Social media during multi-hazard disasters: Lessons from the Kaikoura earthquake 2016

Abstract

Social media provides channels of communication during emergency events such as earthquakes. Such sites may be utilised for a range of emergency response strategies providing that data is processed rapidly and management strategies employed effectively. The processing of social media data presents many challenges for emergency responders: information overload, organisational communication and information reliability remain prevalent issues. Furthermore, there is a growing need to improve the management of multi-hazard disasters (sometimes referred to as 'cascading disasters') due to an increase in their frequency and severity, exacerbated by underlying global problems such as climate change. This is especially important to geographical regions that are prone to particular hazards -New Zealand for instance recorded nearly 33,000 earthquakes in 2016 alone. Similarly, there is an increasing need to evaluate developments in technology and social media sites themselves as they are progressively being relied upon during emergency events. In this study, we examine the crisis communications of the Kaikoura earthquake (New Zealand, 2016) using mainstream media content such as new stories, and online content such as Twitter data. A mixed method approach was employed, which combined content analysis with the application of a conceptual framework. The paper then presents (i) an analysis of crisis communications during the event, focusing on changes in media content and theme, (ii) the structure of online emergency response in the country and its affect on management and (iii) the barriers effecting emergency response in this case study.

Role of Social Media in Earthquake: A Systematic Review

“…In a study, a service and a mobile application mediated a tool, such as citizen messages, through the Twitter server to retrieve messages from citizens living in earthquake-stricken areas to be stored and processed in a geographic database using SQL, and it accelerated relief (30). Moreover, in a study performed by Gautam and Basaua, vector models were used to process text and statistics in order to categorize the information contained on Twitter in order to retrieve information and assist in efforts made to rescue and save lives (31). Social aspects in terms of retention of recorded information, the ability to transfer data to other databases for data analysis, and optimal use, such as drawing different maps (affected areas and emergency accommodation.)…”

Contribution of Social Media Analytics to Disaster Response Effectiveness: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…[84] conducted content and sentiment analysis to evaluate the public opinion on the Syria Chemical attack in 2017. In summary, the public sentiment after a disaster can be captured by collective intelligence in not only social security events but also natural hazards including earthquakes [62], floods [64,65,71], bush fires [78], tsunamis [66], and typhoons [67].…”

Information Preference and Information Supply Efficiency Evaluation before, during, and after an Earthquake: Evidence from Songyuan, China

“…Furthermore, of course, there are studies which show that television remains the most common channel that audiences use in times of crisis [26,[47][48][49]. Compared with traditional media, social media is also considered to be an important channel [50][51][52][53][54][55][56] for risk information due to its interactivity and speed. In addition to traditional media and new media, another information dissemination channel that cannot be ignored is interpersonal communication, which mainly refers to communication and dissemination among family members, friends, and neighbors.…”