Harvesting Collective Intelligence: When disaster is on Twitter before Rescuers Arrive.
Abstract
The blistering speed and spread of information on social media, with more than 1.9 billion users worldwide, potentially offer emergency response agencies an unprecedented wealth of situational awareness when life and property is under threat. In fact, the micro-blog Twitter can warn of an earthquake faster than the physical effects are felt. Social media platforms offer a myriad of benefits before, during and after a disaster. These include warnings, connecting to survivors, situational awareness of the extent of the impact, notifying where help is needed and galvanizing self-help within the impact zone and humanitarian ...
View more >The blistering speed and spread of information on social media, with more than 1.9 billion users worldwide, potentially offer emergency response agencies an unprecedented wealth of situational awareness when life and property is under threat. In fact, the micro-blog Twitter can warn of an earthquake faster than the physical effects are felt. Social media platforms offer a myriad of benefits before, during and after a disaster. These include warnings, connecting to survivors, situational awareness of the extent of the impact, notifying where help is needed and galvanizing self-help within the impact zone and humanitarian efforts from outside. A unique aspect of social media is that it is user-generated. Twitter has become a tool to foster the emergence of Collective Intelligence, where individuals collaborate to share information, ideas and suggest ways to solve problems. Collective Intelligence comes to the rescue quickly during the chaos of a disaster, when outside help may be hours or days away. On the flipside, however, harvesting Collective Intelligence by disaster agencies to inform time-critical decision-making has become a significant challenge amid the avalanche of social media “chatter” – some of it inaccurate, self-serving, misleading and fabricated. Indeed, social media places significant pressure on the management of timely, accurate and relevant information by disaster agencies. In the topic that has received sparse scholarly attention, this chapter draws on a series of in-depth interviews with emergency and disaster agencies in four countries to shed new perspectives on the challenges of capturing and capitalising on Collective Intelligence in times of calamity.
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View more >The blistering speed and spread of information on social media, with more than 1.9 billion users worldwide, potentially offer emergency response agencies an unprecedented wealth of situational awareness when life and property is under threat. In fact, the micro-blog Twitter can warn of an earthquake faster than the physical effects are felt. Social media platforms offer a myriad of benefits before, during and after a disaster. These include warnings, connecting to survivors, situational awareness of the extent of the impact, notifying where help is needed and galvanizing self-help within the impact zone and humanitarian efforts from outside. A unique aspect of social media is that it is user-generated. Twitter has become a tool to foster the emergence of Collective Intelligence, where individuals collaborate to share information, ideas and suggest ways to solve problems. Collective Intelligence comes to the rescue quickly during the chaos of a disaster, when outside help may be hours or days away. On the flipside, however, harvesting Collective Intelligence by disaster agencies to inform time-critical decision-making has become a significant challenge amid the avalanche of social media “chatter” – some of it inaccurate, self-serving, misleading and fabricated. Indeed, social media places significant pressure on the management of timely, accurate and relevant information by disaster agencies. In the topic that has received sparse scholarly attention, this chapter draws on a series of in-depth interviews with emergency and disaster agencies in four countries to shed new perspectives on the challenges of capturing and capitalising on Collective Intelligence in times of calamity.
View less >
Book Title
Social Technologies and Collective Intelligence Monograph
Subject
Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies