The use of social media in disasters is a hot topic for emergency managers these days. I suspect that at the heart of this debate lies the fact that, while we see the potential, we really don't understand it. Judging from the websites I've seen, we certainly haven't grasped the concept that social media is first and foremost a dialog and not just another method for the release of information.
However, we can't ignore the fact that the recent earthquakes and tsunami in Japan showed how social media is changing the dynamic of how we deal with disasters. Within an hour of the main earthquake, tweets from Tokyo exceeded 1200 per minute. Videos of the tsunami were posted on YouTube as they were occurring and there are over 63,000 videos listed on YouTube under the keywords "Japan tsunami". The mayor of a small community made a worldwide appeal for assistance on YouTube and got it.
More importantly, we're starting to see the emergence of mechanisms for consolidating and making sense out of all this data. Esri, Inc. created a social media map that would certainly be useful in any emergency operations center.
There's no question that social media is of benefit in disaster operations. The real question is how do we filter the data and display it in a way that will enhance those operations. And that's still very much a work in progress.
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