Social Media Use in Emergencies

"Real-time citizen interaction has the potential to transform society's response to crisis situations. New systems and processes must be developed to support citizen involvement and first responders must be trained in their use. The Citizens' Emergency Response Portal System (CERPS) Simulation Experiment (CERPS SIMEX) evaluated examined the role of public interaction through social media during emergency situations. The SIMEX was conducted over five days in October 2012 at the Net-Centric C4ISR Experimentation Lab (NCEL) housed at The MITRE Corporation's McLean, Va., headquarters and on the George Mason University (GMU) campus in Fairfax, Va. No actual emergency activities occurred on the campus; the SIMEX was conducted behind a firewall to avoid unintentional public panic. The SIMEX brought together emergency response personnel from federal, state, county and city jurisdictions in the National Capital Region of Washington, D.C. Emergency operators used real command and control systems with simulated reporting and sensor systems. Citizen participants were volunteers recruited from the GMU student body. The primary purpose of the SIMEX was to examine the hypothesis that citizen participation via social media in crisis response decision-making can improve the outcome of a crisis. This SIMEX was intended to establish a baseline for future research on crisis response decision support employing citizen participation."

From the opening statement of Mark L. Pryor: "Today the Subcommittee has been joined by very insightful guests to talk about the increasingly important role that social media networks play during disaster response and recovery efforts. From search and rescue to family reunification, to safety updates, to communicating vital shelter information, to other critical or lifesaving information, and to all around situational awareness, social media is becoming a tool that people are coming to rely on and to use heavily during emergencies. In July 2010, the American Red Cross conducted a survey--and they are here today, and they will probably talk about this in more detail, but they conducted a survey of over 1,000 people about their use of social media sites in emergency situations. The results of the survey were striking: 82 percent of the participants used some form of social media at least once a day, and nearly half of those use it every day or nearly every day. The survey found that if they needed help and could not reach 911, one in five would try to contact responders through a digital means such as e-mail, Web sites, or social media. If Web users knew of someone else who needed help, 44 percent would ask other people in their social network to contact authorities. Three out of four respondents would expect help to arrive in an hour if a call for help was delivered over the Internet; 35 percent would post a request for help directly on a response agency's Facebook page, and 28 percent would send a direct Twitter message to responders." Statements, letters, and materials submitted for the record include those of the following: Mark L. Pryor, Scott P. Brown, W. Craig Fugate, Renee Preslar, Suzy DeFrancis, Shona L. Brown, and Heather Blanchard.

"This essay, the winner of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) Essay Contest in 2010, looks at how homeland security could benefit from crowd-sourced applications accessed through social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Christopher M. Ford looks at the apparent efficacy of two such endeavors: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) competition to find ten 8-foot balloons moored across the continental U.S. and Wired Magazine challenge to "find" author Evan Ratliff. Based on these and other crowd-sourced applications, Ford suggests that the U.S. government could utilize the internet and social networking sites to potentially solve an array of discrete problems through the active participation of interested citizens"

"High-impact and high-visibility events have revealed the proliferation and widespread use of mobile devices. Combined with the rise in popularity of social media, the subsequent explosion in available information now spans multiple platforms and formats. Historically, the emergency response community has leveraged multiple data sources, including land mobile radios, maps, computer-aided dispatch, crisis management systems, traffic cameras, geographic information systems, and windshield assessments to collect information. Now, responders can leverage social media as well, both to communicate and to gather and share real-time, dynamic information to enhance situational awareness and assist in decision-making. The volume and speed with which available information is disseminated, combined with an inability to identify, verify, coordinate, aggregate, and contextualize it, however, can leave this information unused and ultimately, un-actionable. This report discusses examples of how agencies currently leverage social media to enhance situational awareness and support operational decision-making, as well as challenges and potential applications."

This slide presentation discusses the following sub-topics of social media: What is Social Media; Social Media Tools; Social Media Definitions; What is Twitter; Organizations Using Social Media; Elements of a Holistic Social Media Program; Potential Issues and Concerns; A Case Study: Proactive Messaging; and Using Social Media in Recovery. The presentation is geared toward an acceptance of social media in crisis management, especially in a university campus setting. Social media applications discussed include blog, podcast/vodcast, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, social networking sites, websites, widgets, and WIKIs.

"Social media and collaborative technologies have become critical components of emergency preparedness, response, and recovery. From the international response efforts after major tsunamis to hurricane recovery in major U.S. cities, officials now turn to social media technologies to share information and connect with the community during all phases of a crisis. Implementing these new technologies, however, requires responding agencies to adopt new communication strategies and methods of engagement. Recognizing the need to address these challenges, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) has established the virtual social media working group (VSMWG). The mission of the VSMWG is to provide recommendations to the emergency preparedness and response community on the safe and sustainable use of social media technologies before, during, and after emergencies. Drawn from a cross-section of subject matter experts from local tribal, state, territorial, and federal responders from across the United States, VSMWG members are establishing and collecting best practices and solutions that can be leveraged by responders of all disciplines throughout the nation's emergency response community. Below is a list of agencies to which the VSMWG members belong. [...] This document discusses best practices for the use of social media by public safety agencies of all disciplines and partner organizations for meaningful and successful engagement of community members and stakeholders."

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Office of Response and Recovery (ORR) has launched an initiative using publicly available social media for situational awareness purposes in support of the FEMA Administrator's responsibility under the Homeland Security Act and to assist the DHS National Operations Center (NOC) by helping to shape its mission to provide situational awareness during emergency and disaster situations, during which, FEMA is a primary source of information. The initiative assists FEMA's efforts to provide situational awareness for federal and international partners as well as state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments. FEMA's Watch Centers collect information from publicly available traditional media, such as newspapers and television news, and new media sources, such as social media websites and blogs for situational awareness purposes. While this initiative is not designed to actively collect personally identifiable information (PII), FEMA is conducting this Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) because FEMA's Watch Centers may collect, maintain, and disseminate limited amounts of PII 'in extremis' situations to prevent the loss of life or serious bodily harm."

"During the weekend of Friday, March 1 through Sunday, March 3, 2013 California Volunteers, Anaheim CERT [Community Emergency Response Team] and a team of Virtual Operation Support Team (VOST) volunteers helped to conduct a social media exercise during the California State CERT Conference. There were 129 distinct twitter handles in use during the conference on the #CalCERT hashtag for twitter, which represents approximately 32% of the attendees. The conference exercise produced the following social media activity: 954 posts, 131,475 reach and 822,917 timeline deliveries. The importance of creating safe exercise opportunities in a live social media environment was the key lessoned learned. Repeated exercises in the future should structure tasks based on behavioral measures and provide a team orientation and briefing prior to delving into the online exercise environment."

This presentation on "Social Media in Emergency Response" contains slides defining social media and its relevancy to emergency response. The presentation gives an overview of popular social media websites, elaborating with statistics on Facebook and Twitter. Many emergency management groups have pages on Facebook, and twitter users were vital in assisting with emergency management information during the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks in November 2008. The presentation's goal appears to be clarifying how the emergency response community can use social media. The conclusion states that social media's relevance to emergency management creates "opportunities for social media use in every day and emergency response operations"; and that the "value is in the community collaboration and information sharing."

From the thesis abstract: "Police agencies are increasingly turning to social media to communicate with the public; some departments only push information out one way, while others engage in a two-way, back-and-forth conversation. Research is robust on topics such as two-way engagement, the benefits of a large following, and the positive impact government can have by using social media during and after crises, but there is a marked lack of police-specific quantifiable data. The purpose of this thesis is to determine if two-way engagement on Twitter leads to an increase in followers. A case study analysis of three Silicon Valley, California, police departments' Twitter engagement habits showed that agencies using a two-way communication model receive more new followers overall than agencies using a one-way model. The analysis did not, however, conclusively find a direct relationship on a monthly or daily basis between the amount of two-way engagement and the number of followers. Ultimately, the research reveals a number of tactics that police agencies can employ to increase two-way engagement, and recommends strategic implementation devices."

From the thesis abstract: "Emergency response agencies across the homeland security spectrum rely on their public information offices to leverage social media in support of citizens and response organizations during times of disaster. Do these public information practitioners have the guidance and tools necessary to represent their organizations effectively in times of emergency? To answer this question, this thesis reviews social media policies at the local, state, federal and international emergency response agency levels, specifically looking at guidance provided for crisis communications social media use during and after a disaster. Case studies on the how social media are used during and after a disaster are studied from the various perspectives. Finally, this research examines additional considerations for social media and emergency response. The policy review and case studies find a disparity between what is expected of our emergency response agency communicators and the guidance provided to them to meet the needs of our citizens and organizations in a time of disaster. This gap between policy and action leaves room for miscommunication and inconsistencies that must be addressed. This thesis concludes with research analysis, addressing that information gap and provides a policy template for normal conditions and emergency response events."

"We live in disparate times. There seems to be an increase in the occurrence of natural disasters and acts of terrorism, creating an increased dependence on government services and emergency responders. By contrast, public safety budgets are shrinking and there are fewer resources to address this greater, widespread need. The answer may be what homeland security officials have yet to do--engage the public as a full partner. A relatively new concept has emerged in which social media or Web 2.0 tools can be utilized to facilitate the timely and accurate exchange of information and better engage the public. This thesis examines the current use of Web 2.0 technologies and crisis informatics and seeks to discover how existing social media can be used to engage the public in homeland security and emergency management. This thesis concludes that social media connects people and helps build communities. Unfortunately, public safety officials have not embraced Web 2.0 technologies and are missing a great opportunity to engage the public and harness its collective power. With virtually no capital investment, public safety agencies can create an innovative partnership by capitalizing on tools the public uses everyday."

From the thesis abstract: "Situational awareness is one of the most important aspects to a commander in any type of mission, be it humanitarian relief, disaster recovery, or armed conflict. Through the past several decades, with the use of technology, we have been able to develop systems that help improve the commander's situational awareness of the mission. One of the major problems with this has been that every organization uses different technology to communicate, which causes interoperability issues and a lack of a Common Operational Picture (COP) between them. Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) equipment that is relatively inexpensive, easily obtainable, simple to operate, and rapidly distributable to different organizations can help bridge this gap in the overall mission situational awareness. The goal of this research is to explore how to effectively implement Android-based devices to provide the tracking of team members and locations of significant activities/equipment graphically through the use of GPS [Global Positioning Satellite], Google Maps, and custom overlays to increase situational awareness, thereby constructing a COP to assist in disaster relief efforts."

"Emergencies and disasters create hardships for citizens. To speed up recovery, local governments need to engage with citizens in an interactive information sharing system to convey information while the incident is still developing and to help mitigate and recover from damages. Lack of effective communication can decrease public trust and engender stress and anxiety of the survivors. As service delivery becomes more complicated during an emergency, responders can also benefit from additional information from the public to increase situational awareness and better understand the challenges facing citizens. This thesis examines emergency information needs, emerging information sharing trends, and the potential homeland security application of Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs, mashups and text messaging. This thesis examines the use of Web 2.0 technologies during the Southern California wildfires as a case study and interviews top emergency managers throughout the country capturing their insights and opinions about the benefits and pitfalls of incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into existing emergency information sharing systems. Local government agencies, the impacted community, and those outside the immediate area seeking opportunities to assist may be interested in the benefits of context-powered knowledge when collaboration from multiple sources converges to facilitate knowledge used for decision making."

From the thesis abstract: "The push by the Obama administration for a more transparent, citizen-centric government has created a new way of thinking among federal, state, and local governments: citizen participation has become a mainstay of newly written policies across the country. The adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, particularly social media, within fusion centers and local law enforcement entities could enable a more expedient exchange of information among fusion centers, law enforcement, and the public. The ability to collect and disseminate information on a real-time basis via fusion centers and law enforcement is key to the overall success of the homeland security mission; it is impossible for the federal government to have sole responsibility for safeguarding the homeland from the confines of Washington, D.C. Because fusion centers and law enforcement agencies are state and local entities, they have the capability to obtain information at a grassroots level and have the advantage of knowing the local environment, including potential targets and vulnerabilities. Social media, if leveraged appropriately, could enhance communication among fusion centers, law enforcement, and private citizens to better detect and deter terrorism. This research explores potential benefits and implementation challenges of integrating social media into fusion center and local law enforcement frameworks."

"The earthquake in Haiti represents an event of catastrophic scale. Relief efforts were thwarted by blocked roads and ruined runways. Relief organizations assisted in the effort using adhoc approaches but could have benefitted from improved Situational Awareness (SA). This thesis develops a new model and methodology, based on data collected following the Haiti earthquake that combines both text-mining methods with 3D graphics. This interpretive approach provides a qualitative improvement on the currently available graphic depictions of such data. Text mining is performed using Lexical Link Analysis (LLA), which tracks and links word pairs, and then visually depicts correlations between discovered words, themes, and entities, thus revealing how they are related to each other in terms of both relationship and content. Our findings reveal discovered patterns of self-organization within this crisis situation, and can demonstrate a dynamic, situational awareness tool that can be executed by a thin client to analyze and determine social-organization collaboration and self-organization for leaders to leverage. This effort can eventually help to create a real-time feedback loop to inform decision maker's organizational awareness, improve organization-to-organization collaboration, and perhaps better allocate resources to areas requiring relief operations."

From the thesis abstract: "Public health and other agencies need situational awareness to respond effectively to disasters or other incidents. Traditional means of obtaining this information require significant time and personnel. Social media is becoming increasingly popular among American citizens, and research is demonstrating that it may be a useful tool for bolstering information about unfolding events. This research analyzed the potential of the microblogging service Twitter in providing situational awareness. Tweets from a major snowstorm affecting the state of Massachusetts were collected, coded for content, and compared to traditional public health methods. The results indicate that Twitter can provide a rich source of data for responding agencies. Still, the immense volume of conversations makes extracting useful information in a timely manner a significant challenge. Practical approaches uncovered during this research can help agencies with nascent social media surveillance programs begin to unearth the valuable information that Twitter contains. Collaboration with information technology experts could allow public health and other responding agencies to create even greater value from social meechdia platforms."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "uses social media to provide users with access to credible, science-based health information when, where, and how you want it. A variety of social media tools are used to reinforce and personalize messages, reach new audiences, and build a communication infrastructure based on open information exchange." This site includes a set of social media tools; information on current CDC social media campaigns; a metrics dashboard for developing social media strategies; as well as guidance and best practices for using social media to "to provide critical information on lessons learned, best practices, clearance information and security requirements," which "may be useful materials for other federal, state and local agencies as well as private organizations to reference when developing social media tools."