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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Social media in emergency management
T2 - exploring twitter use by emergency responders in the UK
AU - Parsons, Sophie
AU - Weal, Mark
AU - O'Grady, Nathaniel
AU - Atkinson, Peter Michael
PY - 2018/12/31
Y1 - 2018/12/31
N2 - Emergency Management practices are being reshaped by social media. Emergency responders are embracing social media to enhance communications during an emergency. The integration of social media into UK emergency management is ambigious, and it is uncertain as to whether it is an effective tool. Using a mixed methods approach, this research investigates the UK emergency responders use of social media for emergency management, focusing in particular on the UK winter floods of 2013/14. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the UK emergency responders social media activity is examined. This research shows that the responders perceive social media as a useful tool to effectively deliver information to the public, although they do not appear to fully exploit it in an emergency. While the responders appear to predominantly post caution and advice, the results suggest that information about structures and utilities affected by an incident is most likely to engage an audience.
AB - Emergency Management practices are being reshaped by social media. Emergency responders are embracing social media to enhance communications during an emergency. The integration of social media into UK emergency management is ambigious, and it is uncertain as to whether it is an effective tool. Using a mixed methods approach, this research investigates the UK emergency responders use of social media for emergency management, focusing in particular on the UK winter floods of 2013/14. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the UK emergency responders social media activity is examined. This research shows that the responders perceive social media as a useful tool to effectively deliver information to the public, although they do not appear to fully exploit it in an emergency. While the responders appear to predominantly post caution and advice, the results suggest that information about structures and utilities affected by an incident is most likely to engage an audience.
KW - UK floods
KW - emergency management
KW - social media
KW - audience engagement
KW - mixed methods
KW - Twitter
KW - emergency responders
KW - emergency communications
KW - local resilience forums
KW - thematic analysis
U2 - 10.1504/IJEM.2018.097360
DO - 10.1504/IJEM.2018.097360
M3 - Journal article
VL - 14
SP - 322
EP - 343
JO - International Journal of Emergency Management
JF - International Journal of Emergency Management
SN - 1471-4825
IS - 4
ER -