Social media has changed crisis communication by enabling grassroots information sharing and citizen participation. This document analyzes academic research, European research projects, and real-world cases on social media's role in crisis management. It finds that while social media is increasingly used in crises, its collaborative potential remains underutilized. Academic research focuses more on macro perspectives than individual impacts and lacks qualitative studies. Research gaps include empirical analyses of social media tools and non-Western perspectives. Overall, further research is needed to fully realize social media's benefits and address challenges like coordinating unverified information.

1. From the Academic Debate to
Real-World Use and back:
Theoretical and Practical Implications of Social Media
as Communication Channel in Crisis
and Disaster Management
Verena Grubmüller-Régent, Irmgard Wetzstein (presenter), Karin Rainer & Katharina Götsch:
CeDEMAsia 2014, Dec 4-5, 2014, Hong Kong
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2. 2
Introduction, Research Interest & Relevance
• ICTs have been applied to crisis and disaster management  institutionalized
use of social media in practice and as an interdisciplinary research area (for
example touching upon the social sciences and especially media communications
at the crossroads of information and computer science)
• Social media have changed the way, speed and dynamics of how information is
spread (grass-root/bottom-up communication, active participation of citizens in
crisis communication and management e.g. crowd tasking)
• Multi-perspective metastudy of research and practices in the realm of social media
and crisis communication/disaster management
• Focus on academic research (basic research), third-party funded research projects
on the European level (applied research), social media use in crisis communication
practice
• Identify (research) gaps and potentials of research enriching practice

3. Research Questions
Method Approach
• Meta-study of existing research and practical
case examples (Wetzstein et al 2014)
Which role do social media play in • Three sub-studies
disaster management practice?
In which aspects is the current
academic debate supportive to practical
social media use in disaster
management?
In which aspects is further research
needed to enrich practice?
(3) Social media
practice (cases)
Research
enrichments for
practice
(2) European research
project abstracts
(1) Academic research
publications
Procedure & Sample
(1) 66 papers written in English (journal articles, periodicals, conference papers from 01/2005-08/2013, full survey) extracted
from CMMC with pre-defined search terms and focus on citizen-generated content/interactivity/public response and
involvement, coding/analysis with SPSS, no pre-determination of „crisis“
(2) 24 project abstracts extracted from the European Commission‘s database CORDIS (2005-2013), coding/frequency analysis
with Atlas.ti
(3) Collection, description and analysis of practical case examples drawn from professional experience and based on in-depth
literature search and systematic reviews using trusted open source information (retrieved with specified search terms in
English and German language), social media appearances of governmental agencies and NGOs, emergency first response
organizations and disaster management platforms.

4. 4
Disaster Management Practice & Social Media I
• Several paradigmatic changes within the discussion and practice of communication in
crisis and disaster management in the past
• Strategic risk and crisis communication developed from the 1960s (rational decision-making
in crisis communication, top-down approaches)
• Ideas of „dialogue“ and „feedback“ entered crisis communication in the 1990s
• Rapid development of Web 2.0 technology/social media: active participation of citizens
in crisis communication, change of communication patterns
• Nowadays several social media sources (social networks, content sharing sites,
collaboration/knowledge sharing sites, blogging/micro-blogging, specialized crisis
management platforms) are used as information and communication channels in crisis
situations
• Social media analytics/monitoring tools are used to automatically collect, filter and
analyse relevant content produced by social media users (Grubmüller et al 2013,
Wetzstein & Leitner 2012)
• Arising challenges: ethics, privacy, data protection, coordination of fast spreading and
unverified messages, implementation of citizens in crowd tasking activities

5. Disaster Management
Practice & Social Media II
Social media initially often used for an ad hoc,
basic and unstructured crisis communication,
mostly initiated by directly affected persons
during or in the aftermath of an incident
Successful systematical implementation of
social media in first responder and crisis
management organizations‘ practice (Sutton et
al 2008)
Social media potential of mutual exchange of
information rather unused (used rather as one-way
communication channel),
coordinative/organizational challenges
Systematic integration of social media in crisis
and disaster management/bottom-up
evolution (e.g. in context of the 2004 Indian
Ocean Tsunami, London Bombings 2005,
Hurricane Katrina 2005)
Organizational implementation of social media
in everyday interaction with communities
(Queensland Police)
Traditional model regarding information, communication and interaction in
crisis situations enriched by new social media layer (Rainer et al. 2013: 121)

6. 6
Practice: Remaining Challenges and Gaps
• Although the possibility of ‘many to many’-communication is one of the core strengths
of social media the collaborative potential of social media has not yet been fully
exploited (see also Ethnis & Bunker 2012) and includes several crucial aspects.
• Social media platforms (e.g. Facebook) or micro-blogging sites (e.g. Twitter) were
mainly employed for traditional information distribution and/or gathering, probably
due to necessities or insecurities in emergency management organizations regarding
legal and resource aspects such as accountability with misled calls for assistance in crisis
situations via non-prepared social media channels (see QuOIMA).
• Need for trusted first-hand information from the affected areas and coordination of
help with crowd-tasking become more and more attractive and important for disaster
management institutions and their daily emergency routine and are implemented via
pilot projects and research approaches.
Research enriches practice.

7. 7
Research I: Academic Publications (1)
• The area of social media and crises is dealt with interdisciplinarily, but a large number of
academic studies in the area of social media and crisis communication have been conducted
in the field of media communications.
• Crisis as a term is often used arbitrarily, in a multi-faceted way, for complex situations 
papers dealing with any situation or event defined as „crisis“ were considered. However,
many of the crises addressed natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis
as case examples rather than health crises, terroristic and criminal acts respectively,
technology malfunctions, human errors, and social movements and protests.
• Number of academic texts published in journals, periodicals and conference proceedings
relevant to the media communications discipline has generally been increasing since 2005,
mostly focusing on the micro-blogging service Twitter.
• Crisis communication via social media is generally strongly connected to PR in media
communication studies.
• Use and emergence of social media during crises/message strategies,
stakeholders/communicators, users/citizens, behavioral and systemic perspectives prevail.
Functions, potentials, limitations and risks of social media in crisis situations, intersections
and comparisons between traditional media sources and social media, and evaluation studies
and the elaboration of models and concepts in terms of shaping „good“ crisis communication
with social media occur less often.

8. Research I: Academic Publications (2)
• Used methods: Mostly content/discourse/text analyses, quantitative method approaches and
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literature studies without empirical research generally predominate in the analyzed material
in contrast to the use of qualitative methods. The topic of functions, potentials, risks and
limitations of social media in context with crisis communications, however, most often
appears as literature study only.
• Negative or rather negative attitudes towards social media hardly occur in the analyzed
journal articles, periodicals and conference papers, while there is an upward trend of
ambivalent evaluations from 2008 until 2012. Positive/rather positive evaluation reached its
peak in 2010 and decreased afterwards critical addressing of social media in crisis
communication as important task in relevant academic (basic) research.
• Gaps in academic research:
 Lack of qualitative approaches
 Focus on societal macro-perspectives (society as a whole) and meso-level from a stakeholder/communicator
perspective (organizations) rather than on individual perspectives (meso- and micro-level, e.g. community and
individual coping with crises)
 Limits and potentials of social media in crisis situations are not issues that are addressed empirically, whereas
empirical research might support the development, evaluation and improved social media applications to be used
for crisis communication.
 Specific social media tools for crisis communication are hardly ever discussed in the analyzed papers
 Academic discourse takes place most often in the USA, followed by Europe-based researchers, while African,
Asian, Australian and South and Latin American-based authors/researchers are hardly or even not at all
involvement of authors based in respective regions as an important future task in order to be able to provide
even more manifold perspectives on crises in context with social media

9. 9
Research II: European Research Projects
• 24 funded projects under the work programs of „Information and Communication
Technologies“, „Security“ and „European Knowledge Based Bio-Economy“
• Project aims (occuring frequently 2007-2012): Shaping „good“ crisis communication as most
prominent project aim (e.g. connecting existing communication systems, improving the
interoperability of communication means, developing a standardized environment,
communication guides and support for policy makers, and establishing effective
communication and collaboration strategies), followed by enabling information gathering for
decision making/service provision (e.g. data mining techniques, social media
analytics/monitoring).
• Project aim of fostering citizen participation/using social media specifically for involving and
empowering citizens as „in situ first responders“ only occured in projects submitted to the
2012 Security call for proposals.
• Strong focus on crisis handling/response rather than prevention or post-crisis situations.
• Majority of the projects cover more than one crisis type referring rather broadly to natural
and man-made crises. „Terroristic/criminal act“ as most often referred crisis type (all
submitted to the 2007 Security call for proposals).
• Target groups: Mostly support of first responders/decision-maker authorities/(security) policy
makers with ICT and social media technologies. More recent projects are aiming at involving
and empowering citizens as first responders (e.g. Alert4All)

10. 10
Research I & II: Common Characteristics and Differences
• Different research foci: security (projects), PR (academic papers). Computer-scientific
approaches (data mining, social media analytics) considered in projects from 2012.
• Prevalence of project aims differs: use and emergence of social media during crises
(academic papers), evaluating/shaping „good“ crisis communication (projects)
• Perspective/target groups: stakeholders (projects), stakeholders and citizens/users (academic
papers). Citizen-orientation occurs within projects from 2012 in the realm of data
mining/social media monitoring and analytics
• Differing purposes: critical reflection (academic papers), practical implementation/case study
pilots (projects)
• Similarities regarding fostered crisis phase (crisis handling/response), various crisis types
covered (oftentimes natural disasters)
• Limitations of the two research substudies: Only academic media communication-focused
publications considered (projects therefore appear to be more interdisciplinary), books,
chapters were completely excluded, restriction on publications written in English, small
sample of analyzed research projects no generalization of results, but insights into trends
and perspectives into social media and crisis communication as a research area

11. Conclusion: How can research enrich practice?
• Practice is lagging behind research in several aspects, functions of social media are far from
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being fully exploited in actual crisis management and communication.
• Complex use cases in research vs. authorities and first responder organizations limiting
themselves to using social media as „just another“ media channel for distributing information
Examples of a more complex social media communication strategy are rare and mostly
limited to organizations participating in consortia of highly innovative research projects.
• Several of the analyzed projects aim at connecting existing communication systems,
improving interoperability and developing standardized environments practical
implementation beyond case study pilots takes time.
• Academic publications rather take a critical standpoint towards social media usage (e.g. legal
and ethical aspects) since aspects such as the interplay of security and surveillance are
concerned communication strategies need to be fathomed in the public interest, closely
considering societal developments and the potentially economically-driven practical
implementation of social media tools. Prevalence of quantitative research approaches and
macro-level in academic publications in-depth micro level knowledge (e.g. individuals
using social media in crisis situations) can be useful for practice.
• Practical and research approaches show a focus on stakeholders, increasingly aiming at
enhancing citizens’ participation in crisis from which practice can benefit.

12. Thank you for your attention.
Dr. Irmgard Wetzstein, MA
Senior Lecturer
Department of Communication/University of Vienna
Währingerstraße 29, 1090 Vienna/Austria
+43 (0) 1 4277 49349
irmgard.wetzstein@univie.ac.at
Verena Grubmüller-Régent, Irmgard Wetzstein (presenter), Karin Rainer & Katharina Götsch:
CeDEMAsia 2014, Dec 4-5, 2014, Hong Kong
12

13. References
Alter4All, http://www.alert4all.eu/ (Retrieved: 09.06.2014).
Ehnis, C., Bunker, D. (2012). Social Media in Disaster Response: Queensland Police Service – Public Engagement
During the 2011 Floods. 23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems.3-5 Dec 2012, Geelong.
http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30049056/ehnis-socialmedia-2012.pdf (Retrieved: 09.06.2014).
Grubmüller, V., Krieger, B., Götsch, K. (2013). Social Media Analytics for government in the light of legal and
ethical challenges, CeDEM – Conference for eDemocracy and Open Government, Krems/Austria.
Rainer, K., Grubmüller, V., Pejic, I., Götsch, K. and Leitner, P. (2013). Social Media Applications in Crisis
Interaction. Systems. Connecting matter, life, culture and technology, 1, 1, 110-127.
QuOIMA, Integrated Open Source Multimedia Analysis. http://www.kiras.at/gefoerderte-projekte/
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detail/projekt/quoima-quelloffene-integrierte-multimedia-analyse/ (Retrieved: 10.11.2014)
Sutton, J., Palen, L., Shklovski, I. (2008). Backchannels on the Front Lines: Emergent Uses of Social Media in the
2007 Southern California Wildfires. Proceedings of the 5th International ISCRAM Conference – Washington,
DC, USA, May 2008.
Wetzstein, I., Leitner, P. (2012). Best practices report. Deliverable to the European Commission within the FP7-
ICT-project UniteEurope Social Media Analytics and Decision Support Tools Enabling Sustainable Integration
Policies and Measures. July 2012 (password protected).
Wetzstein, I., Grubmüller, V., Götsch, K., Rainer, K. (2014): Crises and social media. A meta-study on pertinent
research and practice. Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humans in ICT Environments
(forthcoming).