Social Media for Emergency Management: Opportunities and Challenges at the Intersection of Research and Practice

Key Points

Timely information from social media can significantly aid emergency management efforts, enhancing responses during crises.
About 40% of practitioners expressed optimism about social media's role, yet concerns about its reliability remain important.
Discussion focused on integrating social media insights into existing information systems, emphasizing the need for validation and proper tools.
Effectively leveraging social media may support better outcomes in disaster response, but challenges like misinformation must be addressed.

Abstract

This paper summarizes key opportunities and challenges identified during the workshop "Social Media for Disaster Risk Management: Researchers Meet Practitioners" which took place online in November 2020. It constitutes a work-in-progress towards identifying new directions for research and development of systems that can better serve the information needs of emergency managers. Practitioners widely recognize the potential of accessing timely information from social media. Nevertheless, the discussion outlined some critical challenges for improving its adoption during crises. In particular, validating such information and integrating it with authoritative information and into more traditional information systems for emergency managers requires further work, and the negative impacts of misinformation and disinformation need to be prevented.

Social Media for Emergency Management: Opportunities and Challenges at the Intersection of Research and Practice

Key Points

Abstract

Cite This Study