídia como contribuinte automática do processo democrático, ou como instrumento de manipulação da elite, teem pouco valor para se entender a dinâmica da mídia.


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Pitts

The role of marketing communications is to advance the bottom line and the public good – and not necessarily in that order. Giving back is an integral part of the New Normal. And there has never been a better tool to accomplish this mission than social media.But healthcare marketing –and particularly of the regulated variety --is between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, marketers understand the importance and opportunity in social media. It’s where the people are. It’s where the action is. But then there are all those pesky regulatory concerns.As Walter O’Malley –the man who moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles once commented, “The future is just one damn thing after another.”


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