Social media use by emergency management organizations has surged in recent years, reflecting both the increasing use of social media technologies by the general population and the potential for social media to facilitate key emergency response tasks. These tasks include diffusion of emergency warnings and alerts; establishing and maintaining networks of communication among responding organizations; and collecting information on public needs as the crisis unfolds.  While social media encompasses a diverse array of technologies and practices, particular interest has converged on the practices and processes of short text message exchange under time constrained and dynamic conditions ? a communication context known as the "terse regime." Though social media are an increasingly important fixture of the emergency management landscape, the study of online communication in response to extreme events is still quite young and theory development has lagged. This research has helped to fill this gap by advancing our ability to measure and model the processes governing terse-regime communication in emergency settings, and by linking these to the tasks required of emergency management organizations.

This research combined empirical case-based and comparative analyses of hazard events with the development of novel measurement techniques and formal theoretical models for understanding the dynamics of online communicative behavior in the terse regime. Among the questions addressed by this work have been the following: What governs the allocation of attention of the online public to specific organizations and messages during disaster, and how does this affect retransmission of terse messages? What governs the dynamics of organizations? online terse-regime communications and how does their behavior evolve in response to hazard stimuli, public behavior, or their own interactions? How does informal online response vary across time and space in terms of both message production and message transmission? And how can we better recognize, detect, and measure online communicative processes in response to hazard events?  This project has helped develop an evidence base for both better understanding online communication regarding hazards, and for more effective hazard communication.

Intellectual merits of the work include the following.  This research has helped to expand understanding of the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, and the factors that enhance or inhibit message diffusion in the terse regime.   This work has expanded upon the Extended Parallel Process Model, particularly in the context of responses to the Zika virus and its threat to global populations. Work from this project on both Zika and Ebola has elucidated the factors that influence message transmission in high-uncertainty and high-ambiguity situations, providing a theoretically important contrast with more conventional hazards such as floods and tornadoes. This has led to the development of the Risk Communication on Social Media framework (published in Risk Analysis), and provided the foundation for current and ongoing rapid response work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.  With respect to engagement, this research has led to an evidence-based model of social media engagement and quantitative models of online retransmission of communications by public agencies.  These include the first systematic comparisons of message retransmission during threat and non-threat periods, informing recommendations to practitioners on how to increase the reach of their messages during periods of both normal activity and imminent threat.  This work also developed new approaches to modeling the dynamics of attentional networks, opening up a new direction for empirical and theoretical research both in the hazards community and beyond.

Broader impacts of this research include the following.  Research from this project has provided an evidence base for effective engagement and messaging strategies aimed at maximizing message retransmission online, with specific application areas ranging from meteorological hazards to emerging diseases.  This work has already informed recommendations for practice in the writing of short warning messages by public agencies, and has been disseminated to the practitioner community by a combination of publication, presentation to practitioner audiences, and personal communication.  Work from this project formed the foundation of rapid response work on the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already led to several studies providing an evidence base for effective messaging in response to this unfolding disaster.  Finally, the project has provided interdisciplinary training, infrastructure, and data resources for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers, supporting several Masters projects and multiple PhDs.  Project alumni have take positions in public agencies, private industry, and academia, where they are able to employ lessons learned in this research to both basic and applied problems.

Last Modified: 01/11/2021
Modified by: Carter T Butts