ANNEX SOCIAL MEDIA

Classification of social media (Wikipedia)

Social media technologies take on many different forms including magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. By applying a set of theories in the field of media research (social presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure) Kaplan and Haenlein created a classification scheme for different social media types in their Business Horizons article published in 2010. According to Kaplan and Haenlein there are six different types of social media: collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), blogs and microblogs (e.g., Twitter), content communities (e.g., YouTube), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life). Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, croudsourcing and voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms.

How Social Media Is Changing Disaster Response

By Erin Skarda Thursday, June 09, 2011 TIME U.S.

Alycia Williamson-Smith and her family didn’t have anywhere else to turn. It had been days since a devastating tornado ravaged Joplin, Mo., home to her second cousin James Williamson. With cell-phone service largely unavailable and a distance of several thousand miles between her house in Amsterdam, N.Y., and Joplin, Williamson-Smith posted photos of James on several Facebook pages that were created in the aftermath of the tornado. Less than 24 hours later, she saw a comment on a page called “Joplin Tornado Citizen Checks” that said James had been found and was volunteering with search-and-rescue teams. “Even though at that point we hadn’t spoken to him directly, it was comforting to know that someone out there had seen him and that he was O.K.,” says Williamson-Smith.

Two weeks after the storm, that Facebook page had about 6,500 “likes” and was still growing every day. Stories of joyful reunions mixed with those mourning the loss of loved ones, along with messages about supplies, prayers and support. The page was one of dozens that sprouted in the immediate aftermath, quickly becoming the fastest way to get information, as survivors and their relatives relied on social media as they might once have leaned on the Red Cross or local relief agencies. “The biggest part of using social media during a disaster is that it’s not about the government helping the public; it’s about the public helping themselves,” says Kim Stephens, a senior associate at ABT Associates and an emergency-management expert. “Before, you were left trying to find out how to get what you need, and now the desire and need is matched quickly and easily. It’s peer-to-peer aid.” (See “For Joplin, Nothing Is Certain in Tornado’s Wake.”)

Halfway around the world in Japan, social media was a primary source of communication following the earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11. However, unlike the situation in Joplin, citizens were using networks like Twitter, Facebook and Mixi (a Japan-specific social site) to send warnings, ask for help and relay bits of information from the scene as well as to announce that they were safe. According to Mashable, only an hour after the earthquake, more than 1,200 tweets per minute were being sent from Tokyo. Hashtags like #prayforjapan, #earthquake and #tsunami trended almost instantly, and were being tweeted thousands of times per second by people all over the globe, according to Poynter. And not surprisingly, Twitter reported both a record number of tweets the day of the quake (177 million) and accounts added one day after (572,000, as opposed to the daily average of 460,000).

Jesse Green, executive director of the Tokyo office for p.r. firm Hill & Knowlton, was in Beijing when the earthquake hit Japan. He used Facebook and Twitter to connect with his family, friends and co-workers as well as to receive updates on the situation. “[Social media] helped to an extent I would never have previously imagined,” Green says. “Many of my friends, my wife included, joined Twitter just to keep up with all the breaking news and be part of the conversation where possible. While the broadcast media gave their global audience an understanding of what was taking place, social media provided the underlying picture — especially useful for those of us living in Japan, where the top-line details simply weren’t enough.” (See “Japan Quake Survivor Walks 20 Hours to Find Girlfriend.”)

While conventional telephone lines often go down or become overwhelmed during a disaster, Internet connections often remain active and usable. “People can get out texts or tweets way easier than they can get out a phone call, and that’s something [emergency managers] don’t plan for,” Stephens says. “Most of the planning is based on the assumption that there will be no communications in the impacted area. That’s become a false assumption. Now we know that there are communications.”

With that in mind, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have all implemented social strategies into their emergency-management plans. In April, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would revise its terrorism-advisory system, including a provision that alerts would be sent out over social networks “when appropriate.” Shortly thereafter, FEMA and the FCC, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, unveiled PLAN (Personalized Localized Alert Network), the nation’s first geographically targeted emergency-notification system, which sends free emergency alerts to enabled mobile devices to warn citizens of “imminent threats” in their area. This service is expected to roll out in New York City by the end of the year.

Of course, as with anything on the Web, social media has a tendency to breed rumors and inaccuracies that could hurt recovery efforts. And as Amanda Ripley, a TIME contributor and author of the book The Unthinkable: Who Survives in Disasters and Why, points out, during disasters, people have a tendency to move slowly or shut down completely as a protective measure. “Anything that exacerbates that tendency — texting, taking pictures, tweeting — can be dangerous,” she says.

It’s true that social media is often thought of as nothing more than a distraction, or an attempt to replace a real community with a virtual one. But when faced with a disaster like in Joplin or Japan, these networks become a lot more. “I think that citizens communicating with other citizens, well, that’s kind of the definition of resilience,” Stephens says.

Social media for emergency managers can’t start when the emergency does

By Joseph Marks 11/10/2011 (NEXTGOV.com)

Developing emergency managers’ capacity to benefit from social media requires more than simply training them to monitor Facebook pages and to adopt new technology to separate sound from noise in the cacophonous Twitter feed following a disaster, experts said Thursday.

To use social media effectively during emergencies, officials also must have in place a social community so that affected people know where to turn when they’re out of water, trapped in their homes, or don’t have information about where to find shelter, experts said during a panel discussion sponsored by the Wilson Center think tank’s Science and Technology Innovation Program.

As things stand, panelists said, emergency managers’ adoption of social media is scattershot across the country and while the public often rushes to Facebook and Twitter during emergencies, police, firefighters and other responders are unprepared to deal with this situation. According to a recent American Red Cross survey, for example, more than one-third of respondents said they expected help to arrive in less than one hour if they posted a request to an emergency response agency on Facebook or Twitter. Yet many police stations and regional emergency response agencies don’t actively monitor their Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Thursday’s discussion followed the publication of a report by CNA Analysis and Solutions, a research firm that focuses on public policy issues.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has launched an aggressive Twitter campaign in recent years, largely because it wants to develop a community of followers that it can draw on for information both during emergencies and to alert the agency to problems with post-disaster services, said Rachel Racusen, FEMA public affairs director.

“If we rely on the government alone to do the job, whether it’s as emergency managers or anything else we do at FEMA, we’re going to fail,” she said. “We need to take all the needs of the entire community into account when we do disaster planning, including preparation, response, recovery efforts and mitigation efforts.”

Social media has been used to worthwhile effect during natural disasters such as Ushahidi’s Haiti project, which took in text messages from affected Haitians, crowdsourced the texts’ translation into English by farming them out to a network of diaspora Haitian in the United States and Europe, and sent them back within a day or two to aid workers on the scene.

Most recent disasters, though, have highlighted the challenges of using social media as much as the benefits.

One of the biggest barriers to leveraging Twitter during disasters, for instance, is sifting out important information, such as Tweets from people trapped in collapsed buildings or at ad hoc shelters that are short of food and water, from the larger universe of Tweets and re-Tweets, panelists said Thursday.

One of the greatest benefits of following Twitter effectively is that it raises the amount of information an emergency response coordinator has to work with by tenfold or more, said Pascal Schuback, an emergency management coordinator in the Seattle area.

“We’re getting better numbers than we’ve ever got before,” Schuback said. “If you look at the county where I’m from in Seattle, we’ve got 2 million people. If I get just 1 percent of that, that’s 20,000 people telling me what’s going on. That’s more than all the officers I have in the region and more than can ever go through a call center or a radio. I’ve got this nice radio, but only one person can talk through it at a time.”

Another benefit of mining Twitter and other social media for emergency response information is that it can easily be done remotely, Schuback said. That means if Seattle’s emergency responders are out in the field dealing with a major disaster, most of the communications work can be farmed out to colleagues in Denver, Chicago or elsewhere, he said.

CrisisCamp:  (Crisiscommons.gov) Using technology to connect people and engage them in disaster preparedness is a thing of the future that is beginning to happen now in many different ways.

This item was shared by Heather Blanchard:

CrisisCamp DC is part of a global movement who is bringing together volunteers, academia, non-profits, companies and government officials to share best practices and lessons learned to advocate for further use of technology and telecommunications to assist citizens and communities during crisis.

Founded in March 2009 through an impromptu Tweetup at the Government 2.0 Camp, a small band of idealists and innovators gathered together to discuss the idea of a creating a common community through a mash-up of citizen volunteers, crisis response organizations, international humanitarian relief, non-profits and the private sector (especially the technology and telecommunications sectors). Within minutes, CrisisCamp DC was born to unite communities, seek common ground and innovation in the use of technology and mobility during crisis.

Social Media Mistakes: (Social Media & Crisis Mgt / 10 Common Mistakes, Gideon f. Fur-Mukwai, MA, CEM) 

1. Lack of Social Media Guidelines:  Prior to embarking on the full potential of social media, there must be established guidelines or rules of engagement.
2. Lack of Senior Mgt Support:  Without such support it will be almost impossible to develop and implement a social media strategy.
3. Undefined Mission:  Lack of a required goal that justifies the inherent risks.  There must be specific goals, such as social, economic and political elements.
4. Missing Roadmaps:  Setting directions and staying on course to employ social media in crisis mgt.
5. Who Conducts, the Driver, the Captain?:  They may need to be trained before they’re ready to lead.
6. Who is the Tour Guide?:  In addition to the Capt, someone must work on project details.
7. In-Source/Outsource:  If you have in-house capabilities keep it at home.  If not, consider getting external help you need.  The tradeoffs might include feelings of lost control, cost and confidentiality.
8. Manageable Goals:  A plan divided into manageable stages.
9. Biased Emphasis:  Not allowing your social media to be deliberately filled with false information.
10. Procrastination:  The time to act is “Now”!

Validating Social Media: (Right or Wrong? Good or Bad? The Challenge of Social Media Validation, by Adam Crowe, 2/20/12, EM Blog)   Just as a principle focus on any reputable news gathering media, social media also needs to have or establish some form of validating process.  How should emergency management validate social media data during a disaster?  In the midst of crisis, emergency management will likely lack additional resources to support digital operations such as the American Red Cross.

Why not let social media validate itself?  If 9-1-1 dispatch receives numerous calls about an event, there is strong validation.  If numerous people report an event on a monitored site such as “Twitter”, there can be some level of validation.  Users of a social media will tend to self-correct erroneous data.  There will always be a challenge of validation.  We must find answers and take all actions appropriate in response.