Social media in conflicts and crises

ABSTRACT

The growing importance of social media in conflicts and crises is accompanied by an ever-increasing research interest in the crisis informatics field in order to identify potential benefits and develop measures against the technology’s abuse. This special issue sets out to give an overview of current research on the use of social media in conflicts and crises. In doing so, it focuses on both good and malicious aspects of social media and includes a variety of papers of conceptual, theoretical and empirical nature. In six sections, the special issue presents an overview of the field, analytical methods, technical challenges, current advancements and the accepted papers before concluding. Specific topics range from cyber deception over information trustworthiness to mining and near-real-time processing of social media data.     

社交媒体中的信息推荐

近年来社交媒体越来越流行,可以从中获得大量丰富多彩的信息的同时,也带来了严重的"信息过载"问题.推荐系统作为缓解信息过载最有效的方法之一,在社交媒体中的作用日趋重要.区别于传统的推荐方法,社交媒体中包含大量的用户产生内容,因此在社交媒体中,通过结合传统的个性化的推荐方法,集成各类新的数据、元数据和清晰的用户关系,产生了各种新的推荐技术.总结了社交推荐系统中的几个关键研究领域,包括基于社会化标注的推荐、组推荐和基于信任的推荐,之后介绍了在信息推荐中考虑时间因素时的情况,最后对社交媒体中信息推荐有待深入研究的难点和发展趋势进行了展望.     

Linking information and people in a social system for academic conferences

This paper investigates the feasibility of maintaining a social information system to support attendees at an academic conference. The main challenge of this work was to create an infrastructure where users’ social activities, such as bookmarking, tagging, and social linking could be used to enhance user navigation and maximize the users’ ability to locate two important types of information in conference settings: presentations to attend and attendees to meet. We developed Conference Navigator 3, a social conference support system that integrates a conference schedule planner with a social linking service. We examined its potential and functions in the context of a medium-scale academic conference. In this paper, we present the design of the system’s socially enabled features and report the results of a conference-based study. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of social information systems for supporting academic conferences. Despite the low number of potential users and the short timeframe in which conferences took place, the usage of the system was high enough to provide sufficient data for social mechanisms. The study shows that most critical social features were highly appreciated and used, and provides direction for further research.     

Avoiding chaotic use of social media before,during, and after emergencies: Design and evaluation of citizens’ guidelines

Social media have been established in many natural disasters or human‐induced crises and emergencies. Nowadays, authorities, such as emergency services, and citizens engage with social media in different phases of the emergency management cycle. However, as research in crisis informatics highlights, one remaining issue constitutes the chaotic use of social media by citizens during emergencies, which has the potential to increase the complexity of tasks, uncertainty, and pressure for emergency services. To counter these risks, besides implementing supportive technology, social media guidelines may help putting artefact and theoretical contributions into practical use for authorities and citizens. This paper presents the design and evaluation (with 1,024 participants) of citizens’ guidelines for using social media before, during, and after emergencies.     

Adoption of travel information in user-generated content on social media: the moderating effect of social presence

Travel patterns have gradually changed from group travel to individual travel. An increasing number of people acquire travel information through various types of media. One of the alternative information sources is social media, which enables users to exchange information among members. However, one of the characteristics of social media is information sharing, not information search, which involves both giving (i.e. posting) and taking (i.e. selective reading, forwarding, replying, linking, and liking) information. Compared to the ‘giving’ side of information-sharing research, less effort has been spent on the ‘taking’ side of information research. Therefore, we investigate travel information adoption in social media as well as how individuals communicate with each other. We use the elaboration likelihood model, which measures the impact of central (e.g. argument quality) and peripheral (e.g. credibility) cues on traveller information-sharing behaviour corresponding with social presence on social media. The results of an empirical analysis of 527 respondents, who were experienced in travel information adoption via social media, were examined. Our findings revealed that argument quality had a positive effect on perceived usefulness and source credibility positively affected perceived usefulness and social relationships. Perceived usefulness had a significant positive effect on social relationships. Both perceived usefulness and social relationships affected travel information adoption. Lastly, the levels of argument quality and source credibility perceived by social media members were found to differ according to the level of social presence.     

Social relationships and information dissemination in virtual social network systems: An attachment theory perspective

Web-based communication via social networking sites has become an integral method of communication, raising the question of whether the well-established Attachment Theory remains applicable to modern relationships. This communication shift is also likely to affect the information dissemination dynamic; i.e., how internal attachment working models relate to virtual modes of communication. Three studies (354 participants in total, median age 27) examined the applicability of Attachment Theory to web-based social network communications. Using self- report measures (Study 1) and an experimental simulation (Study 2), the results indicate that attachment security level predicts an individual’s number of social ties and willingness to initiate web-based relationships. Secure individuals emerged as best situated to become social hubs. Study 3 reveals that a decrease in avoidance scores predicts an increased willingness to deliver information to others. Anxious participants exhibited less willingness to deliver highly threatening information but more willingness to deliver neutral information to others.These findings support the applicability of attachment internal working models to predicting web-based social network communication, and suggest that Attachment Theory can be a predictor of the dynamics of web-based dissemination of information.     

My mom's on Facebook: an evaluation of information sharing depth in social networking

Information sharing in social networking sites (SNSs) provides users the opportunity to maintain relationships and express themselves. However, users share information with a heterogeneous audience with varied expectations. As a result, various social spheres may influence the information individuals share or their decision to share at all. The current research describes dimensions of information in terms of horizontal and vertical information sharing. Previous research has demonstrated the salience of social spheres with conflicting norms for SNS users. We build on previous research by exploring the effects of social spheres on the depth of information shared by SNS users. Students from a university in the USA and South Korea were interviewed to understand their perceptions of information sharing and the influence social spheres have on the depth of information they provide. We found that conflicting social spheres influence the depth of information provided when a user posts to their SNS and that impression management plays a key role.     

Social impacts in social media: An examination of perceived truthfulness and sharing of information

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media display the combined opinion of users as collective opinion. The purpose of the work reported here was to examine how collective opinion might influence the perceived truthfulness and the sharing likelihood of health-related statements on social media. Experiment 1 revealed that, when evaluating the truthfulness of a statement, participants adopted the collective truthfulness rating associated with the statement. Similarly, Experiment 2 showed that the likelihood that participants would share a statement followed the collective sharing likelihood associated with the statement. These social impacts were extensive, taking place for statements perceived as true, debatable, and false. These results contribute new insights into how people perceive and share information on social media as well as how collective opinion might affect the quality of information on social media.     

Integrating social media features into a cell phone alert system for emergency situations

In times of emergency, people include social networking sites (SNS) in their search for information and support. An online survey with an embedded experiment with two conditions focused on understanding whether and how SNS functions have a positive influence on perceived self‐efficacy, risk perception, and reported information sufficiency when integrated into a current emergency alert system like NL‐Alert. Participants were randomly assigned to a control condition showing the classical format of NL‐Alert or the expanded condition with added SNS functions (a newsfeed and marking oneself as safe). Results show that self‐efficacy and risk perception did not differ between conditions. Significantly higher degrees of information sufficiency were reported in the expanded condition. Consequences for emergency risk communication are discussed.     

Social capital expectation and usage of social media: the moderating role of social capital susceptibility

This study aims to identify the motivations of social media users who click ‘like’ to the post of their friends. We posit that this behaviour is not solely based on an instant feeling or reaction to a post, but a more complicated action that involves calculation and expectation of the future social media use. We first apply social capital theories to identify the types of expectations, and then differentiate these expectations based on the communication styles of social media where private and public relationships coexist. From these, we develop a social capital expectation matrix in the context of social media. In the research model, we discuss how these social capital expectations motivate people to use social media, including the moderating effects of social capital susceptibilities, based on expectancy theory of motivation. To validate our model, data collected from 291 social media users are analysed. This result confirms that people click likes to share their interests and display their network to others. Conversely, the relational dimensions of social capital including capital recompense and social inclusion exerted significant interaction effects only when they were considered along with capital susceptibilities.     

Repertoires of collaboration: incorporation of social media help requests into the common operating picture

ABSTRACT

Disasters present us with dynamic and emergent multi-stakeholder scenarios. Complex decision-making is supported by Emergency Management Organisation (EMO) ‘command and control’ disaster response systems that if pushed to failure, present problems in the development and monitoring of situational awareness. Nowhere is this more evident than when the general public use social media platforms to report crisis incidents when the official emergency management hotline (e.g. Triple Zero (000) in Australia) is overwhelmed or not available. This causes a number of issues for EMO as it is difficult to verify and determine the accuracy and veracity of social media posts and how to best incorporate the information within them into situational awareness for the assessment of and response to, an emergency incident. This paper analyses interview data from five Australian EMO that outlines and discusses these issues in detail. As a result of this analysis, we suggest that developing a supplementary ‘repertoires of collaboration’ approach to incorporating social media posts into the development of situational awareness during a disaster event, would help improve disaster response outcomes. We then recommend a way forward through the application of the Negotiated Arrangements for the Common Operating Picture (COP) in Extreme Events framework.     

Social movement documentary practices: digital storytelling,social media and organizing

ABSTRACT

Scholars and activists have studied social movement media for its potential to challenge dominant narratives, build community relationships and create social change. This paper presents a case study of two short-form documentary projects with Black Lives Matter 5280 and the Service Employees International Union, Local 105 in Denver, Colorado to explore how collaborative media-making projects assist in building local grassroots campaigns of racial and economic justice. The communication strategies as well as the distribution efforts via online social networks and community screenings are discussed in order to analyse how documentaries rely upon personal narratives to animate members and allies’ feelings and then connect them with traditional forms of organizing like community meetings and public demonstrations. The participatory aspects of filmmaking are viewed through democratic theory, which emphasizes the social relations of citizenship and shared communal values over material and cultural resources, rather than visual aesthetics or technical processes.     

Effects of social and technology overload on psychological well-being in young South Korean adults: The mediatory role of social network service addiction

This study examined the effects of social and information technology overload on psychological well-being. It also explored the mediating role of social network service (SNS) addiction in the hypothesized relationships between these variables. A sample of 419 college students and employees in their 20s and 30s, who were SNS users in South Korea, participated in the study. The results showed that social and information technology overload did not exert a direct impact on psychological well-being. SNS addiction served as a mediator in the relationships between these variables. The theoretical contributions and useful managerial implications of the study, with respect to reducing SNS users' addiction and improving their psychological well-being, were described.     

社会应急资源监测系统及筹募机制设计

提出构建社会应急资源监测系统,建立信息系统对分布式的可应急社会资源进行监测,为资源筹募提供依据,提高社会资源的应急响应能力。分析监测系统的管理对象,建立其功能架构;设计社会应急资源的筹募机制,对可筹募资源进行评估;最后通过设计社会应急资源筹募流程说明筹募机制。针对社会应急资源参与应急救援的挑战,设计社会应急资源监测系统的结构和工作机制,为社会资源参与应急救援提供方法与系统,并为社会应急资源筹集优化、应急能力评价等问题的研究提供基础。     

Coping with information in social media: The effects of network structure and knowledge on perception of information value

The explosive growth of social media has intrigued many scholars to inquire into why people willingly share information with others. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to how people determine which information they share in the networked environment. In this study, a 2 (network density – dense vs. sparse) × 2 (knowledge – expert vs. novice) × 3 (information valence – negative vs. neutral vs. positive) online experiment was performed to examine how the three factors interact and cross over in shaping individuals’ perceptions of the value of information for themselves and for others in the network. Results show that individuals’ perceptions of information value are influenced not just by their level of knowledge, but also by how the network environment is structured. Implications for the findings are discussed.     

信息系统安全风险评估技术分析

信息系统安全的风险评估是建立信息系统安全体系的基础和前提。在对国内外现有的信息安全风险评估方法与技术进行归纳和较系统的介绍的基础上,指出了目前信息安全风险评估需要解决的问题,对未来信息系统安全风险评估的发展前景进行了分析。     

水库运行管理信息系统总体设计

我国水库数量众多,水库运行管理工作普遍任务重、难度大,传统的管理方式已难以满足当前业务管理需求。建立水库运行管理信息系统已成为提升水库数字化、网络化和智能化管理水平的重要手段,也是新阶段水利高质量发展的重要体现。从水库运行管理信息系统总体设计理论方面,以实现运行管理业务全链条线上精细化管理为目标,阐述水库运行管理信息系统建设的总体思路、架构设计、主要内容、保障工作等,全面概述了系统建设涉及的工作内容。其中,重点介绍水库信息档案、数据管理体系、系统业务功能、水库数据应用等主要建设内容,希望能为各级水库运行管理信息系统建设工作提供一定参考。     

Communication in the face of a school crisis: Examining the volume and content of social media mentions during active shooter incidents

Little is known about the effectiveness of social media in delivering information during active shooter incidents at the P-12 level. This study analyzed social media activity that occurred during and after two active shooter events on September 30, 2014. Over 5000 social media posts from Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and mainstream news outlets were analyzed. Social media analysis outlined the scope of online communication during the first week following the incidents, revealed social media frequency, increases in conversation, misinformation, and differences between parent and student posts. Results revealed spikes in social media chatter following the release of the identities of shooters and victims. Consistent with media dependency theory and the high levels of uncertainty characteristic of the incident, users’ social media posts contained more information than affect displays during the active shooter event. Implications for scholars and P-12 administrators are discussed.