Evaluation of Research Trends in Social Media Crisis Communication

An organization's survival during a crisis often depends on its speed of response. The introduction of social media into crisis communication discourse has meant that organizations must revisit their crisis communication strategies. This chapter explores a content analysis of the integration of social media platforms into crisis communication based on a comprehensive review of eight purposively selected crisis studies conducted globally. Findings revealed that Facebook and Twitter are increasingly employed as platforms for crisis communication. It was also discovered that responding to crises promptly, and engaging with the publics before, during, and after crises are crucial to managing organizational reputation. Social media platforms are also capable of spreading mis(information) about crises. Thus, organizations are advised to fully integrate and adopt social media into their crisis communication plans. This chapter extends our understanding of how social media platforms contribute to crisis communication discourse.

Forest Fire Scenarios in Digital Platforms

Forest fires are widespread in Portugal, particularly in the summer. Recently, in 2017, Portugal had two great fires. As a result, more than 120 people died, hundreds suffered injuries and registered significant economic and environmental losses. Since then, and due to the evolution and democratization of the internet and technology devices, forest fire content is much more common in cyberspace. Thus, to understand this issue, the authors propose to outline a profile of the digital platforms used in forest fire situations. The goal is to understand the uses and commitment arising from forest fires' issues in digital platforms by presenting a conceptual framework in Portugal's specific case. The authors analyzed webpages, mobile apps, Facebook pages and groups, and YouTube channels, focusing on forest fires contents. By understanding the kind of digital platform, its contents, uses, and interaction, this chapter contributes to understanding digital platforms' role in crisis and disaster scenarios such as wildfires.

Emergency Response and Post-Disaster Recovery Using Smartphone-Based Applications

The number of natural disasters, such as tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, cyclone, and bushfires, is rapidly increasing globally, and they are claiming thousands of lives while destroying numerous properties. One of the major concerns of these natural disasters is the destruction of communication links, such as powerline and Internet connections, which make it difficult to enable communication among the affected people and the rescue teams. However, the evolution of smart devices equipped with multiple short-range communication technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi provides an opportunity to form an ad-hoc network with co-located smart mobile device users and communicate their positions and other relevant information to the rescue workers. This chapter provides a detailed description of recent advancement in this area and highlights important aspects that are needed to be considered for practical implementation.

Setting the Aware Agenda of the COVID-19 Health Emergency

Among its main goals, crisis management aims at promoting people awareness in respect of the crisis which they are going to face or in which they are already involved. In order to do that, it uses a wide range of communication tools, among which, over the last decade, social media have proved to be of paramount importance. Based on these premises, the chapter analyses a very meaningful case of crisis communication, which consists of the social media coverage of the early stages of the COVID-19 emergency coming from Italian national and local institutions. The media content analysis carried out on Facebook and Twitter confirms a communication strategy aimed at creating people awareness in respect of the health emergency, suggesting citizens which conducts they need to stop or adopt. However, the analysis also shows that the goal of crisis awareness represents the first step of a wider agenda coming from the Institutions' social posting, which aims at transferring their awareness to citizenship and, as a consequence, inspiring citizens' own responsibility.

The Immune Space

In the context of SARS-CoV-2 health emergency, strongly framed in the normalization of logic of risk, the authors analyze three digital platforms of contagion containment and population tracking in order to investigate, through a comparative-descriptive analysis, the relationship between different socio-political-cultural contexts and the respective responses adopted—the Chinese government tool Health Code, the South Korean app Corona100, and the Italian app, Immuni—to counter a single global emergency. The objective is to investigate the framing operations that introduced on a global scale the use of apps in bio-security and immunity regime for which individual privacy increasingly collides with collective security. The authors consider central the opening of a debate on how the logic of risk and worst case scenario are paradigmatic nowadays in the development of increasingly sophisticated systems, potentially invasive of privacy, even in function of complex threats interconnected on a global scale.

Internet Information Monitoring System

This study presents an information monitoring system: SIGDesastre. It is a method of monitoring the various sources of information available on the internet. The monitoring scenario is the failure of the dam in Mariana, Brazil. This event was considered the biggest socio-environmental disaster in the country. The creation of SIGDesastre involves the identification of the sources to be monitored, an automated search system for keywords in these pre-registered sources and the visualization of the results in a friendly environment. The use of information monitoring on the internet is considered an important tool for the post-disaster risk communication process. The monitoring of information on the internet is believed to be a potential device to support managers in institutional decisions and in the formulation of public policies. Also, for the affected population, they will be able to expand access to information about the actions being taken by the actors involved.

Information Overload!

This chapter presents a usability study of a prototype tool intended to support information gathering during crisis situations, thus helping professional key communicators monitor social media content from several media outlets in the same workspace. The main aim of the study is to investigate how situation awareness can be optimized for key communicators during emergencies. It does so by taking a mixed method approach on usability testing and by combining emotional responses and cognitive processes to better understand how the user perceives the tool. The study contributes to the field by illustrating the importance of designing for good situation awareness in services/platforms intended for crisis communication. A key conclusion is that the use of human-computer interaction (HCI) and usability studies are central for improving digital services in emergencies. High-stress contexts require rapid decision-making and leave no room for improvisation and perception. Therefore, comprehending digital solutions correctly is crucial for overall situation awareness.

When Helping Is Dangerous

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the growth in social services using digital platforms to provide crisis interventions for clients, families, and communities. Digitally provided services afford numerous benefits to clients, such as increased accessibility, timeliness of services, and increase of autonomy. However, there are also new ethical concerns of using digital platforms for social services, as well as dangers to providers—specifically, secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, and manifestations of these phenomena in providers' professional and personal lives. The chapter will discuss these potential concerns and the need for prevention and self-care for providers. Finally, the chapter will review the necessity for ongoing trainings and additional research concerning digitally provided crisis intervention services and occupational hazards for social service providers.

“Keep Calm and Get Informed”

COVID-19 is a new ongoing pandemic and an alarming public health issue which urges emergency measures at a national and international level. This chapter uses a collaborative message-centered approach and explores how the Department for Emergency Situation (DES) in Romania tailored its verbal and visual messages to this pandemic and how the Romanian online users assessed the DES involvement in the risk and crisis management. The quantitative and qualitative content analyses showed that DES laid an emphasis on the narratives of informational responsibility and responsibility in action, whereas online users focused on the narratives of multilayered rationalization and a multifaceted incompetence.

Communication Crisis Management of the Public Security Policy

This chapter discusses crisis communication management in the Portuguese public security police digital landscape, mainly focused on social media. This is an exploratory investigation it is intended to understand how crisis communication management methodologies in the digital environment can be applied in police intervention, so its legitimacy is reinforced. The study is divided into two parts, the literature review, and the empirical research. The data was gathered together through an interview survey, with the participation of four public security police officers and four investigators. The interviews were transcribed, and their content was analyzed. In an emergency situation, most of the actions are communication activities, so its management in the digital landscape—above all social media—is critical for the police success, as an institution under strong scrutiny and whose actions depend on the citizen cooperation. Communication is essential for building reputation and should be used in threats to legitimacy, and as a tool for reaching out to the community.