Twitter: An Underutilized Potential during Sudden Crises?

Abstract

The widespread use of Twitter by citizens during sudden crises has convinced communications experts that governments should also actively use Twitter during crises. However, this position seems insufficiently empirically validated. In this article, we want to provide empirical building blocks for an informed approach to the use of Twitter by the government. To this end, we analyze the tweets posted by citizens and governments about the large‐scale fire in Moerdijk (2011), the Netherlands. The results show that by far, most tweets do not contain any new and relevant information for governments and that the tweets posted by governments got buried under an avalanche of citizen tweets. We may conclude that the Moerdijk case does not give rise to advocate a (more) active role of governments on Twitter during sudden crises.

Facebook and Twitter in Crisis Communication: A Comparative Study of Crisis Communication Professionals and Citizens

“…Helsloot and Groenendaal () come to a similar conclusion in their study of how Twitter was used by different actors during a major fire in Moerdijk, Netherlands. They conclude that crisis communication professionals’ use of Twitter is currently at a ‘premature stage’, and it is too early to advocate for governments to play a more active role on Twitter in all types of crises.…”

“…() and Helsloot et al. (), use social media platforms as crisis communication tools without possessing a substantial, homogeneous body of knowledge about the platforms’ benefits and audiences. As a result, public authorities risk allocating resources to build up crisis communication capacities on a platform which the public does not use for the same purpose or does not have the same level of confidence in (see also Wendling et al., ).…”

Government Social Media Messages across Disaster Phases

“…Those studies illustrate innovative practices to quickly reach the public postdisaster when attention is high (Hughes et al., ; St. Denis et al., ; Sutton et al., ). Other studies, however, illustrate (a) the underused nature of social media in emergency management (Helsloot et al., ), and (b) the complete lack of use in certain critical situations (Hunt et al., ). Indeed, survey research indicates a range of social media adoption and use preferences in both the United States (Su et al., ) and in Europe (Reuter et al., ).…”

“…Despite the optimism of many researchers, Helsloot et al. () suggested that the praise given to social media's potential may not match its utility in practice. Future research on efficacy and reach can address those concerns.…”

Social media analytics and research test-bed (SMART dashboard)

“…Communication in general, and social media in particular, has been identified as a key element in each type of context: flu [8,9], whooping cough [10], wildfire [11,13], drugs [14,15], and institutional affiliation and reputation [16,18]. As anticipated by the M 3 D model and numerous other theories, there is likely to be some degree of reciprocal influence and representation between social media communication and the activities that involve that communication.…”