Citation

Reuter C, Kaufhold MA, Biselli T, Pleil H. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 2023; 96: e103880.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103880

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The value of social media in crises, disasters, and emergencies across different events, participants, and states has been examined in crisis informatics research. While some studies examined social media use representatively for their target audience, these usually only comprise a single point of inquiry and do not allow for a trend analysis. This work provides results (1) of a representative survey with German citizens from 2021 on use patterns, perceptions, and expectations regarding social media during emergencies. Furthermore, it (2) uses longitudial data and compares these results to previous surveys and provides insights on temporal changes and trends from 2017, over 2019 to 2021. Our findings highlight that social media adoption in emergencies increased in 2021 and 2019 compared to 2017. Between 2019 and 2021, the amount of information shared on social media remained on a similar level, while the perceived disadvantages of social media in emergencies significantly increased. In light of demographic variables, the results of the 2021 survey confirm previous findings, according to which older individuals (45+ years) use social media in emergencies less often than younger individuals (18-24 years). Furthermore, while the quicker availability of information was one of the reasons for social media use, especially the potential information overload was a key factor for not using social media in emergencies. The results are discussed in light of the dynamic nature of attitudes regarding social media in emergencies and the need to account for heterogeneity in user expectations to build trustworthy information ecosystems in social media.

Language: en

Keywords

Citizens' perception; Emergencies; Social media