Social media in times of crisis
Recent Australian and international natural disasters have demonstrated the changing shape of public communication in times of crisis. Mass media and face-to-face communication are now complemented by a variety of channels from SMS to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This project combines large-scale quantitative and close qualitative analysis to investigate the public use of social media during disasters, working with key emergency management organisations to improve their communication strategies. It will highlight successful approaches as well as potential pitfalls; the strategies which the project will develop and test will help to make emergency responses in natural disasters faster and more effective.
Project team
Investigators
- Professor Axel Bruns
- Professor Jean Burgess
- Professor Terry Flew
- Associate Professor Kate Crawford, University of New South Wales
Project partner
- Sociomantic Labs
- Queensland Fire and Emergency Services
Project funding
- ARC Linkage Project (2012-2015)
