MIS- Chapter 3 to 6

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Chapter 3

Citizen Journalism: The Rise and Impact of New Media

The testimony of the independent, well-informed eyewitness is more vital than ever in our interconnected world…[but] how can this still be achieved when the technology and business of journalism is being transformed out of all recognition?

—Timothy Garton Ash, Facts Are Subversive1

Chapter Objectives

◾ To comprehend the impact of citizen journalism on emergency and disaster response scenes, emergency public information, and comprehensive emergency management

◾ To identify and consider characteristics of both traditional and public participatory journalism

◾ To identify the level of acceptance of citizen journalism characteristics by the general public and the traditional media

◾ To consider new paradigms of time and pacing of news cycles

◾ To identify the tools and systems utilized by citizen journalism

◾ To consider all systematic and structural challenges to citizen journalism

DISASTER FOCUS—MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON

At 3:24 p.m. EST on January 15, 2009, U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was cleared for takeoff from Runway 4 at New York’s LaGuardia Airport for a routine flight from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina. There were 155 souls aboard the Airbus 320 plane, including five crew members, with Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger at the helm. Captain Sullenberger, 57, was a former fighter pilot who had been a commercial pilot for nearly 30 years since leaving the U.S. Air Force. Within six minutes of takeoff, the plane was struck by a flock of Canada geese (Figure 3.1). Subsequently, there was an immediate and complete loss of thrust from both engines. Captain Sullenberger and his flight crew quickly determined that they would not be able to safely return to any local airfield and instead decided to turn south to glide the plane into an emergency landing on the Hudson River near the USS Intrepid Museum. All occupants were safely evacuated by emergency services from the plane, which was amazingly still virtually intact although partially submerged and slowly sinking into the river. The entire crew of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was later awarded the Master’s Medal of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators and dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson” by traditional media outlets.2 Although an amazing story of heroics and courage in the face of adversity, it also marks one of the most amazing examples of citizen journalism recorded. Specifically, while on a trip to New York City from his Florida home, Janis Krums (@jkrums on Twitter) was, according to his website, “in the right place at the right time” to capture a cell phone picture of the airplane floating in the Hudson River.3 Mr. Krums immediately posted the picture to Twitter from his iPhone and within 34 minutes was being interviewed by MSNBC as an eyewitness to the crash.4 News coverage quickly followed on Google, FoxNews, and many other traditional news outlets throughout the world.4 Since that time, Mr. Krums’s picture has been downloaded over 635,000 times.5 Additionally, numerous Facebook pages and groups have been created since the event celebrating both the heroism of Captain Sullenberger and the Miracle on the Hudson event. Clearly traditional news outlets now seek out and need the input of citizen journalists for real-time event-related pieces of news information.

Journalism—Traditional and Participatory

By any standard, journalism is the practice of reporting news. The challenge for both professional journalists and those individuals affected by news (everyone else) is that the understanding of what is news and what is professional news coverage is challenging, particularly as social media has become more prevalent. The foundation of news reporting started with Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the moveable type

Figure 3.1

Bird feather found in left engine of U.S. Airways Flight 1549. (From

National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB].)

printing press in 1456 (see Figure 3.2), which led to the widespread dissemination of information (and ultimately news). Most historians note that the first newspaper appeared in Europe in the 17th century. By 1702, the Daily Courant was the first daily newspaper with continued publication in the United States. Not long after, the British government adopted the Press Restriction Act, which required that the printer’s name and place of printing be included on each publication.10 This act ensured printers maintained professional acknowledgment and source transparency. This concept is of critical importance as it became a foundation of professional journalism and ultimately has been one of the biggest hurdles for the acceptance of the contribution of citizen journalism from (potentially) unknown and untrained individuals.

The next two major sources of professional journalism were created with the rise of radio and television. The capability for long-range radio transmission was first established by Guglielmo Marconi (Figure 3.3) in 1895 and first broadcast as a radio news program on August 31, 1920, by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.11 Likewise, the technology of television was developed incrementally over the first 25 years of the 20th century with regular broadcasting debuting in New York

Figure 3.2

Copper engraving of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the print

ing press.

City in April 1931. Regular network television broadcasts began on NBC in 1947 and on CBS and ABC in 1948 with numerous additional stations being established throughout the eastern part of the United States soon thereafter.12 Quickly television news formats were established both at the national and local levels. Additionally, the rise of cable access news information channels by the 1980s created an industry that became the primary mechanism for the public to receive emergent information.13

By the end of the 20th century, the rise of the internet had created a new medium to distribute news-related information. This initially started as website extensions of traditional media formats in print or on television or radio. For example, CNN’s traditional cable television news broadcast was mirrored (typically in text form) on the CNN website. By the beginning of the 21st century, original source and web content became more and more integrated with some significant coordination related to the distribution, dissemination, and timeliness of information on one or both of these formats. This process was further supplemented by news aggregators like Google News, the Huffington Post, and the Drudge Report that collected links to major news stories from various outlets and formats into one measureable interface. Direct internet reporting of news quickly became the fourth major source of information related to all events.

Even with these four major sources of news, one major question still remained: What is the role of citizens? With some minor exceptions related to internet news outlets (which are often tied to more traditional news organizations), the only role citizens have ever been granted in the news process is to collect and act on the information received. Interestingly, social media and Web 2.0 technologies created

Figure 3.3

Gugilelmo Marconi, the inventor of long-range radio.

an unprecedented empowerment of citizens to contribute, refine, and process news at a level similar to the print, radio, television, and internet media outlets. On the other hand, many professional journalists in all forms would disagree, stating various objections that include the need for an editorial review prior to distribution.14 It is this juxtaposition between the empowerment and opportunity to act against appropriateness that throws citizen journalism into such stark contrast to traditional journalism.

FIVE TYPES OF CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT IN JOURNALISM

1. Audience participation at mainstream news outlets

2. Independent news and information websites

3. Full-fledged participatory news sites

4. Collaborative and contributory media sites

5. Personal broadcasting sites14

According to online blogger and journalist J. D. Lasica, citizen journalism can be classified into five broad categories.14 These categories include audience participation at traditional news outlets, independent news and information websites, full-fledged participatory news sites, collaborative media sites, and personal broadcasting sites. The first of these participatory news categories includes public involvement at traditional news agencies in all four major formats discussed (newspaper, radio, television, and internet). Examples of this type of activity include staff editorial blogs that incorporate reader comments, approved blogs for public officials, discussion forums, and articles written by readers, as well as photo and video reports provided by readers or viewers.14 The second type of citizen journalism includes independent news and information sites. These sites typically are topically oriented and include examples such as Gawker, Gizmodo, and the Drudge Report. These sites vary in their degrees of professional journalism, but all are heavily based on the contributions of amateur, independent, and contracted writers. The third type of citizen journalism is referred to as full-fledged participatory news sites, which are primarily international outlets that concentrate on first-person reporting of events and news. This type of citizen journalism often makes little to no attempt at staying objective when reporting. The fourth classification of participatory journalism includes collaborative media sites. These types of collaborative sites combine blogs, discussion boards, social media integration, and other user-created editorial content as well as links to other news sites—both traditional and participatory. Examples of this form of citizen journalism include Slashdot, Mashable, and many others. The success rate of this category of site is often boom or bust, with sites quickly failing or becoming high-volume drivers of media and content. The final type of citizen journalism includes personal or organizational broadcasting sites. This primarily includes audio and video sites that allow for news interviews and collection of event-driven content. The primary example of this type of citizen journalism is most often seen in online radio and video-streaming sites like BlogTalkRadio or UStream.tv, but can also be found in high-volume blogging sites. The function, message, and content of these sites are completely driven by the user and ultimately can report on news information without editorial review or agreed-upon professional standards. Although these definitions are a strong attempt to classify citizen journalism, they do not cover every website or social media form that allows for or encourages public involvement.14 (See Figure 3.4.)

Citizen journalism has also had a profound impact on the profitability and sustainability of print media. Since 2007, 175 print news outlets in the United States have closed or moved strictly to web content.15 The progression of closures over time is included in Table 3.1.16 These closed outlets include publications of all sizes and reputations and some nationally recognized outlets such as the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The reasons for these closures are multifaceted but are fundamentally related to readership and circulation that is in steep decline. According to the Pew Research Center’s News Media Consumption Survey, newspaper readership was down to 25% when limited to print form.17 Moreover,

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Figure 3.4

Complex spectrum of different types of citizen journalism. (From

Adam Crowe.)

Table 3.1 Number of Print Media Closures 2007–2010

*2007*	*2008*	*2009*	*2010*	*Total*
1	40	109	25	175

Source: From “Closed Newspapers,” Paper Cuts. http://newspa perlayoffs.com/maps/closed/ (accessed January 11, 2011).

additional research by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project determined that nearly 92% of Americans use multiple platforms to get their daily news17 and that the internet is the second most-popular news platform behind local and national television news.22 This ranking puts online news sources—including citizen journalism sources within the social media framework—ahead of national and local print newspapers as well as terrestrial radio.18 Emergency managers and risk communicators must be aware of this change and consider it when utilizing news sources to send and receive information during emergencies and disasters.

Acceptance by the General Public

If citizens are involved in the generation and processing of news as citizen journalists, there must be some consideration of how and when they play this role. Specifically, citizen involvement is inherently at the incident source of event scene, which has long been defined in the context of response and public information. For instance, if a local building catches on fire, it is highly likely that the first person to notice the scene and provide any level of “response” will be a local bystander. This individual may or may not have any knowledge, ability, resource, or impetus to respond to the event, but until action is initiated (e.g., calling 9-1-1) no formal response is possible. Interestingly, social psychologists suggest that traditionally there are two responses from onlookers and bystanders. The negative response, called the “Bystander Effect,” actually results in no response from event observers for a variety of reasons ranging from altruistic inertia or other social constraints.6,7 Conversely, according to one study from the Greater Good, “[There is] positive influence we can exert as bystanders.…[J]ust as passive bystanders reinforce a sense that nothing is wrong in a situation, the active bystander can, in fact, get people to focus on a problem and motivate them to take action.”7 Although not explicitly stated within the study, this type of altruistic momentum is the justification for so-called Good Samaritan laws, which protect these types of actions. A comparison between the Bystander Effect and active bystander activities is included in Figure 3.5.

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Figure 3.5

Bystander effect vs. active bystanders. (From Adam Crowe.)

IN A NUTSHELL

[There is] positive influence we can exert as bystanders.…[J]ust as passive bystanders reinforce a sense that nothing is wrong in a situation, the active bystander can, in fact, get people to focus on a problem and motivate them to take action.

—Dacher Keltner and Jason March, “We Are All Bystanders”7

Additionally, there is significant anecdotal evidence to suggest that the Bystander Effect can be overcome more effectively with the availability of social media tools than perhaps any other method. Above and beyond the earlier mentioned utilization of Twitter and TwitPic by Janis Krums for the Miracle on the Hudson event, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and mobile video feeds have been documented as primary sources of information that were later utilized by traditional media in events including the terrorist attacks on the Mumbai financial district (2008), London subway bombings (2005), and the Southeast Asian tsunami (2005) to name a few.8,9 In all cases, there were significant numbers of individuals willing to report, in light of significant personal risk, critical information about the disaster. These social and psychological conditions along with the influence of Twitter have redefined the disaster scene to empower the citizen observer to provide comment and context to the event through text, pictures, video, and location-based references.

Not only are citizen observers empowered by social media to become emergency reporters, they have also been heavily influenced by what New York University professor and communications expert Clay Shirky refers to as the “algorithmic authority.”19 He establishes that this authority is “the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing besides the result saying ‘Trust this because you trust me.’”19 In other words, the impact and effectiveness of citizen journalism that lacks editorial control and “professional” oversight is based on predetermined networks of trustworthiness that are inherent throughout the social media formats. These participatory journalism sites often aggregate information from various nonvetted sources that collectively validate newsworthy or emergency information and become trusted sources for individuals and collections of individuals equally.

The best examples of this concept are Wikipedia and Amazon.com. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia written, edited, and ultimately validated by individual users. This contrasts greatly to traditional encyclopedias that were written and edited by so-called experts on the given topics of the encyclopedia. The issue with the traditional model of encyclopedias was that if an error occurred or referenced information (e.g., geopolitical boundaries) changed, the content and therefore by extension the entire volume of encyclopedia was wrong and out-of-date. A Wikipedia entry, on the other hand, can be edited an indefinite number of times until the collective knowledge of all users creates an entry that is as accurate as possible at the given moment. Similarly, Amazon.com and most online retailers create user feedback mechanisms for products sold that are generally presented as a rating system of some kind. These ratings are left by individuals who, when reviewed by other individuals, may or may not have credibility. For instance, “Alice from Wichita, Kansas” is considering purchasing a new book that has been reviewed by “Joey from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” Due to geographical separation, it is highly unlikely that Alice would know Joey or have any reason to give him individual credibility. However, when “Joey from Pittsburgh,” “Sandy from South Dakota,” “Nick from New Jersey, “Matt from Montana,” and “Dan from Delaware” have all provided feedback about the product, she has the capability to give collective credibility to the group.

This concept of collective credibility or algorithmic authority is critical for emergency managers and crisis communicators as disaster-related information is collected and processed through social media systems. One individual reporting an emergency or disaster may or may not have credibility, but if numerous individuals claim the same or similar circumstances related to the event, it is reasonable for emergency managers to take action in response to this information. This concept is one of the reasons why the National Weather Service (NWS) ultimately implemented a system to receive severe weather reports via Twitter.19 Specifically, the NWS Twitter tool helps aggregate storm-related information that can then be processed in the same vein as traditionally credible sources such as phone reports, meteorological reviews, and radar measurements. The impact and benefit of crowdsourced information and additional aggregation tools is further discussed in Chapters 10 and 5, respectively.

Acceptance by News Media

Citizens report incident-related information on social media systems like Twitter and Facebook with or without any acknowledgment from traditional media sources like televised news. The acceptance of this information as news or newsworthy by traditional media outlets was slow to start but has exponentially increased in acceptance by all major outlets. Not only are many outlets directly engaging in social media systems for the dissemination and collection of information, there are also many media personalities actively engaging social media for news tips, leads, and breaks to stories that they may or may not have previously had. This implementation of social media as a primary source of information has had far-reaching implications, including impacts on traditional reporting mechanisms, reporting standards, speed of delivery, and the business model of news.

First and foremost, the speed of major news coverage, regardless of format or size, has sped up tremendously. Over the past several hundred years, the speed and IN A NUTSHELL

Whomever can shout the loudest each second of each day, owns that second and the thousands of retweets, likes and traffic that go with it.

—Dominic Litten, “The 24-Hour News Cycle Is Dead”21

expected delivery time of news has exponentially increased with the establishment of each new major media form. Print, radio, and network television reduced the cycle of news from daily to several times a day. Cable television—particularly the establishment of CNN in 1980—established the 24/7 news cycle that was available at any time of day throughout the week.20 This 24/7 news cycle continued as the expected speed for most of the rest of the 20th century; however, with the rise of social media systems such as social networks, microblogs, and blogs, that information cycle has been reduced to minutes or even seconds. Astute social media blogger and marketer Dominic Litten described this new paradigm as “Whomever can shout the loudest each second of each day, owns that second and the thousands of retweets, likes and traffic that go with it.”21 Consequently, the concept of a 24/7 news cycle should be replaced with a 60/60 news cycle requiring constant vigilance for 60 seconds of every minute for 60 minutes of every hour. News outlets have quickly set their goal not only to be the leading journalists but to have sustained business models as well. To accomplish this, many news outlets have begun to adjust to the speed of social media and find ways to adopt the information—no matter what form or accuracy.

In many ways due to the change in the length of the news cycle, the rise of social media and Web 2.0 technologies has also led to a change in acceptable standards of distributed media. This change in standards is comprised of the credibility of sources as well as the quality of material used in support of a story. Specifically, news agencies are not immune to the influence of the collective credibility created through social media channels. Consequently, an individual eyewitness who reports event details on a social network or microblog may not have enough credibility for traditional news agencies to use it to create a story. However, the collected information from multiple sources on social media sites is as effective as multiple eyewitnesses interviewed in a traditional manner. Not only is the information acceptable via social media sources, it is also a quicker way to move from event to reported story, which is critical for most traditional news outlets as they attempt to comply with the shrinking news cycle established earlier. In some newsrooms, social media outlets—particularly microblogs like Twitter and Tumblr—routinely deliver breaking news faster than traditional news wires (such as the Associated Press).26

In addition to the change in requirements for credibility, the influence of social media has also impacted the accepted quality of material utilized for stories. While most prevalent in television news, this change in quality also applies to print and sometimes radio news outlets. This change in standards includes grainy photographs, blurry videos, and fuzzy audio in various forms. These different formats come from citizens who utilize Web 2.0 technologies such as phone cameras, videocams, and webcams to post sharable content through social media systems such as video streaming as well as photo and video sharing. Interestingly, according to recent research, this acceptance of inferior quality media sources may actually be more palatable to the general public as social media and its standards become more and more pervasive.23 Skype, in particular, has become very commonly used by television media outlets due to its ease of use and aid in shortening the period of time necessary to plan and prepare interviews on camera.24 As before, this type of technology (and acceptance of its quality standards) helped reduce the news cycle tremendously.

Not only are traditional news outlets utilizing participatory journalism and the tools associated with it, it is clear that traditional media outlets are also seeking out formalized partnerships with new media outlets to further the distribution of news and information. For instance, Apple and NewsCorp launched The Daily, the first iPad-only news publication that will have no website or print edition and will cost a small fee to download.25 Additionally, mergers between AOL and TechCrunch27 as well as Newsweek and the Daily Beast28 are strong indicators that the business model of traditional media outlets is quickly adjusting to profitability and journalistic benefits. With the rise of emergency technologies and the popularity of social media, it is difficult to imagine what traditional media will look like in the future, but clearly the traditional format is changing, if not dead.

Available Tools of a Citizen Journalist

Individuals throughout the world are beginning to utilize social media to report their surroundings, which includes emergency or disaster events that affect geographic locations “upstream” of the event. Citizen journalism is facilitated (and in some cases fueled) by various social media systems and Web 2.0 technologies that allow for the posting of status updates, pictures, videos, and streaming videos. It is through these systems that emergency event-related information can be shared and disseminated easily. Although the systems are important, the tools to engage these systems need to be addressed.

The most common and prevalent tool that facilitates the use of social media systems is the mobile or cellular phone. With nearly 300 million American cellular subscribers generating a 93% population penetration, the capabilities that exist on mobile phones are critical to understanding how many citizens will be reporting witnessed information.29 In addition to the commonness of cell phones, 74% of surveyed Americans stated that they had used their cell phones during an

IN A NUTSHELL

The old saying is that a lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. Should we change that to an on-the-scene tweet will make it halfway around the world before our vetted and approved halftruth gets its pants on?

—Jim Garrow, “Stop Pretending You Control Any Information”37

emergency, and an additional 41% stated that they used cell phones in their free time when unoccupied by other activities.30 These findings are strong indicators that the general public associates cell phones with effective communication tools that are actively used and therefore particularly valuable to observe and document events related to emergencies and other high-pressure situations.

If cell phones are available and quickly utilized as tools, it is critical to consider what functionalities exist in those phones. For instance, according to Nielsen, by 2011 more than half of all mobile devices will be smartphones with the capability to run software applications and contain other embedded dynamic features such as photo and video cameras.31 The combination of software applications and image-generating technology allows most smartphones to have the capability to utilize social media systems that have mobile interfaces to post text, photo, and video content. This citizen reporting could include textual updates about the event at hand or provide real-time visual reporting about how the event is progressing. In addition, most cell phones contain the capability to send and receive text messaging through the short messaging system (SMS) protocol. The SMS protocol delivers short packets of information that are no more than 140 characters, which has also quickly become a tool for the delivery of information to other cell phone users and as posts to social media systems like Twitter or Facebook. With nearly 72% of adults34 and 88% of teenage cell phone owners35 routinely texting, the utilization of this tool to facilitate citizen journalism is extraordinarily valuable and should be embraced as such by traditional media providers and emergency managers alike. The impact of mobile systems is further discussed in Chapter 12.

Challenges to Citizen Journalism

Although empowered by numerous tools and systems to upload and share information, citizen journalists face some challenges to this process. Perhaps most important is the question of who owns the shared content from a journalistic perspective. Unlike traditionally produced content distributed by mainstream media outlets

Figure 3.6

Rally in Bahrain during Arab Spring of 2011. (From WPM News/

Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain.)

that is protected through copyright laws, social media content may be different. For instance, if a citizen posts a picture or video to his social media account that is then reproduced, reposted, or redistributed by traditional media outlets, is there a transfer of ownership or is source acknowledgment required? Although the journalistic ethics of this particular exchange are still under consideration, there was a 2010 international court case that confirmed social media content had to be credited and remunerated appropriately.32

Interestingly, there are some events where social media users resort to specific and dedicated citizen journalism because traditional media outlets will not cover the event to the size and scope expected by the community. For example, in 2010 significant flooding in Nashville, Tennessee, and 52 neighboring counties received minimal national mainstream media coverage but maintained significant levels of social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other systems.33 Likewise, during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 (see Figure 3.6) where several countries in the Middle East such as Egypt dealt with public protests and citizen outrage about government suppression, local internet availability was stopped by local governments in an attempt to reduce the impact of social media on the spread of information related to the protests. However, much like the people in Tennessee, local citizens utilized older technologies such as dial-up modems, traditional landlines, and older satellite phones to circumvent the attempted government control of social media to continue to spread messages about the event.36 This lack of traditional media coverage or attempted government control forced local citizens to create their own journalism, with reports about the event being

Figure 3.7

Tom Erickson.

posted to social media to advocate for issues related to the disaster. Social media systems provided not only a voice to impacted individuals but also a magnified voice to the entire community.

Practitioner Profile: Tom Erickson,

Johnson County Sheriff’s Office

Tom Erickson (Figure 3.7) is a well-respected law enforcement public information officer in the Greater Kansas City area who utilizes social media for situational awareness and media engagement. When asked why social media was important, Mr. Erickson stated, “[S]ocial media is the only tool available to emergency managers to communicate instantly and directly with their residents.” He went on to say that “It would be impossible to have a full operating picture without its use in monitoring for situational awareness.” When asked to address the implications of social media on contemporary journalism, he stated that “Not since the public implementation of the internet has anything had such a profound impact on journalism and communications [with]…the speed at which information is shared forcing journalists to create content on an increased schedule, push stories out to the masses on multiple platforms and utilize social media as a new primary source for information.” Mr. Erickson identified that not all emergency managers have begun to embrace social media and its impact on citizen journalism. Instead he shared that “There are those [in the public] who will disagree with government in many instances and the only way to combat this is provide [them] with the correct information instead of being silent.” Mr. Erickson is a strong advocate of active social media use and clearly understands its impact not only to emergency managers but to professional journalists as well.

Chapter Terms

Citizen journalism: Concept of reported media, in any form, that has had the participation and/or contribution of information from citizens, observers, or other nonprofessional or pseudo-professional individuals.

Participatory journalism: Secondary term used to describe citizen journalism.

Bystander Effect: Psychological phenomenon where event observers stay unengaged and do not initiate or facilitate appropriate and effective response.

Good Samaritan effect: Concept and legal protection that allows for and encourages event observers to be able to provide appropriate and necessary actions that are lifesaving or life preserving.

Algorithmic authority: Sociological phenomenon identified by Clay Shirky that stresses the capability of taking information from multiple sources with little to no individual credibility into a combined source that is vetted, trustworthy, and capable of being usefully transmitted or shared.

24/7 news cycle: Concept of a news cycle that must be aware of current conditions and prepared to report newsworthy information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This type of news cycle was initially created within the implementation of cable news networks in the 1980s.

60/60 news cycle: Concept of a news cycle that must be aware of current conditions and prepared to report newsworthy information 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour. This type of news cycle is strongly influenced by the rise and impact of emergency technologies such as social media.

Chapter Questions

General Questions

1. What is the name of the concept of news reporting that allows participatory functions by nonprofessional individuals in association with professional journalists?

a. Algorithmic authority

b. 60 /60 news cycle

c. Citizen journalism

d. None of the above

2. True/False: The news cycle is becoming extended with more time in between reports about a given incident.

3. True/False: The Bystander Effect is the phenomenon where individuals respond quickly and effectively when they witness emergencies or disasters.

Essay Questions

1. Discuss the four major media forms, including the historical, social, and technological considerations for each.

2. Discuss the impact of editorial review on journalistic reporting.

3. Discuss the challenge of changing news cycles throughout the four major media forms.

Works Cited

1. Ash, Timothy Garton. Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade without a Name. Oxford: Yale University Press, 2009.

2. “US Airways Flight 1549 Crew Receive Prestigious Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators Award.” GAPAN Press Release. http://www.gapan.org/ruth-documents/ Masters%20Medal%20%20Press%20Release.pdf ( accessed October 27, 2011).

3. “Janis Krum.” AboutMe. http://about.me/JanisKrums ( accessed January 11, 2011).

4. Frommer, Dan. “U.S. Airways Crash Rescue Picture: Citizen Journalism, Twitter at Work.” Business Insider, January 25, 2009. http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/ us-airways-crash-rescue-picture-citizen-jouralism-twitter-at-work#ixzz19p4NQI8V ( accessed January 11, 2011).

5. TwitPic, January 15, 2009. http://twitpic.com/135xa# ( accessed January 11, 2011).

6. Darley, John M., and Bibb Latané. “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibilities.” Library for Psychology in the New Millennium, 1968. http://www. wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0155060678_rathus/ps/ ps19.html ( accessed October 27, 2011).

7. Keltner, Dacher, and Jason Marsh. “We Are All Bystanders.” Greater Good—The Science of Meaningful Life, Fall–Winter 2006–2007. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/ item/we_are_all_bystanders/ (accessed January 11, 2011).

8. Glaser, Mark. “Did London Bombings Turn Citizen Journalists into Citizen Paparazzi? OJR: The Online Journalism Review, July 12, 2005. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ stories/050712glaser/ (accessed January 11, 2011).

9. “Mumbai: Twitter’s Moment.” Forbes.com, November 28, 2008. http://www.forbes.

com/2008/11/28/mumbai-twitter-sms-tech-internet-cx_bc_kn_1128mumbai.html ( accessed January 11, 2011).

10. “History of Journalism.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_journal ism (accessed January 11, 2011).

11. “History of Michigan AM Broadcasting.” Michigan’s Radio and TV Guide, 2011. http://www.michiguide.com/history/am.html ( accessed October 27, 2011).

12. “National Broadcasting Company.” Museum of Broadcast Communications, 2011.

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=nationalbroa (accessed October 27, 2011).

13. “Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low, Public Evaluations of the News Media: 1985–2009.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, September 13, 2009. http://people-press.org/report/543/ (accessed January 11, 2011).

14. Lasica, J. D. “What Is Participatory Journalism.” Online Journalism Review, August 7, 2003. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060217106.php (accessed January 11, 2011).

15. Winer, Dave. “DaveNet: What Is a News Aggregator?” DaveNet Blog, October 8, 2002.

http://scripting.com/davenet/2002/10/08/whatIsANewsAggregator.html (accessed October 27, 2011).

16. “Closed Newspapers.” Paper Cuts. http://newspaperlayoffs.com/maps/closed/ (accessed January 11, 2011).

17. “Newspapers Face a Challenging Calculus.” Pew Internet Center for the People and the Press, February 6, 2009. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1133/decline-print-newspapers increased-online-news ( accessed January 11, 2011).

18. “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer.” Pew Internet and American Life Project, March 1, 2010. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-News.aspx ( accessed January 11, 2011).

19. “Storm Reports via Twitter.” National Weather Service, April 15, 2010. http://www. weather.gov/stormreports/ (accessed January 11, 2011).

20. “CNN Changed News—For Better or Worse.” Taipei Times, May 31, 2005. http:// www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/05/31/2003257358 (accessed January 11, 2011).

21. Litten, Dominic. “The 24-Hour News Cycle Is Dead.” Point to Point Blog. July 8, 2010. http://www.pointtopoint.com/2010/07/sources-the-24-hour-news-cycle-is dead/ ( accessed January 11, 2011).

22. “Internet Gains on Television as Public’s Main News Source.” Pew Research Center, January 4, 2011. http://people-press.org/report/689/ ( accessed January 11, 2011).

23. “Video Quality Less Important When You’re Enjoying What You’re Watching.” Rice University Press Release, August 12, 2010. http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot. asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=14616 (accessed January 14, 2011).

24. “Skype Surges as TV Interview Tool.” CBC News, September 2, 2010. http://www.cbc. ca/arts/media/story/2010/09/02/skype-tv-news.html (accessed January 14, 2011).

25. “Is Rupert Murdoch’s iPad-Only Newspaper the Future of Journalism?” Mashable, November 21, 2010. http://mashable.com/2010/11/21/the-daily-ipad-journalism/ ( accessed January 14, 2011).

26. Presentation by Kris Ketz, KMBC News Anchor, Kansas City, Missouri, December 14, 2010.

27. Ostrow, Adam. “AOL Acquires Technology Blog Network TechCrunch.” Mashable, September 28, 2010. http://mashable.com/2010/09/28/aol-acquires-techcrunch ( accessed January 14, 2011).

28. Brown, Tina. “Daily Beast, Newsweek to Wed!” Daily Beast, November 11, 2010.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010–11–11/the-daily-beast-and newsweek-to-wed/ (accessed January 14, 2011).

29. “U.S. Wireless Quick Facts.” CTIA Advocacy. http://www.ctia.org/advocacy/research/ index.cfm/aid/10323 ( accessed January 14, 2011).

30. “Americans and Their Cell Phones.” Pew Internet and American Life Project, April 3, 2006. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/Americans-and-their-cell-phones. aspx ( accessed January 14, 2011).

31. Entner, Roger. “Smartphones to Overtake Feature Phones in U.S. by 2011.” Nielsen Wire, March 26, 2010. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/smartphones to-overtake-feature-phones-in-u-s-by-2011/ (accessed January 14, 2011).

32. Mullin, Joe. “Court to AFP: Pics Aren’t Free Just because They’re on Twitter.” PaidContent.org, December 29, 2010. http://paidcontent.org/article/419-court-to afp-pics-arent-free-just-because-theyre-on-twitter/ (accessed January 14, 2011).

33. Sellers, Bob. “What the Media Missed in the ‘Nashville’ Flood.” Huffington Post, May 10, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-sellers/what-the-media-missed in_b_570686.html ( accessed January 14, 2011).

34. “10 vs. 50—Texting: Adults vs. Teens.” Pew Research Center. http://pewresearch.org/ databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1089 (accessed January 14, 2011).

35. Lenhart, Amanda. “Teens, Cell Phones and Texting.” Pew Internet and American Life Project, April 20, 2010. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1572/teens-cell-phones-text messages ( accessed January 14, 2011).

36. Macedo, Diane. “Egyptians Use Low-Technology Gadgets to Get around Communications Block.” FoxNews, January 28, 2011. http://www.foxnews.com/sci tech/2011/01/28/old-technology-helps-egyptians-communications-black/ (accessed February 16, 2011).

37. Garrow, Jim. “Stop Pretending You Control Any Information.” Face of the Matter Blog, 2011. http://jgarrow.posterous.com/stop-pretending-you-control-any-information ( accessed January 17, 2011).

56 ◾ Disasters 2.0

Citizen Journalism: The Rise and Impact of New Media ◾ 17

Chapter 4

Mountains or Molehills: Engagement Challenges in the Application of Social Media

Asking who should be doing social media is like asking who should have a phone on their desk. Assume everyone is on social media.

—Warren Whitlock, co-author of Twitter Revolution1 a

Chapter Objectives

◾ To analyze the benefits and challenges of social media application and implementation for emergency management

◾ To identify return-on-investment (ROI) strategies for proper implementation of social media

◾ To identify privacy and security issues for the implementation of social media

◾ To understand the impact of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and “sunshine laws” on social media use by emergency managers

◾ To identify functional considerations and components of social media policy

DISASTER FOCUS—DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL

On April 20, 2010, methane gas from a high-pressure Gulf of Mexico oil drilling well on a rig called the Deepwater Horizon expanded out of the drilling column, causing a significant explosion. Fire quickly engulfed the drilling platform. Many of the workers escaped the Deepwater Horizon rig by lifeboat; however, 11 workers were never found despite prolonged searches by the U.S. Coast Guard and were later presumed dead. After burning for nearly a day and a half, the Deepwater Horizon sank on the morning of April 22, 2010. On the afternoon that the rig ultimately sank, an oil slick began to spread around the former rig site (Figure 4.1). The source of the oil spill was ultimately identified as a sea-floor oil gusher from the damaged drilling pipe previously utilized by the Deepwater Horizon. This oil leak flowed for three months during the summer of 2010 and was eventually stopped by a procedure called a “static kill” that sealed the leak using a mixture of cement and heavy drilling mud. According to some estimates, by the time the leak was stopped it had released about 4.9 million barrels or 205.8 million gallons of crude oil. The Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig was owned by Transocean, operated by Halliburton, contracted by British Petroleum (BP), and inspected for safety by the U.S. Minerals Management Service. This division of responsibilities quickly became the focus of response and recovery activities. Traditional media as well as the general public through social media channels began to question who was accountable for the loss of life and environmental impact of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. Although the U.S. federal government ultimately focused responsibility for the event on BP, the public relations consequences were profoundly magnified through the application (or lack thereof) of social media by the major players. Specifically, BP did not engage social media in earnest to present its version of response to the oil spill until several weeks into the spill response. Moreover, their actual Twitter and Facebook accounts were significantly overshadowed by parody and boycott pages established on Twitter and Facebook, respectively. In retrospect, BP’s oversight related to the proper and effective implementation of social media for disaster communications cost them millions of dollars in revenue through significant impacts to brand imaging and loss of clients.1 ,2,3, 4

Hurdles and Hindrances

One of the most significant hurdles for the average emergency management office to implement effective and appropriate social media programs is the fear of doing it wrong. Ironically, this fear is paradoxical considering the example set during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill where doing nothing was as dangerous to sensitive public messages as doing it “wrong.” This chapter focuses on the proper application

10 ◾ Disasters 2.0

Figure 4.1

Vessels conduct skimming operations in the Gulf of Mexico near

the site of the Deepwater Horizon incident May 16, 2010. (From U.S. Navy, Stephanie Brown.)

of social media systems, including models of execution, policy implementation, and challenges—both legal and structural—that exist for emergency managers.

To begin this process, emergency managers regardless of discipline must look at a “2.0” model of practice. Since most emergency managers exist within the governmental or quasi-governmental model, Andrea Di Maio’s five essentials for government 2.0 should be strongly considered as an excellent model for beginning the 2.0 conversion (Figure 4.2). The first of these essentials was the concept that this new model of government creates a paradox between politicians and governmental operators. Specifically, Di Maio states that government 2.0 models will only “succeed when [politicians] stop trying to meet political requirements, such as increasing people’s trust in government, and start addressing service delivery and resource management challenges.”4 Additionally, government 2.0 must also concentrate on being a part of the social media conversation rather than the host. Government—emergency managers included—are accustomed to hierarchal structures where information is managed through command and control situations. Unfortunately, this is not the form established within the social media community. This operational difference is based on the necessity of two-way conversations through social media channels versus traditional one-way communication facilitated by governmental entities still functioning under traditional “1.0” models. The third and perhaps most important essential concept highlighted by Di Maio, and one that ties into the fourth and fifth concepts, is the need for an alignment between government 2.0 initiatives and organizational strategic goals. In other words, emergency management organizations attempting to implement the government 2.0 model cannot apply social media simply for the sake of having GOVERNMENT 2.0 CONSIDERATIONS

1. Government 2.0 and politics don’t mix.

2. Government 2.0 is not about being the host but being a guest in the conversation.

3. Government 2.0 is not a platform, it’s a toolkit.

4. Government 2.0 is about more than conversation.

5. Government 2.0 initiatives must align with business goals.17

such systems. Rather the application should support organizational needs such as public education, crisis communications, situational awareness, and the development of operational tools.

Programmatic Implementation

The consideration of implementing the government 2.0 model and thus social media systems is divided into three categories: active, passive, and stationary. Each of these three models of social media application has challenges and complex considerations that must be evaluated by emergency managers prior to implementation (Figure 4.2). The difference between these models is primarily related to the degree of social media monitoring, analysis, and validation as well as information dissemination applied by the end user or organization. For instance, the active model of social media application involves the routine utilization of social media systems for the dissemination of information and vigorous monitoring of the social media conversation related to the given community. For instance, if a given community is concerned about a hurricane that is forecasted to impact their community, an emergency manager who has actively implemented social media would monitor conversations on social networks, blogs, and microblogs to determine community response to incident-related actions such as evacuation, household mitigation, and personal preparedness. On the other hand, passive application of social media systems by professional emergency managers does not support the robustness of the active model. Passive models are defined by the support of only information dissemination or information analysis, but not both. Given the emergency scenario of the forecasted hurricane described above, emergency managers utilizing passive application of social media would either be disseminating information about evacuation routes and other preparedness strategies via social media systems or monitoring the social media conversation about the event. Lastly, the stationary social media model is the complete opposite of the active model because it utilizes social media to neither disseminate information nor monitor event-related communications. This stationary model is the “do nothing” form of social media application that some emergency management

Figure 4.2

There are different levels of social media engagement for emergency

events such as hurricanes. (From National Aeronautics and Space Administration

[ NASA], Jeff Schmaultz. )

professionals continue to embrace rather than considering either the active or passive models.

The major issue with the stationary model of social media application is that the emergency management organization risks the same issues that British Petroleum (BP) did during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the summer of 2010. Not being active in social media systems can be extremely impactful when a significant event threatens a given organization or jurisdiction because (based on the BP model) organizations cannot implement effective social media utilization after an event or disaster has occurred. To put this into perspective, a fake Twitter account (@ BPGlobalPR) was created soon after the initial explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that quickly became a primary source of public information. By the middle of July 2010, this fake parody account had 116,000 followers, which was more than 10 times the number of followers on the official BP Twitter account.5 Consequently, it is careless and negligent not to implement at least a passive social media strategy considering the public safety responsibility that is fundamentally granted to emergency managers across all disciplines and functions.

Although active and passive implementation strategies are significantly more effective than the stationary model of social media implementation, there are also considerable challenges to their application. These challenges include privacy, security, policy implementation, and acceptance by leadership, as well as return-oninvestment (ROI) justifications. Each of these challenges contains unique issues for any emergency management application of social media and Web 2.0 systems. These challenges, however, can be overcome through systematic review and implementation by the modern emergency manager.

The Challenge of Privacy

The first of these challenges is to ensure privacy is paramount regardless of the social media system or technology applied. This includes situations that require both the dissemination and the monitoring of information by emergency managers using social media systems (see Figure 4.3). For example, emergency managers working in the health and medical field are required to abide by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The HIPAA privacy regulations were created to protect the privacy of an individual’s health information. Consequently, it is extremely important within this sector of emergency management to evaluate the impact of social media on HIPAA standards before any information can be distributed or collected. This becomes a challenge when social media provides opportunities to streamline the sharing of information during emergency medical situations. For example, it would be conceivable for emergency medical technicians working in an ambulance in route to a hospital from an emergency scene to utilize cell phones and social media systems like Twitter to photograph the patient’s condition (e.g., wounds) and forward them to the emergency room medical staff for review and preparedness prior to arrival. While potentially extremely useful to the improvement of emergency response, considering the uncontrolled and potentially public nature of utilizing social media sites and Wi-Fi signals, this type of scenario would clearly put this type of activity in violation of HIPAA guidelines.

Privacy considerations related to the implementation of social media relate not only to the potential professional utilization of social media in emergency management but also to the personal use of these systems by emergency managers. This type of personal utilization can often be a blurred line with professional employment, which can cause significant confusion on where privacy rules and general appropriateness are correctly applied. While not directly related to emergency management, there was a prime example of this issue among nursing students at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, in late 2010. Specifically, Doyle Byrnes, a senior nursing student at Johnson County Community College

Figure 4.3

Paramedics must balance the benefit of utilizing social media with

preexisting privacy rules and regulations. (From U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Patrick J. Cook.)

(JCCC) posed with a picture of a human placenta that was being studied in the nursing lab. She was immediately dismissed once the picture was discovered posted to Ms. Byrnes’s personal Facebook page. Although the event was called a “momentary lapse in judgment” and a “lesson hard learned” by Ms. Byrnes and the JCCC administration, respectively, it is a profound example of where personal and professional boundaries can blur within social media systems.6

Additionally, the challenge of privacy for social media implementation by emergency managers also involves the security of operational data and the impact of information disseminated by external sources. For instance, there are significant types of data controlled by emergency managers—especially those responsible for law enforcement and homeland security—that are sensitive in nature and often limited, if not completely guarded, from public view. The attempt to secure this information is often to ensure investigative and response efficacy. However, there have been situations such as the 2010 release of nearly 250,000 secret U.S. embassy cables through an online site called Wikileaks that put such efforts at risk. These documents revealed internal U.S. diplomatic and operational considerations within the framework of known foreign policy that resulted in both embarrassing and politically sensitive declarations about internal relationships and foreign partnerships.7

This type of security challenge is inherent when government begins to adopt, engage, and respond to social media systems like Wikileaks. As the name implies, Wikileaks is a wiki-sourcing website like Wikipedia that is designed to allow the collection of information about a particular topic (in this case governmental communications) that can be edited, vetted, and organized by users who collectively have access and knowledge about certain issues that transcends the knowledge of the individual (or in Wikileaks’ case, the general public). This wiki concept is of growing importance within the internet community and is critical for emergency managers to understand. For instance, Wikileaks claims to be a wiki outlet for the collection of “untraceable mass document leaking and analysis…[of] oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but [can] also…be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.”8 This type of purpose may seem altruistic and benign on the surface but can clearly become extremely impactful to governmental or private entities that have confidentiality and privacy concerns and/ or mandates such as might exist in homeland security.

In addition, many governmental and quasi-governmental emergency management programs have been impacted by freedom of information requests for information on various components of information. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) originally passed by the federal government in 1966 was designed to allow the general public access to any and all federal governmental records. The only FOIA exceptions were classified into nine categories that included disclosure protection for issues related to national defense, personnel rules, trade secrets, medical records, certain financial records, and some related to law enforcement investigations.9 Most states quickly followed this model by creating freedom of information legislation commonly referred to as “sunshine laws.” Much like the FOIA exceptions, most states with sunshine laws also have limitations to what types of information are exempted. Unfortunately, most legal experts consider social media as equivalent to other governmental materials and thus must comply with freedom of information requests if categorically allowed. Consequently, it is critical that emergency managers evaluate the legal requirements in their jurisdictions about the retention and preservation of messages and then evaluate what impact this may have on social media usage. In most cases, social media sites used by governments are public and therefore collected by the particular social media system, allowing them to be reviewed at any time by anyone in the public. There are, however, some systems that can more quickly search stored public social media messages and aggregate these for both freedom of information requests and for operational purposes. These systems are further discussed in Chapter 7.

Policy Implementation

Establishing localized policies and procedures for freedom of information requests is just skimming the surface of issues related to social media policy implementation. There are additional issues that must be addressed in policy to ensure effective, efficient, and accountable application of social media by emergency managers. The benefits to implementing robust and vetted policies include the protection of an organization’s reputation, the clarification of murky legal issues, and an increase in organizational brand awareness.10 The process of writing and later implementing a social media usage policy should be vetted across an organization’s core functions and/or representatives and should have vertical support from users to elected leadership and executive management. These core functions include human resources, information technology, risk management, legal, and of course emergency management and their respective partners. This will ensure the social media policy complies with all current internal policies and local ordinances, as well as state and federal laws. An effective social media policy must create a framework of rules and guidelines to address eight key characteristics: employee access, account management, acceptable use, employee conduct, content, security, legal issues, and citizen conduct. Each of these characteristics is unique and must be completely developed to ensure a thorough social media policy.

FUNCTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR SOCIAL

MEDIA POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

LEGAL

◾ Privacy laws

◾ Freedom of information laws

◾ Record retention

TECHNICAL AND RISK MANAGEMENT

◾ Internet bandwidth capacity

◾ Antivirus and malware protection

◾ Network and information security

◾ Protection of patient/client data

HUMAN RESOURCES

◾ Employee behavior

◾ Jurisdictional representation

◾ Productivity

The first policy consideration is related to the level of access allowed to an organization’s employees. One study from Webroot of 1,000 companies in the United States and the United Kingdom determined that 40% of the companies had policies that prohibited employees from visiting Facebook, 30% blocked access to Twitter, and 27% prohibited employees from visiting video-sharing sites like YouTube or Vimeo.13 This indicates that more than half of the companies surveyed did not strictly prohibit access to social media systems. It is this balance that must be struck by each organization, but with particular consideration of the potential emergency management implications. In some cases, organizations have maintained that employees should only have limited (if any) access to social media for fear that their productivity will suffer due to distraction. Interestingly, some studies have shown that employee productivity actually increases with open access to social media systems.12 This increase is hypothesized to occur for several reasons, including an improved capability and desire to multitask by younger generations.11 Other organizations have maintained this limitation based on concerns that the organization’s internal network and all related functional systems are at greater risk due to exposure from social media systems to system limitations as well as viruses, malware, and other malicious forms of technological attack.

The second major policy consideration is related to account management. Account management refers to those social media sources officially approved, managed, and instituted by the organization. Although this seems relatively straightforward, it is critical that a structure be established to set the framework for account management that includes the secured collection of user identification (userids) and passwords as well as identified employees who have the responsibility for content on the sites. These types of protocols help ensure that the information ultimately disseminated via official social media systems is of the type and quality required by the organization and does not ultimately reflect poorly on the organization. The role of account management is also closely related to the overall strategy of social media implementation. Specifically, if not handled correctly, organizations can quickly become overcommitted to social media systems and be unable to either properly manage or to monitor officially established systems.

The third characteristic that must be considered when evaluating social media policy implementation is related to acceptable use of these systems by employees and representatives (see Figure 4.4). The acceptable use consideration is closely related to employee access and conduct. Since social media is fundamentally based on transparent, two-way conversation, governmental and quasi-governmental agencies must define what types of conversation will be conducted on officially approved systems. For instance, some organizations will not allow or will significantly moderate

OLI

Figure 4.4

Maintaining a strong and effective policy is critical to successful

social media usage. (From Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], Leif Skoogfors [image] and Jennie Crowe [graphic].)

any public postings or comments related to officially posted social media content. Although this is a fundamentally flawed approach to try and manage social media accounts, it is one end of the spectrum when considering approved usage of these systems. The other end of that spectrum is an open and accessible system that posts conversational content that encourages and facilitates conversation that could be perceived as either positively or negatively reflecting on the organization. Predictably, most emergency management organizations fall between these two extremes, with many emergency managers preferring to lean toward the more controlled and moderated end of the spectrum. Regardless, leadership, management, and the employees ultimately responsible for the social media systems must be on the same page to ensure this process is managed efficiently and effectively.

As stated earlier, the approved use of social media is closely related to policy considerations about employee conduct. This interconnectivity occurs for two reasons. First, employees who create social media content on behalf of their organizations must be careful to create a social media “voice” that is consistent with organizational policies and philosophies but does not ignore the social media foundations of transparent conversation. This is often extremely difficult to do as the general public will often respond in extremely casual, sometimes argumentative or confrontational tones—especially when the topic relates to the spectrum of emergency management issues that may be discussed. The second reason that employee conduct is important is that employees—whether on official or personal social media systems—may be perceived as representing their employer on issues related to their employment. For example, if an employee posts on one of her personal social media sites (such as Facebook) that she thought a recent emergency management training session was a waste of time and taxpayer money, there is a reasonable interpretation that these comments could be referring to her employer regardless of the intention of the employee. Consequently, it is critical to create a framework for employees to understand how they are supposed to engage the general public on official sites as well as their expected behavior on personal sites. For personal social media sites, this component of a social media policy is typically handled by simply instructing employees when posting to their personal sites to add a phrase similar to “This is not the official opinion of [insert employer]” when discussing issues that are professionally related or might have ethical implications. Including a procedural mandate to include this type of simple disclaimer by the employee will alleviate or minimize any issues that may arise due to confusion about the official nature of messages.

Official content is an additional consideration for social media policy implementation, specifically regarding what type of content can be posted and in what forms. For instance, many organizations mandate that all social media systems link back to primary sources such as the organization’s website or to trusted sources. For emergency management, this might include state emergency management offices, FEMA.gov, and Ready.gov. Maintaining consistent linkage helps ensure officially posted content is trustworthy and supports the organization’s mission and image within the given community or industry sector. Additional content considerations may surround the type of content allowed for official distribution. This particular issue arises with content posted and/or shared on systems such as internet radio, video sharing, photo sharing, and video streaming. These formats allow for content that is either somewhat improvised (online radio) or potentially requires a certain technical skill or capability to achieve materials that are of a professional quality that is acceptable and cohesive with current organizational standards.

There are also numerous legal issues that must also be considered when implementing a social media policy for emergency management offices. These legal issues include consideration of harassment, use of copyrighted or trademarked materials, employee privacy, and censorship.13 Considering the relative newness of social media and the limited legal opinions available, these issues are not always as clear-cut as some governmental concepts that need legal consideration. For instance, privacy on social media is a unique concept. In most cases, public postings on public social media sites cannot be considered private; however, this issue is further complicated by social networking systems that have varying levels of privacy settings that can be easily misunderstood by the system user. Consequently, organizations have the capability to monitor employee behavior or comments on those public systems but cannot make discriminatory decisions based on information discovered about race, gender, political opinion, or sexual orientation. This interpretation is further compounded by the source of access to these systems. The concept of privacy for an employee or citizen is not as concrete if social media systems are accessed and/or the data is stored on servers and/or internet portals that are controlled, operated, or owned by the organization.

In addition to privacy considerations, there is a strong need to specifically address use of copyrighted or trademarked materials in governmental social media systems. This becomes a challenge because many citizens—including government employees—have the misperception that if a picture, logo, or other created content is available to be downloaded (for free or for charge), they are eligible to be utilized in any reproduced materials. Unfortunately, this understanding of the use of intellectual properties is inaccurate. In most cases, these materials must be approved for use by the creator or innovator prior to their inclusion in official social media outlets. In some cases, owners of the copyrighted material are hiring external firms to track down unauthorized usages and push for maximum penalties for use, which have included a $150,000 fine and a seizure of the domain that posted the content.14 Most governmental agencies, including emergency managers, seeking to utilize protected intellectual property to improve public education campaigns need to be careful to be specific within social media policies when determining what type of content is and is not allowable for official use.

Citizen content is the final consideration for policy implementation. The definition of social media citizen content can sometimes be confusing, especially for those individuals who are not actively engaged in these systems. Specifically, content is only those materials (text, photo, audio, video, etc.) posted on the page or site controlled by the organization. However, because most social media systems require individuals to create specific userids with corresponding social media sites, there is inherently a link when an individual posts a response, comment, or selects to follow another social media site. For instance, if the Central City Emergency Management Agency posts on its Facebook page about a new public education campaign, they are inherently opening their official page for public comments and content. This content must be reviewed and controlled under the Central City social media policy. However, if citizen John Smith posts a response to the Central City Facebook page and another citizen “Jane Doe” clicks on “John Smith,” the Central City Emergency Management Agency cannot be held responsible for any content that is viewed after that point. This content falls under the control of the citizen, or in this case “John Smith.” These content streams, while similar in nature, are not accountable in the same ways. This is a critical point within social media streams because an overly restrictive policy will potentially negatively impact the actual content of the site.

Challenges to Implementation

Although social media programmatic and policy implementation is critical to the successful utilization of social media by emergency managers, there are significant challenges and hurdles that must be considered during this process. These hurdles include evaluations of systematic effectiveness such as return on investment (ROI), benchmarking, management and facilitation challenges, and proper public engagement. The management and facilitation of social media systems starts with proper commitment from executive leadership and elected officials. Without buy-in from these levels of the organization, proper systematic implementation will be difficult if not impossible. If leadership commitment is present, specific organizational issues must be considered, such as size of the jurisdiction and organization as well as the demographics of the local community. These considerations are critical to ensure that social media duties are assigned strategically and given appropriate weight in comparison to other duties. It should be noted, however, that the size of a jurisdiction or the organization managing that jurisdiction should not be an excuse to not programmatically implement social media. This book, as well as the numerous anecdotal stories of the importance of social media on the future of emergency preparedness and response, should support the fact that an inactive implementation strategy is not sufficient in modern times.

Once the level of engagement is determined by organizational leadership, there will be an expectation to establish the return on investment (ROI) for social media implementation. Unfortunately, establishing ROI analysis on social media implementation and utilization is difficult because of the nontraditional structure of these systems. Some systems have been developed, such as Klout, that help measure influence of common social media systems like Twitter, but these are sometimes incompatible with governmental analysis of ROI. Additionally, benchmarking for social media application is challenging and often is based simply on emulating systems and approaches utilized by organizations that appear to be successful. Consequently, most organizations adopt rudimentary output models of analysis rather than evaluating social media results based on the more complex outcome analysis. In other words, nearly every social media system allows for complex analytics tools that will quickly process number of followers, fans, subscribers, posts, response comments, and many other pieces of information over a period of time. These measurements allow for basic analysis about whether social media systems are continuing to increase in the number of followers and provide quality social media discourse. Various aspects of social media analysis are further discussed in Chapter 6.

Another challenge to implementation and effectiveness is the difficulty of communicating through social media systems in a way that is professional and analogous to organizational standards of communication while maintaining a quality social media “voice” that is genuine, transparent, and conversational in tone (see Figure 4.5). Organizations that do not utilize this type of voice or that strictly implement automated messaging are often ignored by the general public, and the benefit of communicating via social media systems is lost. Unfortunately, governmental and quasi-governmental organizations can overreach in their attempts to have a unique social media voice. For instance, in 2010, after the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security instituted body scanners at airports, there was significant public outcry about the process, including calls that it invaded the privacy of passengers and was unnecessary to secure the protection of the traveling public. Among other strategies, TSA implemented a social media strategy that included Twitter as an opportunity to provide feedback from the general public about their concerns. Unfortunately, the voice TSA utilized was cynical and often times rude and clearly was incongruous with the other primary communication pathways utilized by TSA. For example, during the Thanksgiving flight season of 2010, the TSA Twitter account posted flippant responses related to seasonal themes and casual responses to legitimate concerns from the general public.16 It is clear that governmental social media outlets cannot speak in the same tone and frankness of the general public; however, with some considerations and analysis of real-life examples, an effective voice can be developed that is consistent and dependable.

The last challenge that impacts effective implementation of social media for government is the growing need to provide support and communication for citizens with functional or special needs. Although various definitions exist, one emergency management survey created five categories for functional or special needs populations: language proficiency, age vulnerable, physical limitations (or disabilities), economically disadvantaged, and culturally/geographically isolated.15 Although these categories are extremely broad and contain much subcontext, the use of social media may or may not be effective in reaching these community sectors. For instance, communities that are culturally or geographically isolated (e.g., Amish

AIR FORCE BLOG ASSESSMENT

AIR FORCE PUBLIC AFFAIRS AGENCY - EMERGING TECHNOLOGY DIVISION

ASSESSMENT BLOG POSTING COUSAF Public Affairs AgenNTACT INFORMAcyTION

Has someone discovered a blog post 901 North Stuart Street, Suite 605 about your organization? Ballston, VA 22203

Is it a positive posting? Tel: 703-696-1158

E-mail: [email protected]

Blog: ww.airforcelive.blogspot.com

EVALUATE “TROLLS” MONITAvoid respOR ONonding to LY

Is this a site dedicated to specific posts, monitor

bashing and degrading others? the site for relevant

information and

CONCURRENCE comments

A factual and well cited response,

which may agree or disagree with “RAGER”

the post, yet is not negative. Is the posting a rant, rage, joke

ridicule or satirical in nature?

You can concur with the post, let FIX THE FACTS stand or provide a positive review. Respond with factual

information directory on

Do you want to respond? comment board.

“MISGUIDED” (See 5 Blog Response

Are there erroneous facts Considerations below) in the posting?

RESTORATION

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BLOG RESPONSE CONSIDERATIONS

TRANSPARENCY SOURCING TIMELINESS TONE INFLUENCE

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Figure 4.5 Air Force discovery matrix aids in communication considerations.

( From U.S. Air Force. )

communities) and not exposed to technology or have the infrastructure to support social media could not effectively be communicated with via social media or Web 2.0 technologies. On the other hand, utilizing some of the Web 2.0 technologies that exist to convert written messages to audio text (e.g., podcasting) or to convert them into secondary languages within communities (e.g., Spanish) would be an effective strategy to provide communication to the language proficiency subgroup. Regardless, the use of social media to reach these communities is not significantly different than communities as a whole considering the need to utilize social media as part of a comprehensive strategy for communication and technology integration. Understanding this perspective is critical for all governmental agencies but particularly important within emergency management as professionals continue to evaluate how to communicate with the public during crisis situations to ensure as many citizens as possible receive the protective actions statements necessary during emergencies or disasters.

Practitioner Profile: Jason Lindesmith,

Federal Emergency Management

Agency Headquarters

Jason Lindesmith (Figure 4.6) has served as the social media lead for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since 2010. He has significant experience in strategic and crisis communication, emergency management, organizational collaboration, and most importantly, social media. At FEMA, his job is to deliver cross-functional collaboration and critical problem solving within all of FEMA’s social media endeavors, which includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Ready.gov, and he is an energetic administrator who supports and utilizes social

Figure 4.6

Jason Lindesmith.

media freely and with significant candor. When asked why social media is so important to the future of emergency management, Mr. Lindesmith responded, “It connects people directly with avenues for critical information and eliminates the need for disaster survivors to have to wait for news and official information during a rapidly changing situation.” In addition, Mr. Lindesmith indicated that the watershed moment for emergency management and social media was the 2010 earthquake in Haiti where emergent technologies (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) “coupled with thousands of disaster survivors led to cries for help that transcended ways previously seen by emergency responders.” As an expert in strategic implementation of social media, Mr. Lindesmith stressed that procedural and policy application are critical for social media to be successful in emergency management because it reflects how an organization acts toward disaster survivors. This engagement helps ensure organizations are perceived as trustworthy and responsive during emergencies. Interestingly, when asked if social media was a long-term component of emergency management, Mr. Lindesmith responded by saying that social media might not be around but the objective of “connecting people and organizations directly with other people will continue to be extremely valuable for disaster response.” Mr. Lindesmith unmistakably has a keen understanding and comprehension of not only how social media is being utilized but also how to strategically implement it within modern emergency management.

Chapter Terms

Government 2.0: Processes, protocols, and procedures utilized by government and quasi-government agencies to facilitate a modern form of community engagement that focuses on the integration of new technologies and the prioritization of two-way conversation with the general public.

Active implementation: Official governmental implementation of social media that utilizes social media monitoring, analytics, and information dissemination.

Passive implementation: Official governmental implementation of social media that utilizes one or two but not all of the following: social media monitoring, analytics, and information dissemination.

Stationary implementation: Official governmental implementation of social media that does not conduct social media monitoring, analytics, or information dissemination.

Wiki-sourcing: Type of social media system that collects information about a particular topic that is open to the collective editing of a group of people with shared interests about the topic.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): Legislation passed by the U.S. government to mandate the public availability of government-generated materials with the exception of materials related to national defense, personnel matters,

trade secrets, medical records, certain financial records, and some related to law enforcement investigations.

Sunshine laws: Common term for state laws that address the public accessibility to government-generated information and meetings. These laws were often based on the foundation established by FOIA, including the exemptions from this type of law.

Return on investment (ROI): Concept that analyzes what benefit is returned from an initial or ongoing investment into a particular project. ROI is critical for social media implementation to ensure the continued support and commitment from executive management and policy decision makers.

Benchmarking: Concept that attempts to create a comparison between organizations, processes, and applications that are realistic and fair due to shared or similar demographics or foundational considerations (e.g., population size).

Functional needs populations: Certain components of the general population who have functional or accessible needs. These populations are often categorized by language proficiency, age vulnerability, physical limitations (or disabilities), economic vulnerability, or geographic isolation.

Chapter Questions

General Questions

1. True/False: The use of social media analytics and information dissemination only is referred to as the stationary model of social media implementation.

2. True/False: Governments utilizing a “2.0 model” should consider participation in social media as a guest rather than the host.

3. What of the following is not a functional consideration for social media implementation?

a. Privacy laws

b. Internet bandwidth capacity

c. Employee behavior

d. Record retention

e. None of the above

Essay Questions

1. Discuss three of the biggest challenges to emergency managers in their attempt to implement social media.

2. Discuss the effectiveness of active, passive, and stationary models of social media implementation.

3. Discuss why it is important for emergency managers to write policies and procedures related to the use of social media.

Works Cited

1a. Whitlock, Warren and Micek, Deborah. (2008). Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online. Xeno Press.

1. Alford, Ben. “Five Months, Eight Days: A Timeline of the BP Oil Spill.” Takewaway.

org, September 21, 2010. http://www.thetakeaway.org/blogs/takeaway/2010/sep/21/ five-months-eight-days-timeline-bp-oil-spill/ (accessed January 20, 2011).

2. “The National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Ceased Operations on March 11, 2011.” National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 2011. http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/ (accessed on October 29, 2011).

3. Hoch, Maureen. “New Estimate Puts Gulf Leak at 205 Million Gallons.” PBS Newshour, August 2, 2010. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/new estimate-puts-oil-leak-at-49-million-barrels.html ( accessed on October 29, 2011).

4. Van Buskirk, Elliot. “BP’s Social Media Campaign Going About as Well as Capping That Well.” Wired, June 9, 2010. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/bps-social media-campaign-going-about-as-well-as-capping-that-well/ (accessed January 20, 2011). 5. “BP’s Global PR vs. BPGlobalPR.” Newsweek, June 3, 2010. http://www.newsweek. com/2010/06/04/bp-s-global-pr-vs-bpglobalpr.html (accessed January 20, 2011).

6. “Placenta Photo Gets Kansas Student Expelled.” FoxNews. http://www.foxnews.com/ us/2011/01/02/placenta-photo-gets-kan-nursing-students-expelled/ (accessed January 8, 2012).

7. “WikiLeaks U.S. Embassy Cables: New Documents Released.” Huffington Post, November 28, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/28/wikileaks-us embassy-cables-documents_n_788893.html ( accessed January 20, 2011).

8. “Wikileaks: About.” Wikileaks. www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:About (accessed January 20, 2011).

9. “Your Right to Federal Records Questions and Answers on the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act, 1992.” Electronic Privacy Information Center. http://epic.org/ open_gov/rights.html (accessed January 20, 2011).

10. Henricks, Mark. “Why You Need a Social Media Policy.” Entrepreneur, January 6, 2011. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217813 (accessed January 20, 2011).

11. Vara, Suzanne. “How Social Media Actually Improves Your Productivity at Work.” Social Media Today, 2010. http://socialmediatoday.com/suzannevara/237190/how-social media-actually-improves-your-productivity-work (accessed January 20, 2011).

12. Ward, Toby. (2009). “Insights from Insidedge: Intranet 2.0 Increases Employee Engagement.” In the Know Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 4. http://www.insidedge.net/ intheknow/emails/archive/US/7.09_newsletter.html ( accessed January 10, 2012).

13. Saper, Daliah. “An Introduction to Legal Issues Surrounding Social Media.” Saper Law.

http://www.slideshare.net/DaliahSaper/legal-implications-of-social-media (accessed January 20, 2011).

14. Pullen, John Patrick. “Las Vegas’s Copyright Crapshoot Could Maim Social Media.” CNN Money, January 6, 2011. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/06/las-vegass copyright-crapshoot-could-maim-social-media/ (accessed January 20, 2011).

15. “Special Needs Report for the Greater Kansas City Area.” Special Report to the Metropolitan Emergency Managers Committee (MEMC). 2005 (accessed January 20, 2011) . Available on request from the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC ).

16. “The TSA Needs to Opt-Out of Tweeting.” Gizmodo. http://gizmodo.com/5698460/ the-tsa-needs-to-opt-out-of-tweeting (accessed January 20, 2011).

17. Di Maio, Andrea. “5 Necessary Truths about Gov 2.0.” Federal Computer Week, December 8, 2010.

Mountains or Molehills ◾ 61

76 ◾ Disasters 2.0

Mountains or Molehills ◾ 33

Chapter 5

The Yellow Tape

Conundrum: Citizen and

Responder Responsibility

I hope we don’t ever see a situation where a bystander, eager to cover an event like [the Virginia Tech Shooting], puts himself in harm’s way and comes to regret it.

—Brian Montopoli, political blogger on CBSNews.com12

Chapter Objectives

◾ To understand the impact of social media and Web 2.0 technologies on incident scene preservation, emergency responder safety, and citizen welfare

◾ To understand the ethical challenges that exist in the usage of social media in emergencies and disasters

◾ To evaluate public expectations for the usage of social media during emergencies and disasters

◾ To comprehend the impact of citizen and responder social media actions on emergency response activities

◾ To establish social media usage rules during emergencies and disasters

DISASTER FOCUS—VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING

On Monday, April 16, 2007, a school shooting took place on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, that ultimately killed 32 people and wounded many others. The perpetrator, a senior English major at Virginia Tech named Seung-Hui Cho, used two firearms during two separate attacks on campus. He started at West Ambler Johnston Hall where he killed 2 students and then moved across campus to Norris Hall where another 30 people died before Cho committed suicide. The shooting is the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in the history of the United States. While much of the post-event media attention circulated about Cho’s previous history of mental instability and the lack of gun control laws related to these conditions, the impact of social media is profoundly important to this disaster.1 For perspective, the first 2 people were killed at Virginia Tech at approximately 7:00 a.m. EDT while the next 30 were killed during the second shooting between 9:30 and 9:50 a.m. EDT. While Virginia Tech students, staff, and faculty were initially informed via email to remain indoors, official communications from the university were slow to come. By the time Virginia Tech officials held an official press conference at 12:00 p.m., they only confirmed 21 deaths and 28 injuries. (See Figure 5.1.) The Virginia Tech community as well as friends and family of students and faculty quickly began to utilize social media sites to facilitate the collection of additional information about the remaining victims. While Virginia Tech officials confirmed the final death toll (but not their names) by 2:13 p.m., the collection of social media sources like Facebook served to identify the names of victims prior to that point. Although none of the multiple lists on various social media outlets contained all names, the total compiled list correctly identified all 32 victims. Moreover, there was some evidence that these names were in different orders on different systems, which indicated to disaster sociologists that this organic process was happening simultaneously through multiple avenues.2 Although sociologically amazing that the collection of people with loosely held social connections could come to this level of information accuracy in a mere few hours, it is a prime example of the need to consider ethics within the use of social media during emergencies and disasters. Should the general public collect and/or engage in disasters through social media? Should emergency managers and first responders utilize this information? These are critical concepts to the future application of social media in modern emergency management.

Figure 5.1

President George W. Bush comforts a Virginia Tech student during

the Convocation on the Virginia Tech campus honoring students, faculty, and staff who died or were injured. (From White House, Eric Draper.)

A Change in Public Expectations

Much like the Virginia Tech shooting, numerous emergencies and disasters over the past decade have been greatly impacted by social media. Moreover, there is growing evidence that the expectations of the general public are exponentially increasing with regard to how emergency managers of all disciplines should respond to social media reports related to emergencies and disasters. For instance, a 2010 American Red Cross survey found that 20% of citizens who could not reach 9-1-1 would try to contact responders through social media or Web 2.0 technologies. Additionally, 35% stated that they would post a request for assistance directly on an emergency management or first responder’s Facebook or Twitter page.3 Perhaps the most profound result of this survey was that 69% of those surveyed stated an expectation that first responders should be monitoring social media sites to initiate emergency response as deemed necessary. Since social media—especially active monitoring—is not universally applied within the emergency management field (see Chapter 4), this level of public expectation creates a significant challenge for both emergency managers and citizens at large. This range of expectations and capabilities can lead to ethical dilemmas that impact the safety of citizens and responders and can potentially impact the effectiveness and efficiency of response and recovery activities related to an emergency or disaster.

The rise in the prevalence of social media users converging through these shared systems is not sociologically unexpected. Sociologists who study the collective behavior of people have long noted a convergence of behavior when there is a shared basis for physical, spatial, temporal, and emotional response. Several researchers have categorized these convergent groups into seven categories: returnees, anxious, helpers, curious, exploiters, supporters, and memorializers.17 These seven characteristics help draw people to emergent situations that can quickly develop into emergencies or disasters. If this convergence is natural and organic, the use of new technologies and connective systems available through social media is a natural extension and may merely expedite this connectivity or move it into a virtual environment. Consequently, it is critical for emergency managers across all disciplines to thoroughly begin to evaluate how to handle how this convergence affects the efficiency and effectiveness of response activities as well as any impacts to the safety of responders and victims.

Specifically, emergency responders and citizens need to establish and accept rules for proper use of social media during emergencies and disasters to ensure responder and citizen safety as well as incident preservation. For instance, emergency incident scenes have long been controlled (or at least defined) by protective barriers such as the proverbial “yellow tape.” (See Figure 5.2.) However, as the use of mobile-phone-integrated photos and videos continues to rise, this traditional scene control nearly evaporates. Real-time, potentially accurate information can be

posted via text, video, or photo by any citizen with a clear view of the scene. This

level of access can be dangerous to both the general public and first responders.

Figure 5.2

Changes in scene control are critical with the rise in use of social

media technologies. (From U.S. Army.)

Rise of New Systems

When social media systems are created, they are often built on the foundation that members desire to communicate and share information in nearly instantaneous ways. In turn, these systems often end up focusing on certain niche community groups or geographic locations. An example of this concept was the rise of MySpace as a successful social networking site that ultimately encouraged the concentration of connections based on music, bands, and other art forms. This type of natural growth has similar application related to emergency and disaster management. Over time, many social media and Web 2.0 technology systems have become realtime repositories of emergency and disaster-related information. This information exchange related to emergencies and disasters is not just parallel to traditional media outlets but has also many times served as a primary source of information. For instance, the 2008 Mumbai attacks were first reported on Twitter with some experts estimating that Twitter was receiving 70 updates (or tweets) every five seconds when the news of the event first broke, which far outpaced traditional media output.6 This pace of disaster-related information was being exchanged significantly faster than information was being received and processed by traditional media outlets throughout the world. As was mentioned in Chapter 1, the number and pace of Twitter messages during emergencies, disasters, and incidents of national and international significance continue to rise with every subsequent event as more and more people become active within the system. Consequently, those same traditional outlets quickly embraced the availability of information from Twitter as a primary source of information.

In addition to the rise of Twitter as a powerful new tool for citizen reporting, wiki-sourcing has quickly become a powerful tool for the collection and validation of information related to emergencies and disasters. The wiki concept supports public sites that can be edited by registered users numerous times to provide as much (or little) information as needed about respective topics. These topics are often cross-referenced against external sources (such as online news outlets) and with one another to create an intricate network of topics and concepts on these issues. Wikipedia, the most common wiki-sourcing website, contains over 3.5 million pages with more than 850,000 posted files of pictures, audio files, and related content. These pages have been edited over 440 million times, which averages approximately 19 edits per page.7 For example, the Wikipedia entry on the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting has 129 separate reference entries that support and create the composite entry.8 While not every Wikipedia page has been edited a significant number of times, it is evident that the vast majority of these entries have considerable validation. In fact, much like Twitter, this level of validation has created a primary source of information regarding any number of issues related to emergencies and disasters.

In addition to Wikipedia, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has adopted the First Responder Communities of Practice as a conduit for information for the implementation of social media and new technologies for first responders and emergency managers. Within this system there are numerous topical communities that maintain wiki sites that allow for the collection and editing of content related to that particular system. For instance, system users can post policies or best-practice protocols at any given time that can be appended if newer concepts are added or can be removed if they have become outdated or determined to be incorrect. Much like Wikipedia, as this system (or ones like it) grows in usage and users, the validity of the shared data will create fantastic tools for the emergency management community to utilize freely and effectively.

Photo- and video-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube have also quickly become tools for citizens to share multimedia content about emergencies, disasters, and emergent situations as well as for emergency managers and first responders to use as incident information and intelligence. These systems primarily utilize groups, tags, and counter-references to facilitate organic public engagement about common issues or events. For instance, from 2004 to 2007 there were at least 29 different Flickr photo groups established to collect and categorize pictures from seven different major disasters (e.g., Hurricane Katrina, Virginia Tech shooting, and Southeast Asia tsunami).17 Each of these groups had varying levels of photos and members, but all were effective in drawing together individuals who shared a physical or emotional connection to the event.

The standard Facebook interface has already significantly changed the exchange and distribution of information during emergencies and disasters. However, Facebook has implemented several modifications to its primary systems that have further increased the capability and suggestion for citizens at large to contribute to broader social conversations—whether they are routine or related to an emergent event. The first of these was the establishment of a Facebook advanced programming interfaces (APIs) that allowed third-party websites to create interfaces on their websites where Facebook users could log in and engage in the conversation being created via the virtual environment. An example of this interface was the CNN Forum that was developed during the 2008 presidential election to allow the Facebook interface to be utilized to allow friends and sometimes strangers to publicly discuss and argue about the various political issues of the day.9 This type of interface has not yet been adopted by governmental organizations—much less emergency managers—but does define the beginning expectations of the general public to have real-time response and conversation to public events and activities. Media coverage of disasters and emergencies are certainly not immune from this potential treatment. Similarly, Facebook has also created the OpenGraph API interface that allows users on various websites to log in to the third-party website through the user’s Facebook account information. This feature has allowed a Facebook user’s preferences and opinions about a variety of issues to be shared through a broader spectrum than just Facebook itself.

Regardless of the system, the primary question still exists as to whether these systems can be fairly and ethically used during crisis situations. On the one hand, traditional media outlets have utilized these new social media interfaces to secure breaking news as quickly as possible; however, the validity of public reports and the ethics of confirmatory journalism are sometimes sacrificed to meet this need. For example, CNN utilizes a Web 2.0 technology interface called iReporter to allow the general public to provide content—both text and multimedia—through an easily accessible interface. As of January 2010, there were over 50,000 posted iReports with nearly 36,000 having been vetted and confirmed within their system.10 Although CNN initially started this concept in 2006, its utilization by the public and emphasis by both CNN and traditional media was after the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings where graduate student Jamal Albarghouti captured the sounds of local gunfire while he used his mobile phone to capture video of the scene.11 Interestingly, some sources noted that Albarghouti’s video was so compelling that CNN paid him an undisclosed amount of money for exclusive use of it, which is counter to the principles of social media and Web 2.0 technologies as well as morally ambiguous for a traditional and legitimate news agency. This model of creating easy access formats for citizen journalists is commonplace across all media platforms, including FoxNew’s uReport and many variations at local news agencies using terms such as “uLocal.”

On than other hand, the increasing utilization of citizen journalism and external integration of social media systems can have ambiguous moral and ethical consequences. For instance, in late 2010, a 56-year-old single mother checked into a hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, complaining of chest discomfort. Within a few hours, the woman lapsed into a coma; local doctors determined that she had sustained a significant stroke, causing paralysis. Due to various compounding conditions that were unusual for her age, her conditions rapidly deteriorated and doctors feared the worst. Because the woman lived far away from any close family members and her son could only provide limited health information about the woman, doctors were challenged to determine a proper treatment until one doctor identified that the woman had a Facebook profile page. Through her Facebook profile page, the doctors quickly utilized her Facebook status postings over the previous few weeks to establish an accurate timeline for how her current condition had developed. The establishment of her medical history allowed the team of doctors to determine that the woman had a hole in her heart and had thrown blood clots, which allowed a successful treatment plan to be implemented and ultimately saved the woman’s life.13 While certainly a wonderful example of the lifesaving potential of social media for personal medical emergencies, it is also a prime example of how ethically challenging social media has become for both citizens and responders. Should doctors have had access to her Facebook page, which in many ways violated this woman’s privacy even though it resulted in her medical survival? Although most people would support this type of violation if the results were this positive, the success of that result cannot be guaranteed and is ultimately the crux of the issue.

Incident-Based Risk

As an example of incident-based risk, what if a local law enforcement response agency responded to a local neighborhood based on a report of a hostage situation related to domestic violence? Law enforcement, emergency medical service, specialized response teams, and other response personnel (sometimes from multiple jurisdictions) would be simultaneously responding to one central physical location. An incident commander or unified command would quickly be established to determine leadership and scene control. Because of the complexity of this response scene, numerous citizens in the impacted neighborhood and some simply in the vicinity would be drawn to the scene and would be witnesses of all activities therein. (See Figure 5.3.)

Because of the numerous social media and Web 2.0 tools already discussed, this level of public presence could quickly lead to dozens (if not more) comments, texts, photos, and/or videos posted to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (just to name a few) by the general public because they are shocked, concerned, or otherwise interested in the scene and fascinated by the novelty of what they are seeing. These social media posts could be simple updates or multimedia reports that incorporate details of the scene, including where responders are located, current levels of support, and other similar details. Because the scene observations are shared via social media, the person of interest holding the hostage is now potentially aware of many of the response actions the law enforcement agency has taken, including description of team uniforms, response tactics, positions of personnel, and type of equipment in use. This level of awareness means that the traditional tactical advantage and protective strategies in place are potentially vulnerable because of this use of social media. If the tactical advantage and protection is minimized and/or eliminated, first responders are at significantly greater risk than previously thought or planned for by emergency managers.

This very scenario happened in 2011 when Utah police cornered a man named Jose Valdez in a Salt Lake City hotel room where they were trying to serve a bench warrant on him. Local Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams maintained a perimeter around the hotel room for 16 hours because Valdez had a woman with him who was believed to be his hostage. During the time of the standoff, Valdez made six posts to his Facebook page, with his friends posting approximately 100 comments in return. These comments ranged from positive support to urgent requests for him to “do the right thing.” Perhaps the most striking of these was a comment stating that a SWAT member was hiding in the bushes outside the room. In response, Valdez simply stated, “Thank you homie…good looking out.” Valdez later shot himself as SWAT members stormed his room. Local law enforcement authorities openly admitted afterward that they were not sure how to handle Valdez’s Facebook friends who so openly provided him response intelligence. Some local community leaders even suggested that Valdez’s friends should be charged with a crime for their use of social media.20

This type of situation can also put local citizens in significant danger from the disaster conditions. In some ways, this phenomenon occurred during the terrorist

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Figure 5.3

Scene control and preservation is potentially significantly impacted

by the presence of individuals utilizing social media tools. (From Mid-America Regional Council [MARC], Barbara Hensley.)

attacks of the Mumbai financial district in November 2008. In this particular event, numerous local citizens took photos of the terrorists moving through the impacted areas. In some cases, these pictures clearly showed the weapons and incendiary devices being carried by the terrorists and were later used by traditional media outlets like CNN to report real-time updates about the event.4,5 Clearly, if these individuals were close enough to capture images and multimedia content of the terrorists via cell phones, these citizens were at increased risk to be harmed by those same terrorists. Consequently, there is a significant question whether these citizens put themselves at greater risk by utilizing social media during this event. Is the benefit of having that level of incident-related information and intelligence worth the risk to citizen journalists?

Likewise, if a natural disaster such as a tornado or earthquake were happening in a local community, many local citizens would seek ways to capture information about the disaster—including pictures, videos, and firsthand accounts, which can quickly be shared via social media systems through mobile devices regardless of the current status of traditional infrastructure (e.g., local internet access). This public response is caused by many factors, including the novelty of such an event impacting their lives as well as the encouragement of local and national media outlets like IN A NUTSHELL

Disaster breeds curiosity for those who want to learn more about the disaster and see the destruction and response activities first-hand….[T]hough natural, [this behavior] has been called “disaster tourism” and can significantly impact rescue, relief, and recovery operations.

—University of Colorado’s Natural Hazards Center14

CNN’s iReporter to provide citizen journalism of the event. According to research done at the University of Colorado’s Natural Hazards Center, “disaster breeds curiosity for those who want to learn more about the disaster and see the destruction and response activities first-hand….[T]hough natural, [this behavior] has been called ‘disaster tourism’ by some…and can cause problems if it hinders rescue, relief, and recovery operations.”14 Emergency managers must increase their awareness and acceptance of this phenomenon to help reduce risk in their given communities.

Moreover, citizens often make this desire to witness the event the priority rather than calling 9-1-1 to initiate the emergency response process. For example, in 2009, when two Australian girls (aged 10 and 12) got lost in a stormwater drain in Adelaide, they posted to their Facebook pages from their mobile phones rather than calling the Australian equivalent of 9-1-1. Although these young girls might not have felt imminent danger, the mere thought that they would post to a social media site is a new phenomenon for most emergency management and first responder disciplines.15 Interestingly, this phenomenon also cannot be only attributed to youthful ignorance. In 2009, an Atlanta City councilman spotted a woman having a seizure on a nearby street corner. Much like the Australian preteens, the councilman posted to Twitter that there was a woman in need of medical assistance rather than dial 9-1-1 to report the condition. Within seconds, the councilman’s Twitter followers retweeted the message and some called 9-1-1 directly. After the fact, the councilman reported that his decision to use Twitter rather than the emergency number was due to low battery life on his phone.16 Even if this was the case, this example validates the growing perception for users of social media that the robustness and connectedness of social media sites are more effective than traditional mechanisms to report emergencies. This possibility of modern emergency notification and messaging is further discussed in Chapter 8.

First Responder Responsibility

Maintaining a high level of fairness and application has long been a benchmark of emergency managers and first responders alike. This concept is echoed in the oft-stated axiom “Do the most good for the most amount of people.” Emergency managers and their partners must not make preparedness and response decisions based on favoritism or bias but merely on the most efficient and effective processes that ensure the preservation of life and property of impacted citizens and those responding to their needs. A prime example of this process is the need for law enforcement to maintain and train on a use of force spectrum that provides guidance on what is and what is not appropriate when dealing with a particular event. For example, should a law enforcement officer use his service weapon to shoot a local citizen who jaywalks or runs a stop sign? Of course not! These first responders are most often trained to maintain a response that is as least impactful as possible. Unfortunately, social media is a moral and ethical challenge for emergency managers of all disciplines that does not yet have the same level of appropriate use as the mentioned force spectrum.

If ethical and reasonable response is already an accepted model for emergency managers and first responders within the various disciplines and response specialties, this should be no different for the use and impact of social media. With some inspiration from the U.S. Air Force’s social media utilization policy,18 emergency managers of all disciplines should adopt six basic rules of use related to social media and emergencies or disasters. These rules consist of statements to ensure that all uses of social media maintain confidentiality, privacy, accuracy, and trustworthiness. The adoption of these rules is critical to ensuring the public is comfortable and confident that all materials utilized by emergency managers are of the same level of accuracy and reliability as any other piece of information distributed or utilized by emergency managers of any discipline.

RULES FOR FAIR AND SAFE USE OF SOCIAL

MEDIA BY EMERGENCY MANAGERS

1. Utilize only materials posted by three or more trusted sources (preferably one of these a traditional media source).

2. Publicly post the dates and times when official social media systems will be monitored for incident-related issues.

3. Do not divulge incident-critical (aka classified) information.

4. Do not violate privacy of victims or their families.

5. Do not use trademarked or copyrighted materials.

6. Admit mistakes and do not lie.18

The first of these components is to ensure accuracy of all information used and disseminated by emergency managers. First and foremost, emergency managers must establish some rules about how to verify information received from the general public through social media systems about emergencies or disasters. These rules suggest that a social media source be confirmed and/or verified by no fewer than three sources with at least one as a traditional media outlet (that already has established rules about verifiability). Although this number is completely arbitrary, it supports the need to identify some level of implementation that emergency managers at their organizations, if not industry-wide, can learn to accept and apply during emergency preparedness and response. In addition, these rules also suggest that emergency managers must uniformly admit mistakes and avoid duplicity when presenting disaster-related information to the general public.

In addition to accuracy, emergency managers must also seek out ways to ensure the reliability of the information they are receiving and disseminating via social media systems. The foundation of reliability starts with establishing a timeframe for when social media systems will be utilized. Clearly, the primary way emergency managers have justified their use of social media is the knowledge that it would be utilized during an emergency or disaster as a secondary system for the distribution of emergency public information, warnings, alerts, and other critical pieces of information. However, the question that many emergency managers must evaluate is what to do with their social media systems when preparedness and mitigation activities are underway and there is no known response activity. (See Figure 5.4.) Establishing these proverbial “hours of operation” is critical to ensure that the growing expectations of the public (as established by the American Red Cross survey) about the monitoring capability of social media sites is maintained at reasonable levels.

Additionally, the general public and emergency response partners must ensure that they respect the privacy, intelligence, and intellectual property connected to disaster-related events. This includes components of information related to victim’s

Figure 5.4

Emergency managers must determine how to use social media during

preparedness and mitigation activities that are common between disasters. (From FEMA, Marilee Caliendo.)

health information and emergency response intelligence, as well as copyrighted and trademarked materials. For instance, people have borrowed or utilized images found on the internet that they do not have permission to use. This type of careless use of social media is dangerous and disrespectful in the process of maintaining positive usage of social media within a community. Maintaining this level of transparency (as is expected within the social media community) ensures emergency managers will be perceived as trustworthy and reliable, which is critical during response operations.

Citizen Responsibility

Much like the operational considerations related to the use of social media during emergencies and disasters, emergency managers also have a responsibility to inform the general public what responsibilities citizens have related to the use of social media during emergencies. Much like 9-1-1 emergency systems that are now pervasive throughout the United States, citizens may or may not completely understand the impacts of their choices when it comes to the use of social media during emergencies. (See Figure 5.5.) For instance, 9-1-1 emergency systems have long

been plagued by misuse and errant calls that include hang-ups, prank calls, and

non-emergency calls.

Should I

information ab

out

is sc

ene?

Does

it put you at ri

Does

it put fir

resp

onde

at ri

Is it valid information?

If in doub

n’

t twe

et it out!

Think S

afe,

et S

afe.

Figure 5.5

Think Safe, Tweet Safe. (From Adam Crowe.)

CITIZEN RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE SAFE

AND EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

DURING EMERGENCIES AND DISASTERS

1. I will not put emergency responders and other public safety officials in harm’s way by using social media.

2. I will not put myself or those around me at risk by using social media.

3. I will not redistribute disaster-related content unless it has been confirmed by two different trusted sources.

4. I will not expect a social media response from an emergency response agency unless they have stated that this will be supported.

To address these issues, 9-1-1 dispatch centers have implemented over time a variety of response tactics, including technology upgrades, law enforcement intervention, implementing 3-1-1 systems, and perhaps most importantly, increasing the education of citizens about proper use of their local 9-1-1 system.19 This requisite and necessary education provided clarification for citizens as to appropriateness of calls, procedures when calls are made, and consequences for misuse.

As the public expectations about the use of social media continues to grow, so too does the level of official implementation by emergency managers. The same type of education that was necessary for 9-1-1 systems is absolutely necessary for social media. If this education and public awareness is not implemented, the potential impact and usefulness of social media during emergencies and disasters may be significantly hindered due to fears and misunderstandings. Moreover, as already established, there is also a significant potential risk to the personal safety of citizens and first responders if there is not a shared, common platform and protocol to use social media during events. Local citizens, traditional media, emergency managers, and local community leaders need to identify certain rules to follow when using social media during emergencies or disasters to ensure the safety of citizens and responders alike. Most of these suggested rules are focused on increasing the situational awareness of the individual utilizing social media. While many of these rules are routine to emergency public information and response activities, they are paramount to the successful implementation of social media into traditional emergency management and response systems. Although these rules may require the pace of social media distribution to slow slightly to ensure the proper actions are taken, it will be worth it in the end to ensure that the safety of both citizens and first responders is maintained as paramount. Although these rules are again subjective and arbitrary, they help set the foundation for future successes when utilizing social media during emergencies and disasters.

Social Media “How” versus Social Media “Why”

The ethical dilemmas of social media application in all phases of emergency management have been largely ignored. Most emergency managers are merely focused on the “when” and “how” social media systems can be used before, during, and after emergencies or disasters. The challenge with this mind-set is that it often neglects the “why,” which may be critical to ensure the full incorporation of these concepts into traditional management and response structures and assumptions.

Emergency managers of all disciplines are good at what they do, and they maintain plans, procedures, and operational protocols based on years of best practices and community observations. Unfortunately, this operational and planning model does not often lend itself to the incorporation and development of new strategies and technologies such as social media and Web 2.0 technologies. The concept of how social media is impacting traditional response scenes, situational awareness, and public information as discussed within this chapter is merely the beginning of this conversation. Emergency managers across all disciplines and levels must be engaged to get practitioner feedback and buy-in to ensure these concepts can be fully embraced. Unfortunately, this type of implementation cannot occur using traditional methods of time and repetition. Rather, a concerted effort must be made to apply standards that are flexible and dynamic to ensure that they can quickly be modified or altered to address current needs or capabilities.

If this style of implementation can be adopted that allows for quicker decisions, the effectiveness of social media as well as the safety of citizens and first responders can be better preserved. As such, the rules included within this chapter to address the responsibilities of first responders, emergency managers, and the general public are merely starting points. These rules and expectations are subject to change and should be modified by the emergency management community continually to ensure their continued effectiveness. At no point in time should this suggested structure become rigid and closed from improvement and review. Rather, every emergency or disaster event—no matter how big or small—should be reviewed immediately to analyze and apply any findings regarding the impact of social media on that particular event.

Practitioner Profile: Alisha Griswold,

Medical Reserve Corps, Kansas City

Ms. Griswold (Figure 5.6) is a disaster response specialist who specializes in biological and radiological disaster planning and response and is the executive vice chair to the Medical Reserve Corps of Kansas City (MRCKC). Additionally, she actively utilizes social media systems like Twitter to leverage professional development,

Figure 5.6

Alisha Griswold.

improve volunteerism, and engage this community. Because of her unique combination of professional involvement and passion for social media and volunteerism, Ms. Griswold was tasked by the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) to develop a new committee to focus on emergency technologies such as social media and Web 2.0 systems. When asked about why social media was important to the future of emergency management, Ms. Griswold stated, “By leveraging social media tools, such as Twitter, I am able to share my daily activities within my community…[which] as a taxpayer and citizen I appreciate having the opportunity to get a better understanding of how other government agencies operate.” She continued, “I don’t believe that most emergency managers have a good understanding of social media or any other emerging technologies….[However] this is a pseudo-generational issue, where the previous ‘generation’ of emergency management professionals acquired their duties by demonstrating specific skills in another discipline and the new ‘generation’ is completing course work specifically for emergency management.” When Ms. Griswold was asked to address why emergency managers across all disciplines continue to be reluctant to embrace emerging technologies, she said, “Many individuals hesitate out of concern for unforeseen repercussions such as legal or command and control issues.” In conclusion she said, “We are witnessing the beginning of a new world order…where virtual emergency response begins as soon as a disaster strikes [such that] volunteers can lend a hand from anywhere in the globe…[and] where access to cellular devices can help fledgling democracies overthrow oppressive tyrants and vacationers can unintentionally provide live commentary on the takedown of the FBI’s most wanted criminal.” Ms. Griswold’s passion and leadership will be critical to the future of emergency management as practitioners across the globe attempt to tackle how to successfully implement social media.

Chapter Terms

Citizen journalism: Firsthand reporting and documenting of emergency or disaster events by citizens via social media formats that can be used and/or translated by traditional and mainstream media outlets.

Wiki-sourcing: Collection and validation of information to a website or virtual concept through a process that uses the collective editing and validation of a large group of individuals.

Social media ethics: Attempt to create an ethical framework for the use and application of social media during emergencies and disasters that ensures the safety of first responders and citizens as well as scene preservation.

Incident-based risk: Risk of social media impacting the emergency response activities of a given scene due to preexisting relationships (and therefore social media connections) of those involved or impacted by the scene.

Chapter Questions

General Questions

1. True/False: Surveys indicate that citizens have a low expectation for the use of social media during disasters.

2. What allows Facebook to be utilized as a tool to facilitate citizen journalism?

a. Facebook API

b. Social status

c. Millions of users

d. All of the above

3. True/False: Responders and citizens should abide by predetermined rules when utilizing social media during disasters.

Essay Questions

1. Discuss how changing public expectations are changing how social media impacts disaster response scenes.

2. Discuss the importance of ethics in the utilization of social media during emergencies and disasters.

3. Discuss the suggested rules for citizens and responders when using social media during a disaster. Are they sufficient? Do they need to be expanded or contracted?

Works Cited

1. Hauser, Christine, and Anahad O’Connor. “Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves 33 Dead.” New York Times, April 16, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd shooting.html?pagewanted=all (accessed October 29, 2011).

2. Vieweg, S., et al. “Collective Intelligence in Disaster: An Examination of the Phenomenon in the Aftermath of the 2007 Virginia Tech Shooting.” Proceedings of the fifth international ISCRAM conference, Washington, D.C., May 2008.

3. “Web Users Increasingly Rely on Social Media to Seek Help in a Disaster.” American Red Cross Press Release, August 9, 2010. http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menui tem.94aae335470e233f6cf911df43181aa0/?vgnextoid=6bb5a96d0a94a210VgnVCM 10000089f0870aRCRD ( accessed January 26, 2011).

4. Busari, Stephanie. “Tweeting the Terror: How Social Media Responded to Mumbai.” CNN.com, November 27, 2008. http://articles.cnn.com/2008–11–27/world/mumbai.

twitter_1_twitter-tweet-terror-attacks?_s=PM:WORLD ( accessed January 26, 2011).

5. Heussner, Ki Mae. “Social Media a Lifeline, Also a Threat?” ABCNews.com, November 28, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/International/story?id=6350014&page=1 ( accessed January 26, 2011).

6. Beaumont, Claudine. “Mumbai Attacks: Twitter and Flickr Used to Break News.” UK Telegraph, November 27, 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/ india/3530640/Mumbai-attacks-Twitter-and-Flickr-used-to-break-news-Bombay India.html ( accessed January 26, 2011).

7. “Statistics.” Wikipedia.com. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics.

8. “Virginia Tech Shooting; Sequence of Events.” Washington Post. http://www.wash ingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/vatechshootings/shootings_timeline.html ( accessed October 29, 2011).

9. Parr, Ben. “10 Great Implementations of Facebook Connect.” Mashable.com, January 12, 2009. http://mashable.com/2009/01/12/facebook-connect-implementations/ ( accessed January 26, 2011).

10. “CNN iReport.” CNN.com. http://ireport.cnn.com/ (accessed January 26, 2011).

11. “Student Shot Video of Campus Shooting.” CNN.com, April 16, 2007. http://www. cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.witness/index.html ( accessed January 26, 2011).

12. Montopoli, Brian. “Citizen Journalists, Dangerous Settings.” CBSNews.

com, April 17, 2007. http://www.cbsnews.com/8300–500486_162–500486. html?keyword=Jamal+Albarghouti ( accessed January 26, 2011).

13. Gingrich, Newt, and Kamar Thapar. “Facebook Is—Literally—a Life Saver.” AOL News, December 5, 2010. http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/06/facebook-is-literally a-lifesaver/ (accessed January 26, 2011).

14. Hughes, Amanda L., et al. “‘Site-Seeing’ in Disaster: An Examination of On-Line Social Convergence.” Proceedings of the fifth international ISCRAM conference, Washington, D.C., May 2008. http://www.jeannettesutton.com/uploads/ OnlineConvergenceISCRAM08.pdf (accessed January 26, 2011).

15. Cashmore, Pete. “Trapped Girls Updated Facebook Status Instead of Calling for Help.” Mashable.com, September 7, 2009. http://mashable.com/2009/09/07/trapped-girls facebook/ (accessed January 26, 2011).

16. “Atlanta Councilman Chooses Twitter over 911 to Report Emergency.” EMSWorld. com, May 18, 2009. http://www.emsworld.com/web/online/Top-EMS-News/Atlanta Councilman-Chooses-Twitter-Over-911-to-Report-Emergency/1$9546 (accessed January 26, 2011).

17. Liu, Sophia B., et al. “In Search of the Bigger Picture: The Emergent Role of On-Line Photo Sharing in Times of Disaster.” Proceedings of the fifth international ISCRAM conference, Washington, D.C., May 2008. http://www.jeannettesutton.com/uploads/ OnlinePhotoSharingISCRAM08.pdf ( accessed January 26, 2011).

18. “New Media and the Air Force.” Air Force. http://www.af.mil/shared/media/docu ment/AFD-090406–036.pdf ( accessed January 26, 2011).

19. Sampson, Rana. “Misuse and Abuse of 911.” Problem-Oriented Guides for Police Series, Guide No. 19, U.S. Department of Justice, August 22, 2002. http://www. popcenter.org/problems/pdfs/Misuse_and_Abuse_of_911.pdf (accessed January 26, 2011).

20. Dobner, Jennifer. “Utah Man Updated Facebook Status during Standoff.” Yahoo News, June 22, 2011. http://news.yahoo.com/utah-man-updated-facebook-status-during standoff-212608080.html (accessed June 26, 2011).

94 ◾ Disasters 2.0

The Yellow Tape Conundrum ◾ 52

SOCIAL MEDIA II

POLICY,

PROCEDURE,

INTEGRATION,

AND ANALYSIS

If your reputation sucks, none of it matters. People with lousy products, crummy business practices, and shady backgrounds get found out. And word spreads with frightening speed.

—Sonia Simone, marketer and blogger at

Remarkable Communication12

Chapter 6

Who’s the Sheriff in These Parts? Monitoring and Analysis of Social

Media Information

Social awareness has three levels: when everybody knows something, when everybody knows that everybody knows, and when everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows.

—Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing

Without Organizations1

Chapter Objectives

◾ To comprehend the utilization and benefits of using monitoring and analytics systems to measure impact and success of social media systems before, during, and after an emergency

◾ To understand systematic monitoring of social media systems during emergencies and disasters

◾ To evaluate the importance of comprehensive monitoring of social media systems during emergencies and disasters

101

DISASTER FOCUS—SEVEN SIGNS OF TERRORISM VIDEO

In 2008, the Michigan State Police’s Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security developed an educational video campaign called “The Seven Signs of Terrorism.” This campaign called for citizens to watch for and report any of seven common signs of terrorism: surveillance, information gathering, testing security, planning, suspicious behavior, rehearsal, and positioning.2 To date, the State of Michigan released this video through their website and via DVD upon request. Because of the relatively positive response to this video, the Citizen Readiness Subcommittee of the Regional Homeland Security Coordinating Committee in the Greater Kansas City area decided to produce a professional-quality video that was similar to the video produced by the State of Michigan. The Kansas City version of The Seven Signs of Terrorism was produced using local residents against a backdrop of regional landmarks unique to the city. After the video was produced, the committee decided to post the video on a Friday afternoon to a recently created YouTube channel that was managed and controlled by the MidAmerica Regional Council (of governments). By the power of social media and the inherent capability of information to be shared and spread through the internet, the video generated more than 33,000 views by the next Monday morning, with well over 250 comments posted to the video. Most of the comments were negative with a perception that the video was inciting panic in the community with many specific accusations of fear-mongering. The regional emergency managers responsible for citizen readiness quickly had to adopt a process to review comments and feedback in the context created in social media. Because this monitoring and response did not occur while the event was progressing, it was difficult to manage the situation properly and is a strong indicator of why social media must be monitored to watch for public feedback and provide engaged feedback when possible. (See Figure 6.1.)

◾ To evaluate social media monitoring tools for efficiency and effectiveness

◾ To consider the measurement and importance of return-on-investment evaluations of social media systems

Traditional Media Monitoring

Social media monitoring and analysis is a complex issue due to the many systems available, varying levels of reliability, and the necessary resources to address these issues. However, much like the Clay Shirky quote that opens this chapter, initiating protocols and systems to monitor social media conversations—particularly

Figure 6.1

Command personnel assigned to planning or intelligence branches

will need to monitor social media for real-time situational awareness. (From FEMA, Patsy Lynch.)

during disasters—is critical for both emergency public information and situational awareness. As was addressed in the first section of this book, the exchange of information and opinions is occurring within social media systems with or without the presence and participation of emergency managers and other governmental officials. Consequently, one of the easiest ways to become a part of (rather than control) this conversation is to use available tools to monitor what is being said and for what purpose.

Traditionally, emergencies and disasters have been monitored through the observation and inspection of popular media sources. When newspaper was the dominant media form for mass communication, monitoring was as simple as reading the paper and identifying any stories related to the event in question. Likewise, radio and television sources were monitored during emergencies at regular intervals that correlated to the daily broadcast. The first major shift in the event monitoring timeline was the rise of cable news outlets like CNN. This shifted the traditional news production cycle to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7). Although 24/7, event monitoring was still dependent on highly produced media formats that required stages, sets, resources, and other technical equipment in concert to report any information gleaned about the event. To support this process, traditional wire news services provided by the Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP), United Press International (UPI), and Reuters were utilized to collect national and international breaking news and distribute it to news agencies within their shared network.

However, as the use and implementation of the internet increased by both citizens and traditional media outlets, the formalized structure of news monitoring undertook a major overhaul. Various forms of the internet began to report disaster-related news more quickly and without the procedural and resource overhead necessary for traditional media outlets. This process was further impacted by the rise of social media. Social media moved beyond the idea of traditional media-controlled disaster-related information, allowing citizens to contribute to all forms of journalism as previously described in Chapters 3 and 5. This shift to shared journalistic responsibility moved news reporting to nearly simultaneous to the actual events occurring.

Social Media Monitoring

Consequently, as media reporting shifted, so did the need for media monitoring. While traditional media outlets in print, radio, and television continue to exist and have an impact on event monitoring, systems needed to be created to track the distribution and exchange of information on the internet and through social media systems at the same speed the information was distributed. This social media searching and monitoring capability is possible due to the open advanced programming interfaces (APIs) available in most social media systems. These APIs allow third-party systems to access the data and information included on public social networks, microblogs, blogs, photo-sharing sites, video-sharing sites, and other social media systems.

Emergency managers can utilize social media monitoring for both situational awareness and emergency public information activities. In both cases, the collection and review of social media information must be real-time and reflective of all primary and secondary issues related to the particular event. For example, if a tornado impacted a given community, it would be critical to know all information being discussed on social media for damage assessment and power outages as well as secondary issues such as mass care sheltering and debris management. For situational awareness, this kind of information is utilized operationally to ascertain necessary adjustments needed to ensure an efficient and effective response to the incident under consideration. Within the National Incident Management System (NIMS) framework, this kind of information could be assigned to an intelligence branch in the operations or planning section depending on the event conditions and the incident commander in charge. Likewise, the public information officer function is monitored by a public information officer often located in the Joint Information Center (JIC). This operational utilization of social media monitoring is further discussed in Chapter 10.

The other primary application of social media monitoring by emergency managers is within the emergency public information process. This process would typically be assigned to the public information officer in the Joint Information Center in conjunction with an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activation for a particular organization. The JIC is fundamentally responsible for information analysis, information dissemination, and media monitoring. It is this final component that must be adjusted to incorporate social media monitoring and application. Specifically, the JIC must be able to pull from all social media systems real-time incident-related information that can gauge misinformation and the need for additional information. This real-time information should be searchable by time, users, phrases, location, connectivity, attitude, analytics, and influence.

Social media monitoring is heavily dependent on certain systematic classification characteristics such as hashtags, keywords, internal coding, and tags. As was discussed in Chapter 2, these systematic classification characteristics are foundational to the connectivity that exists in social media and Web 2.0 technologies. In all cases, these characteristics allow for the collection and gathering of similar information. Interestingly, these characteristics are user generated and have no formal structure or rules for their creation or establishment. Twitter monitoring, for instance, is heavily dependent on the creation and use of hashtags (or a random assortment of letters and numbers that is associated with a certain topic). Similarly, photo- and video-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube are driven by tagging. Social networks, like Facebook, are the exception to this classification rule. Some monitoring systems use keyword searches for these types of systems, which sometimes creates less accurate results than some of the other social media systems. This difference is partially what requires the need for aggregation and validation of social media as well as monitoring. The aggregation and validation of social media data are further discussed in Chapter 7.

Real-Time Instantaneous Monitoring

The first major type of monitoring relates to those systems that provide real-time individualistic and instantaneous capabilities. Specifically, these systems are capable of gathering information related to a topic, category, event, name, or other incident-related information at any given moment. (See Figure 6.2.) However, real-time instantaneous monitoring systems have no capability to collect these same categorizations over time. There are numerous social media monitoring systems that currently exist, with many of them focusing on specific social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter; however, some of these sites can monitor multiple sites simultaneously.

The Twitter-specific sites that perform real-time instantaneous monitoring include Monitter, Topsy, Trendsmap, BackTweets, Twubs, and Twitter’s Advanced Search. Although these systems all allow for the opportunity to monitor incidentrelated data, the specific filter available in each system is different. For instance, Monitter (spelled with two “t”s like Twitter) is a web-based Twitter monitoring tool that allows users to insert keywords or phrases and a geographic search parameter (based on mileage from a certain ZIP code). An additional benefit of this type of system is that it does not require any login, password, or connectivity to social media system. Moreover, this type of monitoring is very effective for emergency managers due to its capability for localized searching for real-time information. For

Figure 6.2

Effective monitoring of social media may help address public issues

that can more quickly be resolved than traditional monitoring. (From FEMA, Michael Medina-Latorre.)

emergencies and/or disasters with local or regional impact, Monitter would be an extremely efficient tool to gather tweets in real-time. For instance, areas that heavily utilize outdoor warning sirens for emergency public notification are often burdened by occasional malfunctions, which can lead to confusion of the general public. Monitoring social media for these types of issues can identify the issue and shorten the time necessary to distribute public information to address the malfunction.

Another excellent real-time Twitter-specific monitoring tool is Trendsmap. While Monitter utilizes geographic vicinity to provide a list of matched tweets, Trendsmap looks for popular hashtags and presents them on a map. This type of approach can quickly indicate trends in the interests and opinions of the general public at any particular moment. For instance, if local emergency managers are interested in monitoring the public response to emergency snow removal activities during a blizzard, Trendsmap could quickly provide this monitoring capability through the organic terminology utilized in generated Twitter hashtags. For instance, in this case, if a hashtag such as #plowfaster or #plowmore were being monitored by Trendsmap, it would be a strong indicator to local emergency managers that local citizens were not satisfied with the pace and productivity of local emergency snow removal.

The last and perhaps most powerful Twitter-only monitoring tool is the Advanced Search tool available through Twitter itself. This Advanced Search tool allows for searching by words, people, places, dates, attitude, and others. Each of these search parameters has multiple entry capabilities. For instance, the people filter has the capability to look for tweets from, to, or about a particular Twitter account. Interestingly, it also allows unique search constraints related to emotions and for connectivity to other sites or web links. This is advantageous to emergency managers for a variety of reasons as they monitor an emergent situation during emergency or disaster response. For instance, much like the Trendsmap already mentioned, the collection and accounting for emotional statements (e.g., how many use happy or sad emoticons) related to a particular event would be very valuable in ascertaining the effectiveness and efficiency of response and/or acceptance of information by the impacted general public. This functionality would be exceptionally beneficial in the determination of how well protective action recommendations (e.g., issuances of a tornado warning) are being accepted and acted upon by local citizens. Additionally, the capability to measure how many times posted web links have been redistributed would also be valuable to determine the diffusion of the related message within the community.

Although powerful monitoring tools, these Twitter-centric capabilities do contain challenges to their effective use. First, regardless of what monitoring system is utilized, the effectiveness is dependent on the number of social media users engaged in the measured system at any given time. For instance, if 1,000 people have posted in response to a particular event but only 100 have used the same hashtag, official monitoring by local emergency management would only be based on 10% of those actually reporting about the incident. Additionally, the power of these monitoring systems is only as effective as the familiarity of the emergency managers using these systems. If emergency managers of all disciplines do not routinely use these systems during non-emergency events (community festivals, exercises, etc.), they will not be effectively used during an event. The final major challenge to Twitter-centric monitoring systems is the dependency on systematic naming within Twitter. Twitter is

REAL-TIME INSTANTANEOUS MONITORING FOR TWITTER

Twitter Advanced Search

Trendsmap

Monitter

Topsy

Twubs

BackTweets

heavily dependent on unique user identifications (userids) that may or may not be clearly associated with the actual name and geographic location of the user. This challenges monitored data to actually ascertain whether it is relevant to the event being monitored, which is why aggregation and validation is critical.

In addition to the Twitter-specific real-time monitoring systems, there are similar systems that collect instantaneous information about content being publicly posted to Facebook. Unlike Twitter monitoring tools, Facebook tools are strictly limited to keywords or phrases rather than classification terms (e.g., hashtags), geographic locations, and expressed feelings. As monitoring tools for Facebook continue to develop, these filtering tools may become available but currently are not supported. The two primary real-time monitoring tools dedicated to Facebook are Open Facebook Search and Openbook. Both of these systems have a simple search box that quickly collects all real-time references that match the request. From a monitoring perspective, the only significant difference between these systems is that Openbook allows for search filtering by gender. Regardless of the Facebook system utilized, the challenge to effective real-time monitoring of Facebook for instance-related information is the growing attention given toward the need for Facebook users to tighten down personal user settings, which in turn would minimize or eliminate their availability through current monitoring systems.3

Although monitoring systems are powerful tools, emergency managers (like most social media users) should be seeking out the most efficient and effective way to monitor all social media information related to a particular incident. This means that monitoring systems that allow for the simultaneous collection of information from multiple social media outlets would be valuable. If these were effective, they would be valuable tools to monitor emergencies or disasters with the limited tools available to most emergency managers. Fortunately, tools with this capability do exist. These multifunction monitoring tools include Kurrently, Social Mention, and Topsy. With the exception of Kurrently, these systems utilize powerful search and monitoring tools that have dynamic filters and selective sourcing that contribute to the search algorithm and ultimately the monitored results. Conversely, Kurrently simply lists in reverse chronological order any Facebook or Twitter post that meets the search criteria without any particular filter capability. Because of its simplicity, it is similar in structure and effectiveness to Openbook with the only real improvement being the addition of Twitter posts. Social Mention and Topsy both use parameters that can be filtered across a multitude of systems and web-based access. For instance, Social Mention allows for search filtering by blogs, microblogs, networks, bookmarks, images, videos, and audio as well as advanced monitoring of selected social media systems including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Friendster, and many other systems. This functionality is a tremendous asset in all monitoring capabilities for emergency managers due to the proverbial “one stop shop” potential. While similar, Topsy does not provide the depth of searching available through Social Mention. These aggregation sites search major social media sites and can filter by photos, videos, and web content. While REAL-TIME INSTANTANEOUS MONITORING FOR FACEBOOK

Kurrently

Social Mention

Open Facebook Search

Openbook Topsy

not as comprehensive as Social Mention, Topsy does provide the collection capability that would benefit emergency managers.

Real-Time Collective Monitoring

There are additional real-time monitoring systems that gather social media information in a collective fashion. For instance, in addition to the instantaneous information collected by the systems previously discussed, these systems will gather information that meets the search parameters and collect the data over time for analysis and comparison. For instance, if a local emergency manager wanted to monitor comments, responses, and feedback about his or her particular organization over time, one of the most straightforward ways to achieve this purpose would be to utilize one of these collective monitoring systems to watch over time the changing perspectives. This observation timeframe would be anything from minutes to hours to days or more depending on the events and activity of a particular organization. (See Figure 6.3.) Examples of real-time collective monitoring tools include Google Alerts, Yahoo Alerts, Social Mention Alerts, TweetDeck. Seesmic, and HootSuite.

Google Alerts, Yahoo Alerts, and Social Mention Alerts all provide similar email or text alerts about the posting of certain web content that meets preestablished alert criteria. For instance, if a local emergency manager wanted to monitor the appearance of his organization’s name in social media and/or on a web posting, an alert such as these listed would work effectively. This is particularly effective to monitor internet postings from traditional media outlets to controlled web extensions of their traditional output. For instance, if that same local emergency manager is interviewed by a local television station who posts a video and text article on its website, an alert mechanism would be generated and sent to anyone who had established the appropriate search parameters. The Google and Yahoo alerts are similar in that they provide the opportunity for keyword filtering against web content, news, and breaking information related to the search parameter. Google has a slightly more robust filter that includes blogs, discussions, and videos. Unfortunately, these filters may or may not be on independent social media sites like Facebook and Twitter but could simply be incorporated into secondary

Figure 6.3

Without proper social media monitoring, critical incident-related

information can be lost in the overwhelming quantity of information.

media sites. The Social Mention Alert is the most robust real-time collective alert for social media content. As already discussed, the Social Mention system allows keyword filtering and also allows for content and alerts checked against one or multiple social media systems.

The final three real-time collective monitoring tools are TweetDeck, Seesmic, and HootSuite. In all three cases, these social media monitoring and collection systems are multiplatform, multifunction systems capable of capturing tremendous amounts of social media data over short or long periods of time. Each of these systems is available through web browsing, desktop applications, and mobile applications. The concept for these tools is to provide an interface to the social media user that allows for the monitoring of social media comments, responses, private messages, pictures, video, and other shared content from one central location rather than from a variety of original sources. Specifically, TweetDeck, Seesmic, and HootSuite all support connectivity to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and FourSquare with some additional social media outlets supported on the individual monitoring systems.4,5,6 The practicality of this type of interface is primarily related to time management.

REAL-TIME COLLECTIVE MONITORING TOOLS

Google Alerts

Yahoo Alerts

Social Mention Alerts

TweetDeck

Seesmic

HootSuite

Although these systems are utilized as much for social media output as monitoring, they are very effective at collecting a vast amount of information.

Unlike the individual real-time instantaneous and collective system already discussed, TweetDeck, Seesmic, and HootSuite allow for the preservation of all functionality available on the original systems. For instance, the Twitter interface on these systems is divided into followed content, responses, direct messages, and systematic searches in the Twitter system based on keywords, users, or hashtags. Each search category and/or collected information is typically listed in columns with the most recent content match appearing at the top of the column (in reverse chronological order). This content—especially in systems like Twitter—is generated instantaneously but maintains this list of information until the number of postings exceeds the maximum allowed in the list (e.g., TweetDeck’s default is 200 comments or posts). For emergency managers, this is perhaps the most beneficial type of single monitoring tool. Multiple systems can be utilized for the distribution of information and the monitoring of information during preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation related to an event, disaster, or community issue. TweetDeck, Seesmic, and HootSuite are very similar in style and presentation with only minor functional differences. Most end users would only utilize one of these systems based on personal preferences related to display, access, and technological inclinations.

Much like the real-time instantaneous monitoring, the collective monitoring systems have some limitations and challenges as well. For the systems that generate alerts, they can provide limited and/or inconsistent results if the search parameters are not specific enough. For instance, jurisdictions with common names (e.g., Athens or Johnson) can create incorrect results if they not are specific to the area in question. Additionally, for emergency managers, these false positive results can also be generated if the incident in question is generic. For instance, creating an alert for “snow,” “tornado,” or even “hurricane” most likely would not be sufficient due to the fact that these types of events are often occurring or have occurred in multiple areas at nearly the same time. Instead, the search parameters should be set as specific as possible including geographic or common terminology related to the event (e.g., “Hurricane Katrina” rather than just “hurricane”). (See Figure 6.4.) Likewise, systems like TweetDeck and HootSuite can actually be so effective at gathering information that significant monitoring and/or assessment of the information being generated can be difficult to manage because there is too much information. Ironically, this proverbial avalanche of information is so overwhelming that almost no positive value can be achieved during this process. For instance, 4,064 tweets were sent in one second during the 2011 Super Bowl, which would be nearly impossible to monitor and track for similar or related information.7 While the Super Bowl is a global event with millions of viewers (both through traditional and social media), it is not unbelievable that a major disaster like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill or Japan earthquake and tsunami would generate significant social media traffic that would be difficult to monitor without well-organized personnel

Figure 6.4

Social media monitoring can only successfully be implemented when

deferential and specific categorical terms are utilized to determine one disaster from another. (From FEMA, Tim Burkitt.)

systems utilizing very specific search parameters to help better manage the situational awareness related to the event.

Basic Monitoring Analytics

In addition to external monitoring tools, nearly all major social media systems provide some internal measurement system that analyzes basic information about the effectiveness of the social media account. These measurement tools are often called analytics when referring to social media sites and are typically accessible by a particular user about that particular user’s accounts, pages, and applications. For instance, Facebook provides analytics (called Facebook Insights) related to how Facebook pages are followed and interacted with by those followers. Specifically, aggregate demographical data such as gender, age, and location are available as well as a breakdown of what percentage of those users are routinely interacting with the page. These measurements are available over a selected period of time since the establishment of the page under review. In addition to the formal Facebook Insights that look at user measurements over time, Facebook also provides immediate feedback on each page post. Specifically, the system will generate the number of views and the level of engagement (based on responses or comments) within a short period of time. These two measurement tools provide immediate monitoring capabilities particularly to determine how well a distributed messaging is disseminating during an event or related to a certain issue.

Similar to Facebook, YouTube also maintains a strong analytics tool called YouTube Insights. Specifically, YouTube Insights provides analytics measurements for the number of video views, method of video discovery, viewer demographics, feedback style and frequency, and viewer engagement. All of these features are available over any selected time since the creation of the page and/ or individual video. The method of discovery is potentially a valuable monitoring tool because this feature will subdivide if the video was viewed directly from YouTube, through related videos, on mobile devices, or as posted on external sites. Knowing the source of the public intake is important considering it may reflect a positive or negative outlook. For instance, if the Seven Signs of Terrorism video mentioned in the disaster profile was posted to several antigovernment and extremist group sites (which it was), this would have been a strong indicator that the video was not being well received. The feedback style and frequency analytics features help categorize the feedback from viewers into common words or phrases (good, bad, terrible, etc.), designation as a favorite feature, and number of rated stars. This tool can also be a strong indicator of how well a video is being perceived or understood by the general public. (See Figure 6.5.) The last demographics tool is related to the level of engagement, which YouTube refers to as Hot Spots. According to YouTube, Hot Spots show “the ups-and-downs of viewership at each moment in [the] video, compared to videos of similar length [with] the higher the graph the hotter your view…[which] is an overall measure of [the] video’s ability to retain its audience.”8 This type of feedback mechanism is an effective monitoring tool particularly for preparedness and educational components in emergency management to determine how interesting and engaging these are to the general public.

In addition to the embedded analytics tools that help monitor social media sites for an aggregate sense of engagement and understanding, Google Analytics is a third-party tool that is capable of providing embedded analytics measure-

ments on some additional social media systems like blogs or websites. Specifically,

Figure 6.5

Negative public views like this protest are difficult to measure on

social media systems without proper monitoring. (From FEMA, Marvin Nauman.)

when activated through a Google user account, Google Analytics generates specific HTML code that can be dropped into customizable blog sites such as Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. Google Analytics helps measure site usage, visitor overview, geographic location of engagement, sources of connectivity, and content measurements over a selected period of time. Site usage includes breakdowns based on page views, bounce rates, average time on site, and new users visiting the measured site. Additionally, the sources of connectivity show what websites, search engines, or other media interfaces are connecting to the measured site. Much like the similar functionality available through YouTube Insights, this type of connectivity when monitored is a strong indicator of a positive or negative public acceptance of the posted content.

Much like the other monitoring tools already discussed, there are also challenges to the effective use of standard analytics tools available through some social media systems or specifically supported by Google Analytics. Because emergency management is almost universally defined through the phases of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation, social media content that is not related to specific disasters is often shared or redistributed in areas and disciplines not originally connected to the project. For instance, educational campaigns like Preparedness Piggy, Freddy the Ready Frog, and PrepE Penguin that are originally created in individual parts of the country (or world) are shared in other parts due to the universality of its purpose and message. This redistribution of social media data can often skew the basic analytics tools away from accurate reflections of local citizens. Similar to the challenge of alerts, generic disaster-related information may also skew basic analytics because of confusion about where a particular event is occurring—particularly when the event is commonplace (severe thunderstorms) or widespread (massive snowstorm).

Measuring Influence and Success

Although many systems exist to monitor the exchange of information on various social media outlets, it is also important for emergency managers to find ways to monitor the success of efforts to distribute information via social media before, during, and after disasters. These assessments are generally divided into two categories: influence and return on investment (ROI). This subdivision allows for the determination of how certain social media users are perceived by other users as well as mechanisms to utilize traditional measurements of success or failure to be applied to social media usage and effectiveness. These determinations are particularly critical to emergency managers who are often assessing the efficiency of efforts dedicated to the use of social media before, during, and after a disaster, including the continued justification of its use.

The first measurement to evaluate is social media influence. Measuring influence of social media is extremely challenging due to the ever-changing application and interconnectedness of individuals, users, and pages within the various social media systems. This is exponentially more challenging to create an aggregated measurement across multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and the many other common systems. Fortunately, the measurement of influence can be measured on major systems like Facebook and Twitter in ways that create effective and efficient classification, comparison, and evaluation.

Twitalyzer is a Twitter-based tool that provides an impact score for an individual user account as well as an influence category. This impact score is based on the number of users, unique references, frequency of retweeted material, and the relative frequency of posts.9 The classification categories are everyday users, reporters, social butterflies, trendsetters, and thought leaders. These classifications help categorize and create comparisons and benchmarked standards for Twitter accounts to be compared to others. In addition, Twitalyzer also identifies shared networks and common terminologies associated with the account in particular. There are also lists of benchmarking capabilities that show influence results in comparison to other Twitter users through filters based on number of followers, appearances on lists, engagement, and influence. Unfortunately, this type of benchmarking is ineffective for emergency managers who most effectively would be compared against other emergency managers with similar populations, response capabilities, or systems utilized rather than the general social media user.

In addition to Twitalyzer, Klout is an extremely effective tool for monitoring the influence of Twitter and Facebook user accounts. Klout divides its analysis between a categorical score and a score analysis. The actual score is comprised of 35 variables divided into three components: true reach, amplification, and network.10 This overall score measures the influence on a scale of 1 to 100, with higher scores representing a wider sphere of influence. Of the subcategorizes, true reach is based on the system followers who actively listen and react to posted messages; amplification is the likelihood that generated messages will generate systematic actions (e.g., retweets, responses, and direct messages). The score analysis assesses these categorizes over time for the particular user. Additionally, Klout creates an influence matrix that categorizes the user account into one of 16 categories (e.g., explorer, observer, conversationalist) and establishes the influencers of the account as well as those influenced by content distributed by the user.

Beyond influence, it is also important for emergency managers to be able to establish a return on investment (ROI) for the time and resources dedicated to the support of social media systems. Initially, social media ROI was measured by “soft” metrics such as systematic followers or fan likes. However, a more comprehensive ROI analysis has been established by both traditional marketers and ultimately emergency managers who all seek to justify continued programmatic utilization and development of social media. For emergency managers, the ROI analysis is fundamentally a measurement of how well distributed information is being received by the general public. The capability to ascertain ROI before, during, and after emergencies or disasters would be particularly valuable but is exponentially more difficult.

A recent eMarketer survey of marketing officers suggested that new ROI evaluations include more comprehensive measurements than previously had been identified. For instance, the measurements most often noted were site traffic, number of positive comments, number of mentions, and number of contributors, to name a few, with over 90% of all surveyed indicating that measuring ROI was critical to future success.11 Additionally, this same survey indicated that Facebook and Twitter engagement as well as an open rating system resulted in some of the highest social media ROI. Conversely, organizational blogs and YouTube provided some of the lowest ROI of all measured systems.11 Unfortunately, surveys and assessments like this are often marketing-centric and costly to conduct, which makes the applicability of ROI data for emergency or government application limited at best. With only one source of evaluation related to social media ROI, it will be challenging for emergency managers to find effective ROI tools to support social media efforts. However, regardless of the challenge, it is critical that modern emergency managers continue to find ways to consider and evaluate this issue.

Practitioner Profile: Ethan M. Riley, Arizona

Division of Emergency Management

As a public information officer with the Arizona Division of Emergency Management (ADEM), Ethan M. Riley has a variety of communications responsibilities,

Figure 6.6

Ethan Riley.

including having co-developed the Arizona Emergency Information Network (AzEIN), which serves as the State of Arizona’s online source for emergency bulletins, preparedness and hazard information, and multimedia sources that use a variety of different social media and Web 2.0 applications. Mr. Riley has additionally given numerous national presentations on the strategic integration of the AzEIN into crisis and emergency public information. When asked why social media was important to the management of emergencies and disasters, Mr. Riley stated that “Social media does as much to fell the fourth wall (theatrical term to describe the separation between the audience and performers) between the public and emergency management as any tool yet commercialized by bridging the rift between governments and their publics.” He went on to say that some emergency managers consider social media an “affront to the status quo…[with] devotees to the ‘old ways’ of information sharing, awareness and coordination dismissing social media as a novelty or a security threat.” When asked about why it is important for emergency managers to monitor social media before, during, and after a disaster, Mr. Riley stated, “Conversations about [individual agencies] are being had in an emergency…and despite the self-correcting nature of social networks, people will disseminate misinformation and disinformation,” which means that emergency managers must engage in monitoring through “empathy, actionable advice and clarification when able.” Finally, when asked to consider the role of social media in strategic planning and implementation, he stated that “Communication is transactional, meaning that people responded better to conversation than being told what to do…and [mobile phones] are ubiquitous, consequently, pictures and videos of emergencies are equally pervasive…[which] can alert you as to what things might look like on-scene and foreshadow challenges that haven’t been considered.” Mr. Riley’s knowledge and understanding provides clear insight into the need for organizational adaptations to social media that are purposeful and effective.

Chapter Terms

Advanced programming interface (API): Interface built by social media systems to allow third-party developers to build external interfaces that utilize the original system.

Hashtags: User-generated systematic categorical classification device used in Twitter to allow users to search for certain issues or topics.

Monitoring: Activities and systems necessary to actively or passively observe information on social media systems related to emergencies or disasters.

Influence: Consideration of how an organization’s social media usage influences the opinion, feelings, and actions of other users.

Return on investment (ROI): Consideration of how much value is achieved in utilizing social media systems when compared to the time and resources invested in social media activities.

Chapter Questions

General Questions

1. True/False: Instantaneous monitoring will aggregate over time all noted items that are being monitored.

2. The systematic categorical classification system used in Twitter is called a

a. Tweet

b. Hashtag

c. Post

d. Retweet

3. Which of the following is not a social media monitoring tool?

a. Facebook

b. Kurrently

c. Monitter

d. Topsy

Essay Questions

1. Discuss why ROI is important for emergency managers when considering the use of social media.

2. Why is monitoring important for emergency management and response activities?

3. Discuss the difference between real-time instantaneous and real-time collective monitoring.

Works Cited

1. Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008, p. 163.

2. “DVD Released—The Seven Signs of Terrorism.” National Terror Alert Response Center, August 7, 2008. http://www.nationalterroralert.com/2008/08/07/dvd-released-the seven-signs-of-terrorism/ ( accessed March 30, 2011).

3. Kirkpatrick, Marshall. “Why Facebook Is Wrong: Privacy Is Still Important.” ReadWriteWeb, January 11, 2008. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_face book_is_wrong_about_privacy.php.

4. “TweetDeck.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweetdeck .

5. “HootSuite.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HootSuite.

6. “Seesmic.” Seesmic. http://www.seesmic.com/.

7. Indvik, Lauren. “Twitter Sets New Tweets per Second Record during Super Bowl.” Mashable, February 9, 2011. http://mashable.com/2011/02/09/ twitter-super-bowl-tweets/ .

8. “YouTube Insight Overview.” YouTube, February 4, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Xo6HBKTyIzQ.

9. “Twitalyzer Profile.” Twitalyzer. http://twitalyzer.com/profile.asp?u=jocosheriff&elapse d=6&tc=4&em=&rl=97.

10. “Klout Score.” Klout.com.

11. Swallow, Erica. “Marketers Optimistic about Finding Social Media ROI.” Mashable, February 8, 2011. http://mashable.com/2011/02/08/social-media-roi-2/?utm_ source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+Mashable+(Masha ble).

12. “25 Insightful Social Media Quotes.” Ghostwriter Dad, March 22, 2011.

http://ghostwriterdad.com/25-insightful-social-media-quotes/.

102 ◾ Disasters 2.0

114 ◾ Disasters 2.0

Who’s the Sheriff in These Parts? ◾ 60