Incorporating social media in community emergency response
Open Access
- Author:
- Grace, Rob Robert
- Graduate Program:
- Informatics
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 26, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Fred Fonseca, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Fred Fonseca, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Andrea Tapia, Committee Member
Jack Carroll, Committee Member
Clio Maria Andris, Outside Member - Keywords:
- crisis response
sensemaking
crisis informatics
emergency management
social media
risk communication - Abstract:
- The smart city envisions civic officials managing public services through the use of sophisticated analytics to collect and process data from an array of physical and social sensors. Included in this vision are emergency dispatchers who intelligently aggregate traditional 911 calls with “calls” from citizens sending text messages, images, streaming video, as well as social media posts gathered during an emergency. Accordingly, 911 dispatch centers, known as Public-Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), transform from reactive call centers to proactive data analytics and coordination hubs providing first responders with real-time information during, and potentially before, an emergency. However, the transformation of PSAPs around new data sources such as social media requires effective methods to collect social media data in a geographic community and incorporate social media analysts and analysis tools within emergency dispatch work. In three phases of investigation, this dissertation i) conducts scenario-based interviews with emergency responders to outline community emergency response as a design context for social media distribution and monitoring; ii) introduces and evaluates novel methods to identify hyperlocal social media users and collect hyperlocal social media data; and iii) articulates sociotechnical requirements for emergency dispatch work involving 911 call takers, dispatchers, and social media analysts gathering, analyzing, and synthesizing information from social media users and 911 callers during simulated emergency scenarios. Together, the three phases of investigation specify sociotechnical requirements for PSAPs to collect, analyze, and make use of social media data in ways that can provide early warning of emergencies and improve situational awareness among emergency responders and citizens. Moreover, by explicating the sensemaking process in which social media data becomes actionable in community emergency response, and facilitating co-design with emergency responders through the use of low and high-fidelity design enactments, this dissertation contributes to theoretical and methodological approaches to the design of social data analytics for emergency response and management.