Utilizing Social Media for Information Dispersal

Introduction

Since the introduction of Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, social media has risen in popularity as a source of news, information, and entertainment in everyday life. The reliance on social media in today's society combined with the hallmark introduction of the utilization of social media as a communication tool in the response to the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 has led to the increasingly popular trend of disseminating and correcting disaster-related information via social media. Previous instances of miscommunication and the spreading of rumors via social media during disasters, such as Hurricane Harvey and the Boston Marathon bombing, has demonstrated the increasing need for guidance and frameworks directing the use of social media as a communication tool at all levels of the field of Emergency Management (EM). Although federal organizations have attempted to meet the need by releasing guidelines on the use of social media, such as the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communications (CERC) framework and the Social Media Emergency Management (SMEM) Guidance Tool, the frameworks were crafted to be used at all levels of EM and do not offer tailored recommendations for social media use at the local level. Local EM offices often have varying access to certain communication resources that state and federal emergency management organizations have, such as risk communicators, social media strategists, and full-time Public Information Officers (PIOs). Additionally, local EM offices and agencies have unique relationships with community partnerships and stakeholders compared to state and federal agencies. The current available frameworks and social media guidelines fail to account for local EM agencies' differing access to communication resources and do not utilize the close relationships local EM agencies have with local stakeholders.

Given the current lack of guidance specifically for use at the local EM level, there is a need for a framework that utilizes the tightknit relationships of community stakeholders to spread uniform critical disaster-related information via social media before, during, and after a disaster. A key priority of the conceptual Communication Hub Framework is to positively leverage community partnerships with local stakeholders to increase the efficiency of disaster-related communication with local community members. The proposed Communication Hub Framework uniquely utilizes the strong relationships between local emergency management agencies and their community stakeholders to foster positive collaboration and amplify the reach of critical social media messaging during a disaster.