Fifteen years of social media in emergencies: A retrospective review and future directions for crisis Informatics

Abstract

Social media has been established in many larger emergencies and crises. This process has not started just a few years ago, but already 15 years ago in 2001 after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In the following years, especially in the last 10, sometimes summarized under the term crisis informatics, a variety of studies focusing on the use of ICT and social media before, during or after nearly every crisis and emergency has arisen. This article aimed to recapitulate 15 years of social media in emergencies and its research with a special emphasis on use patterns, role patterns and perception patterns that can be found across different cases to point out what has been achieved so far, and what future potentials exist.

Disentangling rhetorical subarenas of public health crisis communication: A study of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in the news media and social media in Sweden

“…Research on social media usage and content related to crisis confirms the emergence of new and alternative communication spaces, or what we prefer to term rhetorical subarenas. Studies show that social media serve as information brokers (Reuter & Kaufhold, ), and that news media articles are among the most retweeted content on social media during crises (Bruns, Burgess, Crawford, & Shaw, ; Palen, Starbird, Vieweg, & Hughes, ).…”

The Influence of Social Media on Public Policy Changes in Bandar Lampung City

“…The third highlight is that the transformation of social media has allowed more flexibility for massive attention and a greater sense of responsibility. Reuter and Kaufhold (2018) asserted that this current information revolution is less about technology and more about how people react to events through social media. In the past, when multiple riots happened in Jakarta, all what most of Bandar Lampung citizens did was just to hear news from the radio or watch on television.…”

Avoiding chaotic use of social media before, during, and after emergencies: Design and evaluation of citizens’ guidelines

“…For 15 years, the public has used social media in emergencies (Reuter & Kaufhold, ), with 2012 Hurricane Sandy being one of the most prominent cases (Caragea, Squicciarini, Stehle, Neppalli, & Tapia, ; Homeland Security, ; Kogan, Palen, & Anderson, ) but also the 2008 Sichuan earthquake (Li & Rao, ; Qu, Wu, & Wang, ) or 2013 European floods (Kaufhold & Reuter, ; Reuter & Schröter, ). Accordingly, a mixed‐method study with authorities and citizens outlines that, in times of crisis, Facebook is perceived as a channel to reach the general public and where people debate and connect with family and friends, whereas Twitter is perceived as an elite channel which primarily serves as an early warning channel (Eriksson & Olsson, ).…”

“…Social media are a part of everyday life and are also prevalent during crises, disasters, and emergencies. Reuter and Kaufhold () summarized 15 years of social media use during natural disasters and human‐induced crises, identifying different usage, role, and perception patterns between administrative and public stakeholders both in the real and in virtual realms. New opportunities have emerged for emergency services to alert and warn of crises (Brynielsson et al., ) and for social media analytics (Stieglitz, Mirbabaie, Ross, & Neuberger, ).…”