Chapter 7: White Hot or White Noise? Aggregation and Validation of Social Media Information

Chapter 7

White Hot or White Noise? Aggregation and Validation of Social Media Information

It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.

—Clay Shirky21

Chapter Objectives

◾ To understand the processes required to aggregate and validate social media information for use during situational analysis

◾ To consider the impact of demographics on aggregation and validation of social media information

◾ Identify specific aggregation and validation tools available for use by emergency managers and disaster responders

◾ Explore the theory of social validation and its impact on social media monitoring and aggregation

◾ Evaluate the opportunity and prevalence of bias in social media reporting

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DISASTER FOCUS—FORT HOOD SHOOTING At 1:34 p.m. local time on November 5, 2009, Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major serving as a psychiatrist, entered the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood, a U.S. military installation just outside of Killian, Texas. (See Figure 7.1.) The Soldier Readiness Center was a facility for military personnel to receive routine medical treatment prior to and returning from official deployment. He was armed with a semi-automatic pistol that he had purchased from a local gun store. According to eyewitnesses, Hasan sat at a nearby empty table for a few seconds and then stood up and opened fire on those soldiers within the facility. Army Reserve captain John Gaffaney and civilian physician Michael Cahill both tried to challenge Hasan but were both wounded in the process. As Hasan moved through the facility, he passed several opportunities to shoot civilians, instead focusing on soldiers in uniform. Ultimately, Hasan was shot and taken into custody by Army police officers and is now paralyzed from the chest down. By the end of the event, Hasan had killed 13 people and wounded 29 others. During the investigation of the event, there were 146 spent shell casings recovered inside the building and 68 casings collected outside, for a total of 214 rounds fired by Hasan and responding police officers. Moreover, medics who treated Hasan later reported that he was still carrying 177 unfired rounds of ammunition in his pockets. In the first few hours after the event, two other soldiers were believed to have been involved but were later released. By the end of the event, multiple agencies responded to the Fort Hood shooting, including the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, Texas Rangers, Texas Department of Public Safety, Bell County Sheriff’s office, and Federal Bureau of Investigation officers. As a military officer, Hasan was later charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.6 With the size and scope of the response and impact of this act of terrorism, the public desire and need for information was immense. Traditional media sources and citizen journalists alike quickly moved to report on any pieces of information that were available about the event. Unfortunately, without reliable sourcing and tools to aggregate and validate the plethora of rumors, anecdotes, and buzz-worthy information, it was challenging for impacted individuals to get a clear, concise, and accurate picture of what had happened.7

116  ◾  Disasters 2.0

Figure 7.1

Darnall Hospital at Ft. Hood, Texas, where the Soldier Readiness

Center is located. (From U.S. Army, Michael Heckman, III Corps PAO.)

Impact of Demographics

Social media information can be monitored and analyzed with a variety of tools. However, due to the sheer number of sources and the complexity of the interconnectedness between various social media systems, monitoring the information distributed and exchanged via social media is useless unless there are mechanisms that allow for the aggregation and validation of this information. If these mechanisms are not utilized properly, social media information and activity simply becomes undistinguishable white noise that neither alerts nor corrects, which can be disastrous when quick and effective response is critical, such as in emergencies and disasters where timely information is the currency of efficiency and success.

For instance, if a community were in the middle of responding to an earthquake, local emergency managers would be keenly interested in assessing where localized power outages were occurring. While some areas have utility providers that publicly provide this information, these types of systems may sometimes be unavailable or only viewable to a limited viewing audience. Consequently, without using aggregation tools to validate information, the emergency manager may hear via Twitter, Facebook, and a blog that power was out in a certain area, but perhaps in reality all three sources are from the same person. Clearly, if that were the case, it would be an inefficient response to push resources and response personnel in reaction to this information rather than to other areas of the community that may actually have a more extensive power outage. This lack of control over resource management is not acceptable in modern emergency management, which has been highly impacted in recent years by shrinking budgets and limited personnel.

Table 7.1 Age Demographics by Category

Category	Age
Pre-Millennials	Under age 18
Millennials	18 – 33
Gen X	34 – 45
Younger Boomers	46 – 55
Older Boomers	56 – 64
Silent	65 – 73
G.I.	Over age 73

Source: From “Generations 2010: What Different Generations Do Online,” Pew Internet, December 16, 2010. http://www.pewinter net.org/Infographics/ 2010/ Generations - 2010

- Summary.aspx

One of the first and most practical tools for aggregation and validation of social media information is to understand the demographics of social media users. According to Pew Internet, basic demographics can be divided into seven categories: Pre-Millennials (under age 18), Millennials (ages 18–33), Gen X (ages 34–45), Younger Boomers (ages 46–55), Older Boomers (ages 56–64), Silent (ages 65–73), and G.I. (ages 74+). While all seven generational categories spent 90% of their internet time utilizing email and internet searching, only the Pre-Millennials, Millennials, Gen X, and Young Boomer generations used more than 50% of their internet time on social network sites like Facebook.1 Likewise, nearly all seven demographics categories uniformly spent the least amount of internet time on blogs and virtual worlds. These demographic considerations can provide strong validation for event-related information depending on source, content, and utilized system (see Table 7.1).

The demographics of culture, ethnicity, and gender also play a significant role in the validation of monitored and collected information. For instance, some research indicates that Latinos and African Americans who use the internet are more than twice as likely as Caucasians to utilize Twitter, with about 18% of active Twitter users being Hispanic, 13% being African American, and only 5% being Caucasian within each cohort.2 Likewise, Facebook usage via mobile phone was 36% for Latinos, 33% for African Americans, and 19% for Caucasians.3 Social media usage by gender is often slightly higher in women, especially for Facebook and Twitter. Income, however, is somewhat of an exception to the stereotypical breakdown of social media users. Specifically, users with incomes $25,000 to $75,000 were the highest users, followed by those who make between $75,000 and $100,000, with significant reductions in usage both above and below these ranges on nearly all major social media systems.4 Interestingly, education level also had plateaus of usage. For instance, nearly all systems maintained highest usage for those individuals with some college or a bachelor’s degree but had significant reduction for both limited education (e.g., high school only) and advanced education (e.g., graduate degree).4 Much as it does with age breakdowns, understanding the cultural, ethnic, and sociodemographic considerations potentially helps strongly validate disasterrelated information. Unfortunately, there is currently very limited data on how accessible and functional needs populations (children, elderly, those with physical handicaps, economic challenges, etc.) use social media sites (especially during disasters). When this data is available, it will be particularly valuable to emergency managers for validating effective communications because these populations are of growing importance, particularly as there is national emphasis to plan for the

“whole community.”5

It is also critical to understand the limitations that exist when utilizing demographics as an aggregation and validation tool. Sociological tradition would hold certain inherent characteristics about each generation. For example, Gen X citizens are often tagged with stereotypical labels such as “lazy” and “unmotivated” while older generations (especially when compared to Gen X) are “hard workers.” Unfortunately, according to New York University professor Clay Shirky, this change has less to do with inherent differences but rather is more directly related to the opportunities available to these generations.21 This misidentification of cause is referred to as the fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias.22 Put in straightforward terms by Mr. Shirky, “[T]he fundamental attribution error is at work when we explain our own behavior in terms of the constraints on us but attribute the same behavior in others to their character.”21 Having this measured parameter is important when considering using demographics as an aggregation and validation tool.

In addition to the need to consider demographics, basic analytics about a given site are strong mechanisms for validation in the broadest sense. Typically, basic analytics include crude cumulative observations about a particular social media system including followers, responses, comments, and so forth. Consequently, if a social media site is established by a local emergency manager and followers are quick to follow, like, or subscribe to the site, there is significant validation that the information and relationship established on that site are approved by the general public and therefore are going to be effective. Moreover, it ensures the information disseminated via that social media system will be available to those followers, which is the ultimate purpose of each of these sites.

Power of Aggregation

Aggregation is critical to the validation of time-sensitive social media information. This type of information is most common in disasters and emergencies due to the IN A NUTSHELL

Get very good at filtering and aggregating content. Deliver it to people at the right time, the right size, the right amount.

—John Jantsch at the Influencer Project Conference

ever-changing flow of information during an event and immediately afterward as the picture comes into focus. It is critical to understand whether information is event related or simply undistinguishable white noise. Ensuring information has maximum validation is not easily done within social media systems. In most cases, emergency managers assign public information officers within the joint information systems (or centers in physical environments) to aggregate and validate information from all media sources. Likewise, for operational considerations, this process is facilitated through intelligence components that are assigned to operations, logistics, and/or planning functions.

From a global perspective, one of the most powerful aggregators is Google’s Crisis Response tool. Google’s Crisis Response tool was an initiative of Google.org (Google’s philanthropic branch) that utilized Google’s various online tools to organize emergency alerts, news updates, donation opportunities, and other disasterrelated information for globally significant emergencies or disasters. Specifically, Google Crisis Response created disaster-related interfaces for Cyclone Nargis (2008), Sichuan earthquake (2008), Hurricane Gustav (2008), Hurricane Ike (2008), Red River floods (2009), L’Aquila earthquake (2009), Santa Cruz wildfires (2009), Typhoon Morakot (2009), Haiti earthquake (2010), Chili earthquake (2010), Pakistan floods (2010), Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2010) (Figure 7.2), Queensland floods (2011), and the Brazil floods and landslides (2011). Because of the resources available to Google and the dedication to the improvement and validation of disaster-related information, Google’s Crisis Response has also facilitated the development of collaboration tools such as Person Finder and Resource Finder, which have helped verify information quickly and effectively.8 Google’s Person Finder is further discussed in Chapter 14.

An additional aggregation tool that a growing number of emergency managers and social media experts have begun to use is called Paper.li. This is a Twitter and Facebook aggregation system that allows individual users to create online “papers” that collect and summarize key information posted and shared by identified users. For Twitter papers, the aggregation is based on certain topics mentioned or addressed in association with certain account names, hashtags, or Twitter lists, while Facebook pages aggregate based on keywords posted on public Facebook sites. These “papers” can be aggregated on a routine basis (e.g., hourly or daily) and then used to re-engage the providers of that content within the measured system. This type of tool, much like the alerts discussed in Chapter 6, are excellent tools

Figure 7.2

Deepwater Horizon oil rig on fire in Gulf of Mexico. (From U.S.

Coast Guard.)

to automate aggregation opportunities related to disasters or broader emergency management concepts or issues.

The third example of a common aggregation tool used by emergency managers utilizing social media is Twitter lists. Twitter lists are groupings of Twitter users based on arbitrary characteristics of the list generator. Any Twitter user can generate a list based on any number of characteristics; the user simply has to tag another user to that particular group.9 For instance, emergency managers might create Twitter lists based on other emergency managers, local media, elected officials, or other similar groups. Interestingly, mere days after Twitter established the list functionality, the Fort Hood shooting happened and the tool was quickly utilized by some emergency managers and more widely by traditional media outlets trying to cover the event. News organizations such as the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, CNN, Dallas Morning News, and the Washington Post were the first to set up lists of trusted Twitter sources, including Texas emergency managers, military members, and citizens as well as a Twitter account called @Fthoodshootings that had been spontaneously generated minutes after the event by journalists at the Austin American-Statesman.10

By analyzing the web traffic and social media interest, the potential impact of Twitter lists was emphasized during the Fort Hood shootings. Specifically, according to Pew Research Center’s New Media Index, 20% of internet links to newsrelated stories from blogs were about the Fort Hood shooting as well as 38% of the Twitter activity. But these numbers only partially reflect the size and scope of internet interest in this disaster. Specifically, these indicators were measured on the final day of the measurement cycle. Consequently, by including the next day (and the first of a new evaluation cycle), 67% of the blog links and 88% of the Twitter activities were related to the Fort Hood shootings.11 Utilizing Twitter lists during events of this magnitude and public interest would be extremely valuable to help aggregate and validate disaster-related information in a real-time fashion. Without strong tools like these, it would be nearly impossible for emergency managers to effectively determine if social media information is incident critical or extraneous.

Theory of Social Validation

One of the primary reasons social media works as a mechanism that can be aggregated and validated is the theory of social validation. According to Dr. Susan Weinschenk, this psychological theory can be summarized as “When [humans] are uncertain about what to do we will look to other people to guide us…and we do this automatically and unconsciously.”12 This type of confirmation is critical to humans to effectively perform a function or engage in a particular action with the confidence that it will be conducted correctly and within social norms. Social validation can facilitate both directed and facilitated action. For example, when online purchases are conducted through merchant sites like amazon.com, the purchaser often looks to the aggregated opinions and ratings of others who have purchased the items or similar items to gain some collective confirmation of its quality or value. On the other end of the spectrum, social validation can also facilitate people’s drive to exceed their current level of work or output, especially when one’s work quality or quantity is highlighted or hidden when presented to the public.12

Social media is a powerful and modern tool for the application of social validation. Specifically, the self-correcting aspect of social media is primarily driven by this social construct. When information is posted erroneously, all social media systems will eventually correct the information because both the original poster as well as those within the shared system want validation that their information is correct and is thus solidified by the presence of those persons within the shared community. In turn, the knowledge and desire for both the social validation and self-correcting mechanism in social media reduces the intentional posting of

IN A NUTSHELL

When [humans] are uncertain about what to do we will look to other people to guide us…and we do this automatically and unconsciously.

—Dr. Susan Weinschenk12

IN A NUTSHELL Misinformation and rumor have the potential to spread very quickly through online social networks due to the Internet’s informal structure and capabilities for unverified publication…the collective ‘wisdom of the crowd’ has been shown…to have the capacity for self-correction as those invested in a particular topic or subject matter monitor online behaviors and content posting corrections as necessary. —Dr. Jeanette Sutton, “Twittering Tennessee: Distributed Networks and Collaboration Following a Technological Disaster”13

misinformation, particularly during time-sensitive and community-centric events such as emergencies and disasters. According to disaster sociologist Dr. Jeannette Sutton, although “Misinformation and rumor have the potential to spread very quickly through online social networks due to the Internet’s informal structure and capabilities for unverified publication…the collective ‘wisdom of the crowd’ has been shown…to have the capacity for self-correction as those invested in a particular topic or subject matter monitor online behaviors and content posting corrections as necessary.”13

This social media phenomenon of self-correction through social validation is not limited to large-scale events that have significant traditional media coverage as well as widespread public outcry. For example, on December 22, 2008, a waste containment pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, spilled more than 5.4 million cubic yards of coal fly ash into a nearby valley and tributaries of the Tennessee River. (See Figure 7.3.) Individuals in the impacted area reported a variety of health issues presumably linked to poor air quality and increased levels of heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and thallium in the soil and water. Within the first few days of the incident, media coverage was minimal and limited to local reporting from regional sources such as the Tennesseean and the Knoxville News. Because of this lack of media advocacy, Twitter served as the primary means for the impacted individuals to distribute and share information about the local disaster, which was otherwise unrecognized and uncontrolled by traditional mechanisms. Consequently, one researcher stated that “The small network of self-professed [local] activists and green advocates… [self-organized] helped to sound the alarm about a devastating technological failure…[by] policing the accuracy of posted content, correcting misinformation, and dispelling rumors.”13

This ability of social media systems to self-correct is juxtaposed against the use of anonymous sources in traditional media. Often mainstream media will utilize a source under anonymity to provide protection to the sources so they will potentially be more willing to share information about the covered topic. The ethics of

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Figure 7.3

Aerial view of Kingston Fossil Plant the day after incident. (From

Tennessee Valley Authority.)

journalism often require these sources—whether anonymous or not—to be confirmed by at least one additional source to ensure the validation of the pending media report. In many ways this type of validation is no more accurate or biased than the social validation and self-correction mechanism available in social media. This is an important reflection considering the fact that one of the concerns often presented in regard to social media—particularly by emergency managers—is about the perception that social media is rampant with inaccuracies and biased views. However, due to the psychological and sociological foundations already established, social media in its aggregate form is no more or less subject to these concerns than traditional media utilization.

The Power of the Virtual Voice

The discussion of social media can sometimes become fixated on the individual systems and minute considerations rather than on the collective power, influence, and voice of the millions of people throughout the world who utilize these systems for personal and news-reporting systems. In the most basic terms, it is the proverbial problem of looking at the trees instead of the forest of information about a particular issue or situation. The individual systems and users are important but only gain the impactful influence when considered as a whole. Much like statistical analysis that often eliminates outliers to level the statistical review, governmental officials and emergency managers are often guilty of the same response to individual citizens. If one person objects, he or she can be pushed aside as an outlier or fringe component; however, when 10 or 100 or 1000 state the same issue, quick response ( or resolution) often follows.

As discussed earlier, this type of collective voice can be monitored in common systems like Twitter and Facebook but is also present through another category of new technology often referred to as social news sites. Examples of social news sites include Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, Newsvine, ShareThis, and AddThis. Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Newsvine are all based on the premise of posted web content whether from professional or amateur sources and allow users to rate the link positively or negatively. This functionality may exist as a thumbs up/thumbs down interface (StumbleUpon) or as digging/burying feature (Digg) but ultimately allows for the creation of user-driven popularity lists related to recently posted content. AddThis and ShareThis are embeddable website widgets that allow people to immediately link web content from blogs (e.g., www.mashable.com ) and news sites (e.g., www.kansascity.com) to these various social news sites with corresponding positive or negative comments. To put the use of these sites into perspective, StumbleUpon has over 10 million users14 and Digg has over 5 million users per month.15 Interestingly, with the advent of the Facebook platform interface, many of these same websites have added or replaced some of these social news sites with the capability to “like” the site (just like in Facebook) and in essence provide the collective rating without having to visit the social media system itself.

The capability and importance of these social news sites to emergency managers is twofold. First, the capability to see public perception related to news content is invaluable, particularly during emergencies or disasters where corrective or protective actions are required for the public safety. Utilizing social news sites and the collective virtual voice of affected citizens is a valuable addition to the capability to validate incident-critical information. In addition to the aggregation capabilities, social news sites also allow for the facilitation of collective community action. For example, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Reddit challenged its users to generate slightly more than $30,000 in direct support of earthquake relief activities. This initial challenge was met within five hours of being posted as a web link on Reddit. A second challenge was issued to raise an additional $30,000. This additional challenge was achieved within seven more hours. This process continued with 3,787 individuals donating a total of more than $185,000 for emergency relief.15 This type of modern donations management is impressive and is discussed further in Chapter 9.

RSS and Other Aggregation Tools

The last major type of social media aggregation tool is RSS. RSS, which is most often expanded as Real Simple Syndication, is a tool that captures and summarizes web content from multiple sites through readers or aggregators. For example, if a local citizen or emergency manager wants to monitor online content from various media sources like CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, local media outlets, and various community blogs, it would be extremely time consuming to visit each of these sites at regular intervals to truly have an accurate picture of current conditions. This difficulty is exponentially greater during emergent situations like emergencies or disasters because information and conditions change quickly. Fortunately, the RSS technology helps to quickly and efficiently address this challenge.

The earliest internet aggregation technologies were first developed in 1999 but solidified as RSS by 2005 when the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers adopted the orange square logo to represent the capability that is now known as RSS.16 Since that time, the RSS technology has quickly become commonplace and actively utilized by internet content owners. Specifically, these content owners benefit from adding RSS feeds to their web content so it can be aggregated and more often read by others. The feed is a unique code that is autogenerated through secondary providers and can then be added to other websites.17 Although RSS is somewhat of an older technology in the spectrum of Web 2.0 technologies, it is extremely beneficial to streamline the efficient and effective aggregation of multiple internet content streams.

In addition to RSS feeds and readers, there is a web application called Yahoo Pipes that allows an aggregation of various sources like RSS feeds or other output feeds through a graphical user interface. These aggregations are called pipes and allow end users to generate personalized streams of information on various issues, topics, or situations of interest.18 For example, there is a Yahoo pipe that takes the New York Times RSS feed and runs it through Flickr to add tagged photos with similar categories or terms.19 Each pipe is available to be copied and simulated for others to follow or emulate. Much like RSS, the Yahoo Pipes technology is an older social media technology (originally released in 2007) but still holds a lot of potential for dynamic information management as Web 2.0 technologies become more commonly accepted by both the general public and emergency managers.

In addition to RSS feeds and Yahoo Pipes, Facebook has a third-party integration tool that allows the Facebook interface of liking certain pages or issues to be transfered to non-Facebook web outlets. This Facebook platform integration allows an aggregation of public opinion related to web content on external sites such as media outlets and community blogs. Since over 500 million people maintain Facebook accounts, this level of integration is an extremely powerful tool, especially as third-party websites are utilizing this platform in higher numbers. Specifically, by 2011, more than 250 million people engaged with Facebook on more than 2.5 million external websites through the Facebook platform.20

Integration with Traditional Systems

The use of social media systems to aggregate and validate information is also being utilized through integration with traditional aggregation systems. Specifically, social media data is being collected simultaneously with traditional information intake, management, analysis, and reporting systems that have long been used by the public. Because of the long-standing use of these traditional systems, there is a high level of trust within these systems that makes their integration with social media an interesting concurrence between traditional and new public communication strategies.

Specifically, the City of San Francisco implemented an integration of their traditional phone-based 3-1-1 information system with their public Twitter account. San Francisco was the first city in the United States to utilize the Twitter application called CoTweet to allow citizens to send direct messages via Twitter 24 hours a day to the @sf311 account to report “non-emergency city-related sightings (like potholes), request street cleanings, and any other service already supported by the phone or website.”23 The only stipulation to facilitate the direct message was for local citizens to follow the @sf311 account. Upon submission of the 3-1-1 Twitter report, local citizens received a direct message confirmation with contact information or requests for additional information.23 Within two years of San Francisco’s integration of Twitter with their 3-1-1 system, they received 5 million messages utilizing this system.24 Although more common among major corporations like Time Warner, Comcast, Whole Foods, and Home Depot, this level of integration of social media is groundbreaking in government and would be a tremendous asset for emergency managers looking to find as much information aggregation as possible before, during, and after an event.24 , 25

Since very few communities have embraced San Francisco’s level of Web 2.0 integration, governmental operators and emergency managers alike need to continue to evaluate alternative models to gather information from the citizens to validate overall situational awareness about everything from current city conditions to emergencies or disasters. One example of this integration is a social awareness site called SeeClickFix. Much like the 3-1-1 integration previously discussed, the SeeClickFix website and related mobile applications center on a webbased map that displays anonymous public comments, photos, or videos about any noticed issues within the community. In addition, anyone can receive email alerts based on keyword filters in a particular geographic region. SeeClickFix was founded in 2008 and currently supports 25,000 towns and 8,000 neighborhoods in the United States. City governments in Houston, Philadelphia, and Tucson utilize SeeClickFix for work orders within their municipalities for minimal monthly charges.26 This type of utilization, although primarily used for non-emergencies, certainly could become a powerful crowdsourcing tool for emergency information as well. This type of crowdsourcing integration is further discussed in Chapter 11.

In addition to 3-1-1 integration and other similar services, this type of complex public engagement in 9-1-1 systems is not far off. Specifically, enhanced or next-generation 9-1-1 systems that allow for the integration of publicly generated photos, videos, and text messaging will be embraced by public safety answering points (PSAPs) and dispatch centers throughout the modern world. Unfortunately, this level of public feedback into the emergency notification process is not yet fully functional and fundamentally questioned by some traditional emergency managers and communicators. The possibilities of this type of an approach are further discussed in Chapter 8.

Practitioner Profile: Lee Arning,

Southern Methodist University

As the director of emergency preparedness and business continuity for Southern Methodist University, Lee Arning has seen emergencies, disasters, and community events of great complexity across his university system. Because of his experience, he has been an early adopter of social technologies with a particular focus on

Figure 7.4

Lee Arning.

its utilization for situational awareness and aggregation of information. When asked about the importance of social media adoption within the emergency management field, Mr. Arning stated that “In the information age of 2011, the act of postponing the development of a social media strategy for public safety and emergency response programs would have the same effects as a mid-19th-century fire department postponing the act to purchase the first motorized fire engines, despite the fact that by doing so they would speed their response, reducing the loss of life and property.” When asked to discuss implementation challenges to social media usage, Mr. Arning blamed it on what he called a “9-1-1 system mentality.” Specifically, he stressed that the development of the 9-1-1 system stressed “one mode of communication (phone) and one number (9-1-1)…which created a unified, quick access to police, fire, and EMS, but it was predicated [on] the premise that the public must reach out by phone and that phones were always working.” This 9-1-1 system mentality described by Mr. Arning is challenging considering not only that there are numerous different social media information streams that are potentially valuable to give and receive information during emergencies but that phone service in most areas is often impacted during major events and threatens the integrity of the emergency call-back system long thought to be the way of communicating emergency information.

Chapter Terms

Aggregation: Collection and classification of social media information into manageable packets of information.

Validation: Analysis and confirmation of social media information into verifiable and actionable information.

RSS feed: Type of social media aggregation tool that exports content via a particular technology that can be read and collected for aggregation and validation. This type of feed is commonly designated by an orange square with three curved lines.

RSS reader: Type of social media technology that can aggregate and collect RSS feeds into one manageable and reviewable source. Common readers are available through Google and Microsoft.

Social validation: Sociological phenomenon where individuals seek out validation and confirmation from other individuals (or sources) to validate the information they have received. This is often witnessed during emergency warning and notifications.

Self-Correction mechanism: Social media phenomenon where the overall social media system will correct misinformation or inaccuracies before any formal correction is possible or required.

Chapter Questions

General Questions

1. True/False: RSS and Yahoo Pipes are both social media information aggregation systems.

2. True/False: Is social media information more biased than traditional information received and utilized by media?

3. Which of the following is a social media news aggregator?

a. Reddit

b. Digg

c. StumbleUpon

d. All of the above

Essay Questions

1. Discuss the importance of aggregation and validation of social media information during emergencies and disasters.

2. Discuss the impact of generational demographics on the validation of social media information.

3. Discuss the theory of social validation and how it impacts the aggregation and validation of social media information during emergencies and disasters.

Works Cited

1. “Generations 2010: What Different Generations Do Online.” Pew Internet, December 16, 2010. http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/2010/Generations-2010-Summary. aspx (accessed April 3, 2011).

2. Murphy, Samantha. “Twitter Popular among Young Adults, Minorities, Urbanities.” Business News Daily, December 9, 2010. http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/ twitter-popular-among-young-adults-minorities-urbanites-0798/ .

3. Washington, Jesse. “Minorities See New ‘Digital Divide.’” All Business, 2011. http:// www.allbusiness.com/population-demographics/demographic-groups/15429194–1. html.

4. Bloch, Ethan. “Social Media Demographics: Who’s Using Each Site?” Flowtown, April 9, 2010. http://www.flowtown.com/blog/social-medi a - demographics - whos - using - which- site s .

5. “FEMA Administrator Fugate Addresses National Commission on Children and Disasters.” FEMA Press Release, August 23, 2010. http://www.fema.gov/news/newsre lease.fema?id=52432.

6. “Fort Hood Shooting.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting.

7. Holdeman, Eric. “Fort Hood Shooting and Social Media Accuracy.” Emergency Management Magazine, November 7, 2009. http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emer gency-blogs/disaster-zone/Fort-Hood-Shooting-and.html

8. “Google Crisis Response.” Google, 2010. http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/index. html.

9. “Soon to Launch: Lists.” Twitter Blog, September 30, 2009. http://blog.twitter. com/2009/09/soon-to-launch-lists.html .

10. Kanalley, Craig. “Fort Hood Shooting Shows How Twitter, Lists Can Be Used for Breaking News.” Poynter, November 6, 2009. http://www.poynter.org/how tos/digital-strategies/e-media-tidbits/99282/fort-hood -shooting-shows -how - twitter-lists-can-be-used-for-breaking-news/.

11. “The Fort Hood Tragedy Highlights the Reporting Role of Social Media.” Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, November 2–6, 2009. http://www.journal ism.org/index_report/fort_hood_tragedy_highlights_reporting_role_social_media .

12. Akil II, Bakari. “The Theory of Social Validation.” Psychology Today, September 13, 2009. http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/32823 .

13. Sutton, Jeannette. “Twittering Tennessee: Distributed Networks and Collaboration Following a Technological Disaster.” Proceedings of the seventh international ISCRAM conference, Seattle, 2010. http://www.jeannettesutton.com/uploads/Twittering_ Tennessee_FINAL.pdf .

14. Wauters, Robin. “StumbleUpon Quietly Signs Up 10 Millionth User.” TechCrunch, May 18, 2010. http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/18/stumbleupon-10-million/ .

15. “Digg Has Accepted Reddit’s Challenge to a Fundraising Competition for Haiti.” Direct

Relief International. http://dri.convio.net/site/TR/Events/Tributes?pg=fund&fr_id=10 30&pxfid=1511&JServSessionIdr004=r7t58phav1.app245b.

16. “RSS.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss .

17. “Icons: It’s Still Orange.” Microsoft Blog, December 14, 2005. http://blogs.msdn.

com/b/rssteam/archive/2005/12/14/503778.aspx

18. “Yahoo! Pipes.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Pipes .

19. “New York Times thru Flickr.” Yahoo! Pipes. http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe. info?_id=vvW1cD212xGMiR9aqu51kA

20. “Pressroom.” Facebook, 2011. http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics .

21. Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. New York: Penguin Press, 2011, p. 122–123.

22. “Fundamental Attribution Error.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Fundamental _ attribution_error

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“SeeClickFix.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeeClickFix