The Evolving Nature Of Disaster Management In The Internet And Social Media Era
Abstract
Traditional means for contacting emergency responders depend critically on the availability of the 911 service to request help. Large-scale natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes often result in overloading and sometimes failure of communication facilities. Affected citizens are increasingly using social media to obtain and disseminate information. Social media is not only being used to communicate with first responders but also for people to organically volunteer and seek help from each other, complementing the role of first responders. In this paper, we examine the use of Twitter during two major hurricanes in the U.S. in 2017. We find that there exists a sizable number of people with access to the Internet even in areas where 911 services were down, and they tweet disaster-related information including requests for help. Our analysis indicates that social media can potentially help in disaster management and improve outcomes.
Publication Date
9-27-2018
Publication Title
IEEE Workshop on Local and Metropolitan Area Networks
Volume
2018-June
Number of Pages
79-84
Document Type
Article; Proceedings Paper
Personal Identifier
scopus
DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.1109/LANMAN.2018.8475116
Copyright Status
Unknown
Socpus ID
85055819961 (Scopus)
Source API URL
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85055819961
STARS Citation
Jahanian, Mohammad; Xing, Yuxuan; Chen, Jiachen; Ramakrishnan, K. K.; and Seferoglu, Hulya, "The Evolving Nature Of Disaster Management In The Internet And Social Media Era" (2018). Scopus Export 2015-2019. 10557.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/scopus2015/10557