One of the most frequent and destructive environmental disasters worldwide is flooding. Despite the extensive literature on flood risk management, social media techniques for flood disaster reporting and management in Ghana remain unexplored. This study assessed willingness to become social media influencers for flood risk reporting and management. Data were extracted from a cross-sectional study of residents (n = 384) aged 18 years and above owning functional smartphones who live within the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA), Ghana. The analysis employed structural equation modelling: confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), path and multigroup analysis to measure social media use integration and technology acceptance of respondents and their interrelationships. Results showed that integration into social routines (β = 0.13, p ≤ .05) had a significant influence on residents’ engagement with flood risk-related information. The analysis further found that social integration (β = 0.25, Z = 2.11, p ≤ .05), contribution (β = 0.16, Z = 1.90, p ≤ .05), and creation (β = 0.18, Z = 2.73, p ≤ .01) had a significant influence on residents’ willingness to become flood risk social media influencers. This study found that social media usage and engagement with flood risk information influence residents’ willingness to become flood risk social media influencers. Additionally, gender, income, and years of stay in AMA were the socio-demographic factors influencing residents’ willingness to become flood risk influencers. This study recommends that the National Disaster Management Organisation should create a centralised social media platform(s) to allow users to send user-generated content on real-time flood events, while developing a disaster event mobile app to enable real-time flood alerts.
Affum et al. (Mon,) studied this question.