Amanda Lee Hughes

Twitter adoption and use in mass convergence and emergency events

This paper offers a descriptive account of Twitter (a microblogging service) across four high-profile, mass convergence events - two emergency and two national security. We statistically examine how Twitter is being used surrounding these events, and compare and contrast how that behaviour is different from more general Twitter use. Our findings suggest that Twitter messages sent during these types of events contain more displays of information broadcasting and brokerage, and we observe that general Twitter use seems to have evolved over time to offer more of an information-sharing purpose. We also provide preliminary evidence that Twitter users who join during and in apparent relation to a mass convergence or emergency event are more likely to become long-term adopters of the technology.

Chatter on the red: what hazards threat reveals about the social life of microblogged information

This paper considers a subset of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) that took place during the flooding of the Red River Valley in the US and Canada in March and April 2009. Focusing on the use of Twitter, a microblogging service, we identified mechanisms of information production, distribution, and organization. The Red River event resulted in a rapid generation of Twitter communications by numerous sources using a variety of communications forms, including autobiographical and mainstream media reporting, among other types. We examine the social life of microblogged information, identifying generative, synthetic, derivative and innovative properties that sustain the broader system of interaction. The landscape of Twitter is such that the production of new information is supported through derivative activities of directing, relaying, synthesizing, and redistributing, and is additionally complemented by socio-technical innovation. These activities comprise self-organization of information.

Crisis in a Networked World

Crises and disasters have micro and macro social arrangements that differ from routine situations, as the field of disaster studies has described over its 100-year history. With increasingly pervasive information and communications technology and a changing political arena where terrorism is perceived as a major threat, the attention to crisis is high. Some of these new features of social life have created changes in disaster response that we are only beginning to understand. The University of Colorado is establishing an area of sociologically informed research and information and communications technology development in crisis informatics. This article reports on research that examines features of computer-mediated communication and information sharing activity during and after the April 16, 2007, crisis at Virginia Tech by members of the public. The authors consider consequences that these technology-supported social interactions have on emergency response and implications for methods in e-Social Science.

The Evolving Role of the Public Information Officer: An Examination of Social Media in Emergency Management

Abstract This work examines how the introduction of social media has affected the role of the Public Information Officer (PIO)—the public relations component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Through analysis of 25 PIO interviews, we examine the work practice of PIOs and find that social media expand not only the scope and type of PIO work activity, but also the “information pathways” that exist between PIOs, the media, and members of the public. We model these changes and examine how the presence of social media challenges previous conceptualizations of PIO work. Lastly, we present a view of how PIO work could be better imagined for the future of emergency management organizations.

When home base is not a place: parents' use of mobile telephones

More attention is being paid to the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are sensitive to the needs of people in their homes. By studying mobile telephony in such settings, we contribute to this discussion by examining how behaviors and characteristics of family life shape and in turn are shaped by ICTs. We present the results of a study of the primary caregivers in five families who were studied over the course of a week. We found that parents only relaxed their attachment to their mobile phones when in the presence of their children. Parents and other families perceived their phones as a means of staying connected or tethered across different kinds of situations. Ages of children and their involvement with other institutions beyond the family affected how parents oriented to their mobile phones, matching their parental shift work to those institutional schedules. Transition times between children’s activities were important moments for mobile phone use between child and parent as well as parent and others because those transitions also marked a change in parents’ work. Ultimately, the mobile phone facilitated the extension of a wider reach of “home” beyond the physical house, meaning that the parent—enhanced by the direct line of the mobile phone—was the embodiment of “home base.”

Social Media in Crisis: When Professional Responders Meet Digital Volunteers

Abstract In this paper, we examine the socio-technical impact that social media has had on coordination between professional emergency responders and digital volunteers. Drawing from the research literature, we outline the problem space and explore ways to improve coordination and collaboration between these two groups. Possible improvements include mediators, revisiting trust, emergency policy and process changes, a bounded social environment, digital volunteer data as context, and computational solutions. As the space matures and collaboration improves, we predict that professional responders will begin to rely on the data and products produced by digital volunteers. Volunteer groups will be challenged to mature as well, to develop volunteer management systems, permanent staff, data management practices, and training for new volunteers to ensure consistent response to professional responders as needed.

Promoting structured data in citizen communications during disaster response: an account of strategies for diffusion of the 'Tweak the Tweet' syntax

Abstract: ‘Tweak the Tweet’ is an idea for enabling citizen reporting via microblogs during crisis events. It instructs users of Twitter to tag and structure their messages to make them machine-readable using what is known as a microsyntax. This chapter describes efforts to deploy the Tweak the Tweet syntax during several crisis events in 2010. We describe how syntax, instructions, and the nature of such a campaign evolved within and across events, and share the insights gained about the use of structured data reporting during mass emergencies and disasters.

Social Media in Disaster Communication

This chapter surveys the rapid rise of social media in a range of disaster experiences, reviewing topics of citizen reporting, community-oriented computing, distributed problem solving, and digital volunteerism as forms of socio-technical innovation, as well as topics of situational awareness and veracity as opportunities and challenges that arise from the social media data deluge. The chapter also reviews the research that examines the inclusion of social media technology and data in existing emergency management work. In reflecting on the decade-old field of research, the authors warn of the danger of inadvertently collapsing all “crisis” experiences together without distinction, which tends to happen because social media platforms cross-cut all emergency situations. In an attempt to isolate what social media newly contributes, the tendency is to fail to consider how non-technological factors strongly influence the use of social media itself on collective socio-behavioral scales.

Social Media in Crisis Management: An Evaluation and Analysis of Crisis Informatics Research

ABSTRACT Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the use of social media in emergency and crisis events has greatly increased and many studies have concentrated on the use of ICT and social media before, during, or after these events. The field of research that these studies fall under is called crisis informatics. In this article, we evaluate and analyze crisis informatics research by looking at case studies of social media use in emergencies, outlining the types of research found in crisis informatics, and expounding upon the forms of interaction that have been researched. Finally, we summarize the achievements from a human–computer interaction perspective and outline trends and challenges for future research.

Designing an Application for Social Media Needs in Emergency Public Information Work

Emergency responders increasingly use social media as a means to monitor public information, gather information that could be used in response efforts, and communicate important information during emergency events. However, the adoption of social media into emergency management processes poses socio-technical challenges such as issues of credibility and trust, lack of organizational support, poor tools, and a shortage of resources and training. This study designs, implements, and evaluates an application that supports the work practice of emergency public information officers and their need to gather, monitor, sort, and report social media activity. Based on prior work that examines how social media and the forms of public participation enabled by it are changing public information practice, we iteratively design and evaluate application prototypes using a human-centered process--moving from low-fidelity paper prototypes to a high-fidelity digital prototype that is ready for field use.