Improving emergency response operations in maritime accidents using social media with big data analytics: a case study of the MV Wakashio disaster

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how big data analytics (BDA) emerging technologies crossed with social media (SM). Twitter can be used to improve decision-making before and during maritime accidents. We propose a conceptual early warning system called community alert and communications system (ComACom) to prevent future accidents.Design/methodology/approachBased on secondary data, the authors developed a narrative case study of the MV Wakashio maritime disaster. The authors adopted a post-constructionist approach through the use of media richness and synchronicity theory, highlighting wider community voices drawn from social media (SM), particularly Twitter. The authors applied BDA techniques to a dataset of real-time tweets to evaluate the unfolding operational response to the maritime emergency.FindingsThe authors reconstituted a narrative of four escalating sub-events and illustrated how critical decisions taken in an organisational and institutional vacuum led to catastrophic consequences. We highlighted the specific roles of three main stakeholders (the ship's organisation, official institutions and the wider community). Our study shows that SM enhanced with BDA, embedded within our ComACom model, can better achieve collective sense-making of emergency accidents.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to Twitter data and one case. Our conceptual model needs to be operationalised.Practical implicationsComACom will improve decision-making to minimise human errors in maritime accidents.Social implicationsEmergency response will be improved by including the voices of the wider community.Originality/valueComACom conceptualises an early warning system using emerging BDA/AI technologies to improve safety in maritime transportation.

A holistic view of maritime navigation accidents and risk indicators: examining IMO reports from 2011 to 2021

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Conscripting communalism: surveillance and resistance in contemporary Mauritius

“…13 Civilians pulled together and tens of thousands of people participated in response to the ecological disaster; ethnicity and religion receded in significance in light of the work that needed to be done. Volunteers rescued animals and plants, created booms with sugarcane and human hair to contain the spread of oil, and took to the streets and to social media to express their fury that the government had become so removed from the realities of Mauritian lives that it had sat by observing instead of acting with urgency to prevent a national disaster (Dominguez-Péry et al 2021).…”

“…Volunteers rescued animals and plants, created booms with sugarcane and human hair to contain the spread of oil, and took to the streets and to social media to express their fury that the government had become so removed from the realities of Mauritian lives that it had sat by observing instead of acting with urgency to prevent a national disaster (Dominguez-Péry et al . 2021).…”

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