Towards A Model For Social Media Usage in Disaster Management

TOWARDS A MODEL FOR SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT
BACHELOR THESIS INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
SEPTEMBER 2010
WRITER:
M.J.J.F. (MARTIJN) THOMAS, TILBURG UNIVERSITY STUDENT NO.: 158694 E-MAIL: PHONE:
M.J.J.F.THOMAS@UVT.NL OR MARTIJN@MTHOMAS.NL
+31(0)6 50 60 2340
SUPERVISOR
DR. B.A. (BARTEL) VAN DE WALLE, TILBURG UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR E-MAIL:
BARTEL@UVT.NL
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2010 - M.J.J.F. (MARTIJN) THOMAS
A BSTRACT
This thesis proposes a model for the use of social media in disaster management. The proposed model results from a combination of (1) the theory of public engagement (Rowe, 2005), (2) the social media classication framework (Lang & Benbunan-Fich 2010) and (3) the disaster management cycle (Dynes 1970; Alexander 2002 & Cutter 2003). By combining these three elements, a model is developed to provide insight in the potential use of social media. The proposed model can be used to analyze the potential use of a social network site when a disaster is happened and is used to determine the requirements for the potential use of a social network site in each phase of the disaster management cycle. Three of the most popular social network sites - Facebook, Twitter and Flickr - will be analyzed using the proposed model. All of the phases of the disaster management cycle will be evaluated using the model. This results in a set of matrices representing the potential use or role of social media in disaster management.
Keywords: Social Media, Disaster Management, Humanitarian Information Management
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T ABLE OF C ONTENTS
1. Introduction 2. Humanitarian Information Management 2.1. 2.2. ReliefWeb GDACS & Virtual OSOCC
2.2.1. 2.2.2. GDACS Virtual OSOCC
5 7 7 8
8 8
2.3.
OneResponse
8 10 10 10 11 11 12 14 14 15 15 16 17 17
3. Social Media 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. Denition Community & Trust Functionality Public Engagement Social Media Classication Framework
4. Emergency Response & Community Behavior 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. Emergency Response Cycle Socio-Temporal Stages of Disaster Virtual Communities Combined Disaster Management Cycle
5. A Model for Social Media Usage in Disaster Management 5.1. Model

5.1.1. 5.1.2. The center The Outer Cycle
18 18
5.2.
Integration
5.2.1. 5.2.2. Integration within the Center Integration between the Center and the outer Cycle
18
18 18
5.3. 5.4.
Importance of the Proposed Integration Model usage

5.4.1. Theoretical approach
19 19
19
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5.4.2.
Outside in
21
6. Applying the model 6.1. Application of the Model to Social Network Sites
6.1.1. 6.1.2. 6.1.3. Facebook Twitter Flickr
22 22
22 23 25
6.2.
Application of the Model to the Disaster Management Cycle

6.2.1. 6.2.2. 6.2.3. 6.2.4. 6.2.5. 6.2.6. Warning Impact Rescue, relief and recovery Reconstruction Mitigation Preparedness
26
26 26 27 28 29 29
6.3.
Overall result of the analysis
30 32 33
7. Conclusion 8. Bibliography
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1. I NTRODUCTION
Since their introduction a few years ago, social media like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and Hyves are used by millions of people. Some of these people have even integrated these websites into their daily lives. The impact of social networking sites or social media in our society is considered as huge. For example, nowadays there are more than 500 million people using Facebook in an active way and 50% of them visit Facebook every day (Facebook, statistics). Users of Twitter produce all together a staggering 50 million tweets daily (Twitter, Measuring Tweets). In 1929 the Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy came up with the six degrees of separation, which referred to the idea that everyone is at the most six steps away from any other person in the world (some argue that after conducted research it should be the seven degrees of freedom) (Wikipedia, Six degrees of Separation). Imagine what impact social media have on the realization of that principle. In no time people can be connected to nearly everyone around the world. During the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan (China), the rst information was reported through Twitter. All kind of people might use Twitter, but news reporters and relief workers on the scene used it as well. During the Haiti earthquake in 2009 the best way to gather information on this event was by searching for hashtags 1 like #haiti, #haitiearthquake or #earthquake on Twitter. After 12-14 hours CNN had a group of reporters on the ground. At that point in time CNN started to create so called lists of the CNN reporters which made it possible to follow them on one page. Besides written information, also pictures and small movies of this devastating disaster were published on Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and the Twitter related services like TwitPic. Another example of the power that social media has, is their role in the aftermath of the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg (VA), where an individual killed 32 people at the universitys campus. Not very long after the shooting a student set up a Facebook group page where he and his fellow students could discuss about the things that happened. Using this group page they were able to create an exact list of casualties, many hours before the ofcial list of casualties was released. On March 28, 2009 President Obama made a remark on social media during his weekly address to the Nation: Young people have turned social networks into community networks, coordination with one another online to gure out how best to help (President Obama, 2009). This remark made once again clear that social network sites are a very powerful tool in supporting people to accomplish goals like getting elected or retrieving relief information. All of these examples emphasize that involving social media in the eld of humanitarian information management could be of great help. More information is gathered or distributed on an efcient and effective way. There are several models and theories that can help in analyzing the use of social media during a humanitarian crisis. The goal of this thesis is to propose a model that will not be used to analyze the
Hashtags are a simple way to label messages with a keyword. The keyword is indicated by the a #, to make sure that people can nd the message in a easy way.
1
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use of social media afterwards, but to bring insight in the potential use of social media during the different phases of disaster management for interaction between relief agents (or governments) and the affected people. Therefore a possible inter-agency interaction through the social network sites will not be discussed. Chapter 2 will introduce the eld of humanitarian information management. In Chapter 3 the basic principles of social media, the theory of public engagement and the social media classication framework are elaborated. Chapter 4 is devoted to emergency response, community behavior and the role of trust in disaster management. The knowledge gained during the previous chapters is used in Chapter 5 to propose a model for the use of social media in disaster management. In Chapter 6 the proposed model will be applied to three social network sites (Facebook, Twitter and Flickr) and to the phases of the disaster management cycle. In section 6.3 both the analysis of the disaster management phases and social network sites are combined to present the use of social media in disaster management.
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2. H UMANITARIAN I NFORMATION M ANAGEMENT

Humanitarian information management is part of the eld of Information Management. Information management covers the various stages of information processing from production to storage and retrieval, to dissemination towards the better working of an organization; information can be from internal and external sources and in any format (Van de Walle, Van den Eede & Muhren, 2009). Several partners or actors are active in the area of humanitarian information management. The most important actor is OCHA (Ofce for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). OCHA is an organization within the United Nations (UN) which has the mandate to work with UN organizations and UN related operational relief agents. OCHA also ensure that UN efforts and help can reach its destination as quickly and efciently as possible (ReliefWeb.int, Reliefweb: Mandate and Objectives). Working with various partners and exchanging information with them through information systems, trusting each other is the corner stone during a humanitarian crisis. The emergency response community is a community built on trust as Tom de Groeve (2009) stated.
2.1. R ELIEF W EB
In response to the information needs of their own and those of operational relief agents, OCHA created several humanitarian information systems. The best known and most widely used information system is ReliefWeb, which is acknowledged as the premier online source of information on natural disasters and complex emergencies (Reliefweb.int, ReliefWeb: Mandate and objectives). ReliefWeb needs to strengthen the response capacity of the humanitarian relief community through the timely d i s s e m i n at i o n o f re l i a bl e i n fo r m at i o n o n re s p o n s e, p re p a re d n e s s a n d d i s a s t e r prevention (ReliefWeb.int, Reliefweb: Mandate and Objectives). Besides ReliefWeb, OCHA created several other information systems in cooperation with humanitarian partner institutions. Examples of these systems are (Van de Walle, Van den Eede & Muhren 2009): Regional Information Networks (IRIN) Information Management Units (IMU) Humanitarian Information Centers (HIC) Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDAC) Virtual On-Site Operations and Coordination Center (Virtual OSOCC) OneResponse The last three of these systems will be described in the next sections to mention their importance for information dissemination and their potential linkage with social network sites.
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2.2. GDACS & V IRTUAL OSOCC

2.2.1. GDACS
GDACS (Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System) is established in 2004 by Tom de Groeve. It is a multi-hazard disaster monitor and alert system for earthquakes, tsunamis, oods, volcanoes and tropical cyclones. It was created to reduce the various monitor websites for the different disaster types. It started as GDAS, but was later coupled with the coordination information system of OCHA (the OCHA Virtual OSOCC). GDACS collects near real-time hazard information and combines this with demographic and socio-economic data to perform a mathematical analysis of the expected impact. This is based on the magnitude of the event and possible risk for the population (De Groeve et al., 2009). The result of this risk analysis is distributed by the gdacs.org website and alerts are send via email, fax and SMS to subscribers in the disaster relief community, and all other persons that are interested in this information (De Groeve et al., 2009). To link GDACS to social network sites, like Twitter and Facebook, it creates an extra distribution channel to warn people for threats. This can be considered as an important feature in publishing and distributing information of GDACS and relevant information systems managed by OCHA.
2.2.2. Virtual OSOCC

The Virtual OSOCC (On-Site Operations and Coordination Center) provides an online platform for national and international relief agents to exchange information and to coordinate their effort. It is basically a discussion board where all the actors share data regarding a certain disaster. Among the many features. Users are informed which SAR (Search and Rescue) teams are deployed and updated about the efforts and successes of these SAR teams. Maps of the affected area, summaries of what the media has distributed about the crisis etc. are available on the Virtual OSSOC. The ability to mobilize the United Nations Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC) and the sending of messages (email, text message or fax) to subscribers to inform them about critical situations and their updates during response operations is available for authorized users within the Virtual OSOCC (De Groeve et al., 2009). On-site during a disaster there is a physical version of the OSOCC, a real-life team of relief workers of OCHA. The Virtual OSOCC (website) can be seen as an addition or support tool for the physical OSOCC. Where GDACS functions only as an early-warning system, the Virtual OSOCC functions as a coordination platform. Together they create a fairly useful platform in supporting disaster management (OCHA, On-Site Operations Coordination Center (OSOCC)).
2.3. O NE R ESPONSE
OneResponse is a collaborative inter-agency website designed to enhance humanitarian coordination ... and support the predictable exchange of information in emergencies at the country level (OneResponse, About Us). OneResponse is designed for relief workers at country level, it supplies them (among others) with a 24/7 information ow on a special created sub-site of the disaster involved. The success of
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OneResponse will evolve out of the one-stop-shop for information. General information, key documents, situation reports, maps and 3W (Who, What, Where) data about the situation can be accessed. Small excerpts of the data published on OneResponse could also be published through social network sites. This one-stop-shop for information about the disaster management operations is very helpful in response to the disaster. OneResponse may become a valid alternative or substitute for the Virtual OSOCC, since OneResponse incorporates nearly all the functions of the Virtual OSOCC and adds a couple of useful new features.
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3. S OCIAL M EDIA
There are dozens of social network sites, yet for this thesis, the focus will be on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, as they are the most popular of their kind in western society (based on the Alexa ranking Wikipedia.org, Alexa). First an introduction to social media and related topics like community and trust is provided.
3.1. D EFINITION
Social network sites are web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semipublic prole within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. (Boyd & Ellison, 2007) The power of social network sites is two-folded. First of all it facilitates its members to keep in contact with the people that are already in your social network. Secondly, there is the possibility to meet people that the members of social network sites have never met before in life (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). They can select or choose the people based upon interests and keep in touch with them through the social network site. Interestingly, most users only use social network sites to keep in contact with their existing ofine network. A small portion of the users, use it to get in touch with users with common interests (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). This last part is important for crisis management as people have the ability to follow each other based on their role in the disaster management or debate, discuss or share information on the various group pages.
3.2. C OMMUNIT Y & T RUST

Trust is present and needed in nearly all human interactions. It is needed in nearly all our daily activities: buying your lunch is based on the trusted feeling that it will be of the same quality as yesterday. Important information is shared among those you trust (or should trust) (Rheingold, 1993). Trust is the corner stone for relationships. Trustworthiness, the capacity to commit oneself to fullling the legitimate expectations of others, is both the constitutive virtue of, and the key causal precondition for the existence of any society (Dunn 1984). The complexity of communities depends on the relationships inside the institutional community (Levine & White 1961). On social network sites people create virtual relationships with each other. These aspects of trust are the same for normal communities as for virtual communities. Virtual communities are as real as communities that meet physically or whose members exist in near or convenient proximity ... all virtual interactions are human bound (Abdul-Rahman & Hailes 2000).
An important remark is made by Howard Rheingold (1993): People who use computers to communicate, form friendships that sometimes form the basis of communities, but you have to be careful to not mistake the tool for the task and think that just writing words on a screen is the same
thing as real community. A virtual community cannot be seen as a real community if it only consists of plain information exchange. A strong form of trust should be present to make it a real community. Since emergency response is built on a community of trust, a proper understanding of trust within communities is necessary (De Groeve et al. 2009).
3.3. F UNCTIONALIT Y
The backbone of social network sites is a visible prole page with a list of friends. This prole page is created by the user when he joins the social network site and is adapted along the way and contains personal information and interests of the prole owner. Friends are other users of the social network site and represent the digital relationship between the users. These friends are chosen by the prole owner, based e.g. on his or her current ofine network, interests and other commonalities. Each social network site has specic goals and techniques to support these goals (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Nearly all of the knowledge that is found on social network sites is generated by its users, or brought to the social network by its users. The social network site provides an infrastructure for its users to get in touch and share content with each other. The content users share is varying from a small status update and blog posts to linking professionally generated content such as newswires. A social network site is kept alive by its users, without users the social network site will eventually die (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).
3.4. P UBLIC E NGAGEMENT

There are two reasons public engagement takes an important role in this thesis. First Lang and Benbunan-Fich (2010) use the theory of public engagement as the foundation for their social media classication framework (section 3.5). Secondly, public engagement explains the types of communication between the public (people like you and me) and sponsors (institutions, government and/or organizations) which will form one of the cornerstones of the model we will propose (section 5.1). Rowe and Frewer (2005) differentiate the direction and nature of information ows between the public and sponsors. Participants also known as the public or relevant population are the affected people in the disaster. The sponsor is a policy setting or policy execution organization like the UN, (local) governments or relief agents. The organizer of the engagement has not necessarily to be the sponsor. The organizer will be the party that conducts the engagement exercise at rst. Both these assumptions are true for disaster management. The relief agents are policy setting organizations and the engagements can be started by the relief agent as well as the public. 1. Public Communication - Efcient transfer of relevant information from the sponsor to the maximum relevant population and the efcient processing of the information by the receivers (public/ participant). In short: a one-way relevant, effective and efcient information ow from planners (sponsors) to participants (population).
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2. Public Consultation - This is the opposite of public communication. An efcient transfer of information from the maximum number of the relevant populations to the sponsor and the efcient processing of that information by the receiver (sponsor). In short: a one-way relevant, effective and efcient information ow from the participants to the planners.
Sources
Public
Public Communication
Public Consultation Public Participation

Figure 1: Public Engagement (Rowe, 2005)
3. Public Participation - Maximizing the transfer of information between the maximum number of all relevant sources and transferring it effectively (with minimal information loss) to the maximum of other relevant partners, followed by an efcient processing of that information by the receivers (both sponsors and participants) and combining it into an accurate composite. In short: a two-way relevant, effective and efcient information exchange between participants and planners.
3.5. S OCIAL M EDIA C L ASSIFICATION F RAMEWORK

Guido Lang and Raquel Benbunan-Fich from the University of New York introduced a framework for the classication of the use of social media in a specic disaster (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010). Their framework is built on the theory of public choice in constitutional economies (Buchanan & Tullock, 1962), the conceptualizing of ICT support by its potential impact on costs in every decisionmaking process (Kumar & Vragov, 2009) and the theory of public engagement (Rowe & Frewer, 2005). For the framework Lang and Benbunan-Fich focused only on the third archetype of public engagement i.e. public participation. This is based on empirical ndings (Ganapati & Ganapati, 2009) regarding public engagement in disaster management. These outcomes highlight that an continuous and open two-way information exchange has a positive effect on public engagement in disaster management. Based upon case studies and the article of Rowe (2005) Lang & Benbunan-Fich (2010) created the following four modules for the framework. 1. Selection - Is social media used to get control over the number of relevant participants or users e.g. based on prole information or group memberships?
Sponsor
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2. Facilitation - Is social media used to ensure input from all participants or users e.g. with the help of human moderators or mandatory input elds? 3. Deliberation - Is social media used to link, reference to or add text, audio, video or image input without a predetermined set or form of specic response choices? Is it possible for the user to add content via the social media? 4. Aggregation - Is social media used to produce a unied output based on predetermined rules? The combination of these four modules describes the structure of social media use (Figure 2).
Selection Social Media Deliberation
Facilitation
Aggregation
Figure 2: Social Media Classication Framework
An important remark is that Lang & Benbunan-Fich (2010) used the framework to classify the use of Social Media in a specic disaster. In Chapter 5 a combination of Lang & Benbunan-Fich (2010) and Rowe (2005) will be used to propose a model for the use of social media in disaster management.
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4. E MERGENCY R ESPONSE & C OMMUNIT Y B EHAVIOR

Disaster management moves through a series of steps, sometimes it starts with the event itself, other times it starts with preparations that were taken to limit the effect of a potential disaster and will never go any further in the cycle. Several cycles describing emergency response phases are available. In this thesis a variation on the emergency response cycle by Alexander (2002) and adapted by Cutter (2003) combined with Dynes (1970) will be used. First both cycles will be briey discussed, after that a combination of these two cycles will lead to the proposed cycle.
4.1. E MERGENCY R ESPONSE C YCLE

The emergency response cycle in gure 3 (Alexander 2002 and adapted by Cutter 2003) describes the phases in the response of humans and societies during emergencies. It is better to refer to this cycle as the disaster or emergency management cycle since preparedness is not a emergency response phase; it is on the timeline before the event takes place. Since Cutter and Alexander refer to the disaster management cycle as the emergency response cycle, I will refer to it in this section in that way. The phases in the cycle speak for themselves, some important distinctions will be highlighted briey.
EVENT
Pr ep ar ed ne ss
Re s cu
MITIGATION
RESPONSE
Relief
Re co
ns t ru c
tio n
ery cov Re
Figure 3: Emergency Response Cycle
After the event, the rescue starts. The actual rescue can have a duration ranging from a few hours to several days (e.g. the rescue of people buried under debris). This is the rst response to the event, followed by the relief phase. In the relief phase rst aid, shelters, relief workers etc. will be made available and deployed. Next is the recovery phase, during this phase e.g. bodies will be recovered from the debris. After this phase the reconstruction of the area can start. Based on what has been learned during the disaster (mitigation) precautions for the future will be taken and people will be informed what to do in case this or another similar event takes place (preparedness). In all of these phases, information technology and social media can be used in different ways to provide or receive information with different levels of quality from different parties.
4.2. S OCIO -T EMPORAL S TAGES
OF
D ISASTER
In 1970 Dynes described eight socio-temporal stages of disaster (found via Shklovski 2008), describing the shift from an individuals self-assessment to a broader concern of the impact of the event and its effect on the community. Table 1: Socio-Temporal Stages of Disaster and the Emergency Response Cycle Socio-Temporal Stages of Disaster 0 Pre-disaster 1 Warning 2 Threat State of social system preceding point of impact Precautionary activity includes consultation with members of own social network Perception of change of conditions that prompts survival action Stage of holding on where recognition shifts from individual to community affect and involvement Individual takes stock, and begins to move into a collective inventory of what happened Spontaneous, local, unorganized extrication and rst aid; some preventive measures Rescue Event Emergency Response Cycle Phases Preparedness
3 Impact
4 Inventory 5 Rescue
6 Remedy
Organized and professional relief arrive; medical care, preventive and security measures are Relief present Individual rehabilitation and readjustment; Recovery Reconstruction
7 Recovery
Community restoration of property; Organizational preventive measures against recurrence; community evaluation (mitigation)
Table 1 shows the connection and role of community behavior in disaster management. People move from individual towards community thinking by informing, involving and cooperating together to get a better grip on the situation. This is the point where social media steps in. Social network sites can support the behavior of the community and the communication towards relief agents.
4.3. V IRTUAL C OMMUNITIES

The important role of community behavior is key to the role of social media in disaster relief. Interactions in communities - both virtual and physical - are human bound and interactions between humans are based on trust (Abdul-Rahman & Hailes 2000). So virtual communities are based on the same foundations as physical communities. And as is shown in table 1, communities have an important role in disaster management.
4.4. C OMBINED D ISASTER M ANAGEMENT C YCLE

The two cycles described in sections 4.1 and 4.2 will be combined to distinguish the clear and relevant portions of emergency response and the way social media can play a role in it. This results in the cycle shown in gure 4.
g rnin Wa
IMPACT
Re s cu
Preparedness
Relief
ry ve co Re
Mi
tig ati on
Reconstruction
Figure 4: Proposed Disaster Management Cycle
Due to their important positions surrounding the preparedness phase, warning and mitigation are added as a phase to the proposed cycle in gure 4. Preparing for a disaster might prevent a disaster from happening, limit the discomfort during a disaster or limit the impact of the disaster. Mitigation is drawing conclusions and if necessary taking preparations based on these conclusions from the experience during a prior disaster. The warning phase is closely linked to the preparedness and impact phase. Warning for a disaster (even seconds before impact) can help to reduce the impact by activating the preparations that were taken during the preparedness phase.
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5. A M ODEL
FOR
S OCIAL M EDIA U SAGE
IN
D ISASTER M ANAGEMENT
The goal of this thesis is to propose a model for the use of social media in disaster management. The proposed model is based on the disaster management cycle as proposed in section 4.4, the social media classication framework (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010) as described in section 3.5 and the three archetypes of public engagement (Rowe & Frewer, 2005) as discussed in section 3.4.
5.1. M ODEL
During each disaster, the public (affected population) and sponsor (relief agent) share information retrieved from internal and external sources. The way information is exchanged depends on the phase of the emergency management cycle.
IMPACT
n ar W
in g
Re sc ue
Sources
Preparedness
Relief Agent
Re co ve ry
Social Media
Relief
Public
Public Communication
Public Consultation Public Participation Selection Facilitation Aggregation Deliberation
iti ga tio
Reconstruction
Figure 5: Model for Social Media Usage in Disaster Management
As discussed in section 3.4, information exchange can occur on three levels of public engagement: public communication, public consultation and public participation (Rowe & Frewer 2005). This exchange is facilitated by a social network site through its modules: selection, facilitation, deliberation and
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aggregation (Lang & Benbunan-Fich 2010). The possible use of social media in disaster management is determined with the help of the proposed model (gure 5). The proposed model provides an indication of the potential use of social media. This does not imply that current ways of communication is wrong and should be replaced by social network sites.
5.1.1. The center

The center of the model is composed of the theory of public engagement (Rowe & Frewer, 2005) and the classication framework for social media (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010), and focuses on the abilities of social network sites to support public engagement. Each level of public engagement resembles a level of communication (public communication, public consultation and public participation) between the relief agent (sponsor) and the affected people (population). These levels of engagements can be supported by social media, the way this is supported is elaborated by the four modules - selection, deliberation, facilitation and aggregation - of the classications framework (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010).
5.1.2. The Outer Cycle

The outer cycle of the model is the disaster management cycle. Each phase represents a different step in disaster management and is used to outline the use of the model in each of the phases. Each phase represents different information requirements but also has specic requirements for the way public engagement is supported. How the outer cycle and the center of the model are integrated will be elaborated in section 5.2 and the use of the model in section 5.3
5.2. I NTEGRATION
5.2.1. Integration within the Center
The social media classication framework of Lang & Benbunan-Fich (2010) is used in their paper merely to analyze the role of social media after a disaster took place. They explain - based on their framework - why and how certain outcomes were generated with the help of social network sites, and how these social network sites facilitate these effects (Lang & Benbunan-Fich 2010). With the explicit integration of all three levels of public engagement - where Lang & Benbunan-Fich (2010) only focused on public participation - the center of the model can help dene what role a specic social network site can have in disaster management. Since information ows during a disaster will not always be bi-directional, public consultation and public communication are incorporated in the model. Receiving information from or distributing information to the public (or other relief agents) without feedback is common practice in disaster management. That is why addressing these information ows is important.
5.2.2. Integration between the Center and the outer Cycle

Each phase of disaster management has different information and communication requirements. These requirements can be met by means of public engagement. The way public engagement is supported by social media is elaborated by the social media classication framework (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010).
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Since the tasks of relief agents differ, their information and communication requirements differ as well. This results in the fact that not only the phase of disaster management denes what kind of requirements need to be set, but also the tasks of the relief agent has inuence on this. A rescue worker (Search and Rescue) has completely different interests in information and communication than a doctor. For each phase of the disaster management cycle - and if needed specied for the particular task of the relief agent - a set of information and communication requirements can be dened for the use of social media in disaster management.
5.3. I MPORTANCE
OF THE
P ROPOSED I NTEGRATION
Integrating the disaster management cycle with public engagement and the social media modules adds a time component to the model as each phase represent a different aspect of disaster management. By enriching the center of the model with the disaster management cycle a time component is added. This enables the model to analyze the potential use of a social network site and to determine its ability for the use of a social network sites in the different phases of disaster management.
5.4. M ODEL
USAGE
The model can be approached both theoretically as well as practically. Both approaches are discussed and presented with a number of basic steps to use the model. The theoretical approach will be demonstrated in Chapter 6.
5.4.1. Theoretical approach

In this approach the potential usability for social network sites in the different phases of the disaster management cycle are dened using the next steps. 1) Conduct a theoretical analysis for the potential use of a specic social network site in disaster management. a) Determine which types of public engagement - public communication, public consultation and public participation - are supported by the social network site; b) Determine how these types of public engagement are supported by the social network site based on the social media classication frameworks modules; selection, facilitation, deliberation and aggregation;
Table 2: [Social Network Site] Social Media Usage Selection Public Communication Public Consultation Public Participation f/p/n f/p/n f/p/n Facilitation f/p/n f/p/n f/p/n Deliberation f/p/n f/p/n f/p/n Aggregation f/p/n f/p/n f/p/n
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c) Combine the results of this analysis in a table - like table 2 - to represent the social media use (SMU) of the social network site. For each of the archetypes of public engagement is determined how they are supported by the social network site based on the modules of the classication framework. Fully supported is indicated with a f , partially supported with a p and not supported with a n. 2) Conduct a theoretical analysis to specify the communication requirements for each phase of the disaster management cycle. Steps a, b and c need to be conducted for each phase of the disaster management cycle. a) Determine which types of public engagement - public communication, public consultation and public participation - need to be supported in the specied phase of the disaster management cycle; to outline the direction of the engagement; b) Determine how these types of public engagement need to be supported by a social network site based on the four modules - selection, facilitation, deliberation and aggregation - of the social media classication framework, outlining how the engagement is supported; c) Combine the results of steps a and b in a table - like table 3 - to represent the social media communication requirements for the analyzed disaster management phase (where the r indicates that this is required, the u indicates that it useful, and the n indicates that is not required);
Table 3: Social Media Requirements [Disaster Management Phase] Selection Public Communication Public Consultation Public Participation r/u/n r/u/n r/u/n Facilitation r/u/n r/u/n r/u/n Deliberation r/u/n r/u/n r/u/n Aggregation r/u/n r/u/n r/u/n
3) Combine the tables constructed in steps 1 and 2, creating a social media usage matrix. On the horizontal axes the matrices represent the potentials of the social network sites are placed (results from step 1); On the vertical axes the communication requirements for social network sites for each of the phases of disaster management are placed (results of step 2); Determine for each of the cells if the social network site involved supports communication and engagement type needed in the phase of the disaster management cycle. The matrix resulting out of steps 1, 2 and 3 will show which social network site can be used in each phase of the disaster management cycle.
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5.4.2. Outside in
The steps proposed here are an indication of the steps a relief agent takes to determine which social network site to use in conducting his/her tasks in the disaster management cycle. 1) Determine the specic communication and information requirements for the tasks that need to be conducted in the phases of disaster management the relief agent is active in. a) First, by determining the public engagement types that are needed to support these communication and information requirements; b) Second, by determining how these public engagement types are supported by social media (by applying the social media classication framework (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010); c) Combine the results of a and b in a table like table 3. 2) Combine the results of step 1 with the theoretical analysis of the potential use of social media in disaster management (section 5.4.1 step 1) to construct a matrix with the social network sites on the horizontal axes and the disaster management cycle phases on the vertical axes. 3) Determine for each of the cells if the social network site supports communication in the phase of the disaster management cycle. The resulting matrix can be used to determine which of the social network sites to use in order to support the tasks of the relief agent.
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6. A PPLYING THE MODEL

As indicated before, three of the most popular social network sites: Facebook, Twitter and Flickr (Wikipedia, Alexa) will be further evaluated based on the model proposed in chapter 5. In section 6.1 the rst step of section 5.4.1 will be applied. Section 6.2 is focusing on the application of step 2 of the proposed steps in section 5.4.1. In section 6.3 the overall matrix as described in step 3 (section 5.4.1) will be presented.
6.1. A PPLICATION
OF THE
M ODEL
TO
S OCIAL N ET WORK S ITES
6.1.1. Facebook
Facebook is worldwide the most popular social network site. It has the highest rate of active monthly users (Kazenaic, 2009). Facebook is a social network site where users are able to create proles regarding their personal and professional life. They share thoughts, interests and contact information through this prole. Users can mark each other as Friends, this could be based on a real life friendships or common interests. Users can create group pages regarding certain subjects and other users can join these group pages by Liking2 them. Communication on Facebook is facilitated through several features. Each prole or group page has a so called Wall, where status updates (e.g. whereabouts and actions) from the user or group appears. Users update their status or comment on status updates of Friends. On group pages it is possible to start a forum discussion with members of the group page. Using the chat functionality one is able to chat with your Friends. Sending users direct messages through Facebook is another feature. Based on the privacy settings of a user, status updates on his private wall can be restricted for Friends only. Apart from the basic features that Facebook provides, there is a possibility to create your own applications. These application are incorporated on a group page or personal prole, and provide additional features. This could be a game or interface to another (social network) site. Facebook has also created a light version of the website and applications for mobile devices. These features offers the functionality to use Facebook on a fast and efcient way. Applying the model Step a: Determine the supported type(s) of information exchange (public engagement) by Facebook Facebook supports all three types of public engagement. Public communication is supported by posting status updates or messages on the wall [public communication f]. Public consultation is supported by the possibility to post a message on the wall of the public prole or on the discussion board [public consultation f]. Public participation is supported by the ability to respond to posted messages on the wall and starting and engaging in discussions in the discussion board [public participation f]. Step b: Determine how the public engagement types are supported by Facebook; Selection of users participation in discussions and post or respond to messages on the wall can both be
2
The way Facebook Users express their connection with the group page
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done with the help of Facebooks settings. For example, only members can participate or read and only users can become member after their request is approved by the moderator of the group page. So the number of users are controlled using Facebook [selection f].
Table 4: Facebook SMU S P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. f f f F f f f D f f f A f f f
The input of users on group pages is ensured with the help of a human moderator, or by using polls. The owner of the group and moderators are able to moderate and control the content on the group page [facilitation f]. The deliberation module is highly supported by Facebook, since it is very simple to share content outside Facebook with members of the group page. A lot of websites have features enabled to share content from their websites directly into a Facebook page. In Facebook itself it
is also very easy to add pictures, movies or links to content [deliberation f]. Aggregation is supported by Facebook. There is no internal mechanism to generate a unied output. It is possible to consult users to reach a nal verdict on how to present the nal output (this was done during the creation of the victims list of the Virginia Tech Shooting) [aggregation f].
6.1.2. Twitter
Twitter is a so called micro blogging service that enables users to send and read short messages to or from each other. These messages are called tweets. Tweets are text-based messages up to 140 characters which are viewed on the authors prole page, on lists created by other users and on a followers timeline. Where timelines are pages with tweets of the people listed or followed by the user. The authors prole page consist of his tweets and a little information about the author such as his name, interests, link to a private external website and location of the user. The user can protect his tweets, so only his followers 3 can view them or make them publicly available. Pictures and URL-Shortening Since tweets are text-based only and restricted to 140 characters, pictures or other les cannot be included directly into the tweet. To overcome this problem, users started using third party services like twitpic.com. As the name already implies this service provides users with the capabilities to share pictures. How? The user sings in with his twitter.com credentials and uploads the picture to twitpic.com, adds a comment to the picture and tweets it. Now a short link to the picture appears in the tweet. Some users also use URL-shorters to include a URL in their message. On september the 14th Twitter announced new features for their service including a build in URL-shorter and the ability to add pictures and videos to tweets. These new features will be rolled out in the upcoming months (Twitter, Better Twitter; 2010). Mentioning A main feature of twittering is the mentioning of other users. If someone mentions another user or friend in his tweet he will place an @ in front of the username (e.g. @MartijnThomas). The user that is mentioned will be notied of this. Users can communicate directly (although publicly) using this feature.
3
Followers are the way twitter refers to Friends

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ReTweets When something important, interesting or just funny occurs it is tweeted by a user. His followers will often ReTweet this, by copying the tweet inserting RT in front of it and adding an additional comment if desired. Hashtags Hashtags are tags that are added to the tweet (e.g. #thesis). These hashtags are mainly used by the website hashtags.org in analyzing the trends of these tags. Often also used by other parties in identifying tweets. E.g. all tweets referring to the ISCRAM community contain #iscram. An important remark is that these hashtags are added by the user (author of the tweet) and not added automatically. Lists This is a relatively new feature of twitter. Users create lists of people they follow. These list can also be followed by other users. CNN did create several lists containing their reporters. If you are interested in the CNN reporters you just subscribe to the CNNReporters list at the CNN twitter prole page. Applying the model Step a: Determine the supported type(s) of information exchange (public engagement) by Twitter Twitter supports public communication by tweeting status updates by its own timeline, and making this timeline public and creating the possibility to follow it by other twitter users [public communication f]. Public consultation is made possible by searching the public timelines of users (for example searching for specic hashtags) or following other users [public consultation f]. Public participation is more difcult, it is possible to reply on a tweet or mentioning another user. However real discussions are not supported since these replies will not appear in a conversation style. A reply or mention will just appear on the public timeline of the one who is replying, or on the @username section on twitter.com. So public participation is only partly supported [public participation p]. Step b: Determine how the public engagement types are supported by Twitter; Selection of users is possible. Depending on the settings of Twitter, following a user is only possible after approval of the user. Users can be added to lists, and these list could be monitored as a separate timeline [selection f]. It is not possible to ensure input via mandatory elds or a human moderator. Only when a relief agent is mentioned or if he is searching for certain words in the users tweet, the tweet will be seen by the relief agent when he is not following the user and a kind of ensuring is achieved. Direct facilitation is very hard, with human interaction it is a powerful tool [facilitation f].
P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. Table 5: Twitter SMU S f f p F f f p D f f p A p p p
Deliberation is partly supported by Twitter itself, but is highly supported by integrated third party applications. Since tweets have a limit of 140 characters, long links to external content cannot be included in a simple way. This is possible when the URL is shortened. Services like twitpic.com make it possible to share pictures through twitter. So by using third party applications this is supported [deliberation f].
Aggregation itself is not supported by Twitter. Apart from that, twitter has a powerful real-time search option: you are informed when new tweets are posted with the keywords you were searching for. Although there is no internal structure or feature to consult other users (e.g. a poll) in dening how the output should be, using structured output from other information systems like GDACS, creates potential for aggregation [aggregation p].
6.1.3. Flickr
Flickr concentrates its services to the sharing and hosting of pictures and videos made by its users. Often these pictures are taken by amateur photographers, also professionals are active. It is questionable if Flickr is a full scale social network site. Its main focus is on photo hosting and sharing services. Users are able to e.g. establish contacts between each other and create group albums and pages. A clear social network component is present. Users upload and organize pictures by placing them in albums, categories or tagging them with keywords. Besides that users become Contacts. Becoming a Contact offers you the possibility to keep informed regarding new pictures added by the user. A recent feature added by Flickr is GeoTagging. During posting a photo users are able to add the location the picture was taken. This offers the possibility to show all picture taken within a certain timeframe and on a certain location or region. Flickr also enables groups of users to gather on community pages called Groups. Users add pictures to these group pages and have discussions in the discussion board. Some of these groups are private, its content is only visible for their members. Others share their pictures with the whole world. Applying the model Step a: Determine the supported type(s) of information exchange (public engagement) by Flickr Flickr supports public communication by sharing pictures taken on your public prole. Other users can subscribe to your prole to get notied if there are updates [public communication f]. Public consultation is made possible based on the subscribe feature (sponsor subscribes to accounts of the public) and by placing reactions on published pictures [public consultation f]. Public participation is supported since there is a small discussion board feature for group pages (based on interests), with the possibility to post a comment to a picture and react to a comment [public participation p]. Step b: Determine how the public engagement types are supported by Flickr; Selection of users is possible by subscribing to certain public proles or creating group interest pages, where memberships need to be approved [selection f]. Everyone who has a Flickr account or is a member of a group page is able to post. Groups can be moderated by a human moderator, and standardized elds are available, but not mandatory [facilitation p]. Deliberation is only supported for images, and text as a comment to the picture. Since Flickr is designed to share pictures this feature is supported [deliberation f]. Aggregation is not fully supported. A picture is a picture, so there is not much aggregation possible based on the pictures. The meta information of the picture can be aggregated.
Table 6: Flickr SMU S P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. f f f F p p p D f f f A p p p
Recently (July 2010) Flickr has started experiments with GeoTagging whereby the location of the picture automatically added to the picture. Aggregation is not fully supported, however there are possibilities to aggregate data on twitter like using the GeoTag functionality [aggregation p].
6.2. A PPLICATION
OF THE
M ODEL
TO THE
D ISASTER M ANAGEMENT C YCLE
In this section the basic use of social media in each phase of the disaster management cycle is discussed. This will not be an exhaustive list, however it will present the reader - based on the proposed model - a basic idea of the role of social media in disaster management.
6.2.1. Warning
The focus during the warning phase will be on communication towards the public (Public communication) however there are possibilities to consult or let the public participate. Public communication The government or relief agent is warning the public for certain upcoming events. To use social media in the warning phase the social network site needs to have the ability to select the recipients based on their location [selection r]. The information communicated to the public does not need to be moderated through the social network site since the information should be checked before it is published [facilitation n]. Not only textual information can be necessary to communicate effectively towards the public, an image of the affected region can provide the public with more specic details [deliberation u]. Since there is only communication from the sponsor towards the public there is no aggregation of information needed, the information is already represented in a unied way by the sponsor (relief agent or government) [aggregation n].
P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. Table 7: SM Requirements Warning S r r r F n u u D u u u A n u u
Public consultation and participation When the public is used to gain information on a certain threat prior to or during a potential disaster (e.g. a coupe dtat), facilitation is needed to keep in control of the information ow and to aggregate the information in a later stage [facilitation u] and [aggregation u]. The arguments for selection and deliberation are identical to public communication.
6.2.2. Impact
Natural disasters have a fairly short impact phase (earthquake or tsunami) in contrast to complex disasters where the impact phase can be quite long, and gradually changing into (or even exists together with) the rescue, relief and recovery phases. Situation updates and information on the epic center etc. can be communicated [public communication r] to the affected people and the world. The public can inform the relief agents on local situations [public consultation r] and [public participation r]. For natural disaster the role of social media is minor. The impact phase is too short to use social media to inform the public effectively. So this will not be further elaborated.
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During the impact of complex disasters the role of social media can be much greater and leaning towards the use of social network sites in the rescue, relief and response phases. Public communication Informing the public through situation updates has a high priority for relief agents. So the right recipients should be selected via the social network site [selection r]. When the information is communicated to the public, no moderation is needed through the social network site (assumed that the information that is communicated is checked by the agency before it is released) [facilitation n]. To provide useful information the information should consist of more than textual messages only, but it is not necessary [deliberation u]. Aggregation of the information is not needed, the information is composed by the relief agent to present the public with information in the most effective way [aggregation n]. Public consultation Selection of the recipients is done by selection of the right relief agent. This can be done with the help of the social network site [selection r]. For effective and efcient use and ltering of the information provided by the public moderation through the social network site is useful. This can both be accomplished by using mandatory elds or through human moderation [facilitation r]. Mainly textual messages will be send by the public to the relief agents, but pictures or small movies are helpful in assessing the situation [deliberation u]. To use the content provided by the public effective and efciently, the content needs to be aggregated. This can better be done with the help of a third-party application [aggregation u]. Public participation The relief agent will respond to messages from the public and select the recipients through the social network site based on their content [selection r]. The arguments for facilitation and deliberation will be identical as for public consultation. The content from the relief agent to the public does not need to be aggregated, since this will be send directly to the user (or to a specic group) [aggregation n].
P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. Table 8: SM Requirements Impact S r r r F n r r D u u u A n u n
6.2.3. Rescue, relief and recovery

The way social media can contribute during the rescue, relief and recovery is nearly identical as it is in the impact phase of a complex disaster. Information is communicated to the public. Relief agents consult the public and both the relief agents and public participate in the relief operation via social network sites. During these phases there is a very thin line between public communication, consultation and participation. People inform relief agents regarding developing situations on the ground, the number of casualties etc. Relief agents can respond to some of the messages individually (e.g. a rescue request from a victim) but can also send general information regarding rescue, relief and recovery. Public communication Receivers of the information are selected through the social network sites based on (prior) memberships to groups [selection r]. Information from the relief agents do not need any moderation,
again based on the assumption that the information communicated from the relief agent to the public is checked (etc) before it is send [facilitation n]. The information should be easily accessible and understandable. Using pictures as well as plain text should improve the communication, however this is not necessary [deliberation u]. The information from the relief agent has not to be aggregated for the users through the social network site, this needs to be done before the information is disseminated to the public [aggregation n]. Public consultation The selection of the receiver of the information is done by the public based on the information they want to provide to the selected relief agent [selection r]. The relief agent should moderate the incoming messages from the public with the help of a human moderator or through mandatory or predetermined elds (where mandatory predetermined elds are not supported on social network sites, but human moderation is) [facilitation r]. More than only plain text should be accepted. Pictures help assessing the situation sometimes better than textual reports, this is however not necessary [deliberation u]. Aggregating the submitted information by the relief agent can be done through the moderators or a third-party system [aggregation u]. Public participation The arguments for public participation are a combination of the arguments for public communication and public consultation as a result of the thin line between the three engagement types.
P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. Table 9: SM Requirements Rescue, Relief & Recovery S r r r F n r r D u u u A n u u
6.2.4. Reconstruction
During the reconstruction relief agents and governments are expected to inform the public on the progress made and the tasks that lay ahead. Probably the relief agents would like to know what needs to be done, in that case the public could be consulted. Public communication The right recipients are selected with the help social media [selection r]. Since the information is provided by the relief agent, the assumption is made that the information is checked before and does not need any moderation [facilitation n]. To make the information accessible it has to be more diverse: from plain text to pictures or movies [deliberation r]. The information does not need to be aggregated for the public, the information will be presented to the public after it is processed by the relief agent or government in charge [aggregation n]. Public consultation The public informs the relief agents about work that needs to be done or provide them with situation updates on reconstruction work done by the community itself. The selection of the recipient is done
P. Com. P. Con. P. Part.
Table 10: SM Requirements Reconstruction
S r r u
F n r u
D r r u
A n r u
with the help of social media [selection r]. Information provided by the public needs to be assessed and aggregated by the relief agent to generate useful input for the reconstruction works [facilitation r] and [aggregation r]. For the efcient aggregation of information, the types of content should be standardized and bound to requirements [deliberation r].
Public participation There will not be real public participation in this phase, as mentioned under public consultation the public could inform the relief agent on reconstruction work. The relief agent can respond directly to these messages however in most cases, it is added to the work list of the relief agent. If used, public participation has the same requirements as public consultation.
6.2.5. Mitigation
During the mitigation phase conclusions are drawn from what is learned during prior disasters. The information needed for these conclusions can be retrieved from the public by consulting them. Drawing the conclusions should be done by experts, not with the help of the public. So the public is only consulted for input. There is no need for public communication, the conclusions does not need to be communicated to the public, they do not need them. The public however is interested in the new preparations to be taken based on the conclusions made. This will be addressed in the preparation phase.
P. Com. P. Con. P. Part.
Table 11: SM Requirements Mitigation
S n r n
F n r n
D n r n
A n r n
Public consultation Selection of users input is done via the social network site. Think of using group pages or polls on a municipalities Facebook prole [selection r]. All kinds of data types should be facilitated from plain text up to videos [deliberation r]. The provided content needs moderation based on standard input elds or human intervention to effectively present the decision makers with a useful set of recommendations [facilitation r] and [aggregation r].
6.2.6. Preparedness
During the preparedness phase the public is informed and actions are taken where needed - based on the conclusions from the mitigation phase - to limit or prevent the impact of the disaster. There is not any form of public consultation or participation needed in these phases, the participating role of the public has shifted in the consultation of them in the mitigation phase. Public communication In this phase the information ow will be mainly from the institutions to the public (public communication). Of course it could be useful to let the public participate. This is however not a required functionality for this phase, as it is performed by experts. Selection of recipients with the help of the social network site is useful, but not necessary. When selection is done through social network sites, it will result in a more effective way of communication, since the right people (if active on the social network site) will be reached directly [selection r]. The information communicated to the public is the result of internal discussions and new policies. It does not need any kind of moderation on the social network site [facilitation n]. All kinds of information and data types could be shared with the end users [deliberation r]. The information does not need to be aggregated since it results from extensive internal research and new policy [aggregation n].
Table 12: SM Requirements Preparedness
S P. Com. P. Con. P. Part. r n n
F n n n
D r n n
A n n n
6.3. O VERALL
RESULT OF THE ANALYSIS
As described in section 4.5.1 step 3, the results of the analysis of the potential use of the social network sites evaluated (step 1) needs to be combined with the results of the requirement analysis for social media use in the disaster management phases (step 3). This results in table 13 on page 33. For each intersection between the phases of the disaster management cycle and the social network sites in combination with the three levels of public engagement (public communication, public consultation and public participation) is determined to what extent they match. Match: The requirements of the disaster management phase do meet the minimal functionalities of the social network site; the requirements demand this as a required functionality; The functionality is required by the disaster management cycle phase but is [n] not supported by the social network site.
Partial Match: The functionalities of the social network site are marked as [p] partial supported and No Match:
When all of the modules of the social media classication framework are marked as not required, the social network site it not useful in that particular instance. This is applicable in four cases of Table 13, these are indicated as Not Relevant. A last note for Flickr, the matches are only relevant when the social network site is used to share pictures, in all the other cases it will shift to a No Match. When applied in practice this should be kept in mind.
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Table 13: Overall result - possible use of social media in disaster management
Facebook Twitter Flickr
Warning
Match Match Match
Match Match Partial Match Match Match Partial Match Match Match Partial Match Match Partial Match Partial Match Not Relevant
Match Match Match Match Partial Match Partial Match Match Partial Match Partial Match Match Partial Match Match
Impact
Match Match Match
Rescue, Relief, Recovery
Match Match Match
Reconstruction
Match Match Match
Mitigation Match
Partial Match Not Relevant
Partial Match
Preparedness
Match
Match Not Relevant Not Relevant
Match
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7. C ONCLUSION
The proposed model in this thesis (Chapter 5) gives more insight in the potential use of social network sites in disaster management. By combining the social media classication framework (Lang & Benbunan-Fich, 2010) the internal functionalities of the various social network sites are incorporated. Combining the types of public engagement (Rowe & Frewer, 2010), the communication levels between the public (affected people) and the sponsors (e.g. relief agents) are elaborated. Both these models are shaped specically towards disaster management by incorporating trust (Dynes, 1970) and the disaster management cycle (Dynes, 1970; Alexander, 2002 & Cutter, 2003). This results in a comprehensive model for social media usage in disaster management. The advantage of the new proposed model in comparison to other models (like the classication framework) is it focuses on more than social media only. By incorporating trust, relationships and the phases of the disaster management cycle a clear link is made to disaster management and the use of social media in all of its phases, acknowledging that information requirements differ per phase. The proposed model can be evaluated in two ways. First there is a theoretical approach, focusing on the functionalities of a social network site and the requirements on social media usage in the various phases of disaster management. Secondly the practical approach, whereby the model is used to determine its practical use of social media in disaster management (this is not elaborated in this thesis). Although the proposed model is quite in detail, a thorough understanding of the various social media and disaster management is needed, to apply the model in full and to draw up the right conclusions. A point of attention in the proposed model is that the different types of content are not distinguished in detail. Pictures, movies, polls and plain text are all treated in a similar way. For example: Flickr is developed for picture sharing, and not for plain text; emergency requests will not be found on Flickr. The purpose of the social network site must always be kept in mind during the selection of its potential use in step 3 (section 5.4.1). A second disadvantage is the lack of an implementation plan to implement social media in the disaster management processes and procedures. Case study research has to be executed in order to achieve insight in the requirements regarding the implementation plans on social media usage in disaster management. The overall result of the analysis shows a perfect match for Facebook. This is due to the fact that Facebook has a broad support for communication between public and relief agents and supports a wide variety of content types (e.g. plain text, polls, pictures and movies). The proposed model is a initial step forward in social media usage in disaster management. It is advisable to test the model by experts in the eld of humanitarian information- and disaster management. Case study research on the model, applied to disaster management cases is also advisable. This will result in additional ne tuning of the proposed model.
8. B IBLIOGRAPHY
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Towards A Model For Social Media Usage in Disaster Management

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TOWARDS A MODEL FOR SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT

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