Mobile Technology Assisted Crisis Response

ETEC 565 – Winter 2017 - Assignment 3

Alice (Ka Wai) Wong

This is a forecasting project designed to promote a stronger awareness about the

concerns related to the development of technology assisted crisis response.

Current inquiry:
How has technology transform the crisis management communicative landscape?

In university, I remembered receiving a text message alerting me about events

happening on campus. This broadcasting text messaging system became a popular
means of transmitting information. More recently, while working as a teacher, my
school also started adopting the Lockdown application. This is a mobile crisis
response system that allows authorized users to broadcast messages, to upload
context images and to engage in multi-way instant messaging. These developments
cultivate a hopeful outlook of utilizing current technological tools to assuage
challenges during crisis management.

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According to the data from the World Humanitarian Summit, more than 200 million
people have been affected by crisis (World Humanitarian Summit, 2016). Moreover,
the number of displaced people nearly double in 2014 (World Humanitarian Summit,
2016). In the last decade, more advanced technology have been available and
accessible during natural disaster and man-made conflict. Beyond print, instant
communicative tools such as Twitter and Facebook allowed users to effortlessly
disseminate information, document crisis development and manage resources and
needs requests. As mentioned earlier, to better manage crisis, some schools are
adopting mobile friendly centralized communicative tools such as Lockdown.

Individuals should take advantage of technological advances to better manage crisis.

O’Neil & O’Neil (2012) are compassionate thinkers who recognizes the
communicative and organizational challenges related to disaster relief. They created
a technological based solution (i.e. a website) to helps manage and curated crisis
information. With success stories like these as encouragement, it is apparent that
current mobile collaborative technology can provide innovative and effective means
to manage emergencies.

“In a disaster, however, you start with all of the interest and none of the capacity.
And you've only got about seven days to capture 50 percent of all of the Web
searches that will ever be made to help your area.” (O’Neil & O’Neil, 2012, 5.21)

Indeed, the ubiquitous use of technological development should make it easier for
people in distress to communicate, manage physical and collaborative needs and
assuage concerns. For example, new social media platforms provide accessible
outlets for communication. It is evident that communicative technology has played a
major role in determining how the crisis has been handled and or remediated. Kurian
et al. (2017) claims that during crisis, Facebook users often provided status updates
about emergency supplies. Other social media platforms such as Twitter also support
the decimation of information. During the Little India Crisis in Singapore on
December 9th 2013, there was a strong Twitter presence. Over 3486 tweets were
posted that day!

What has scholars learn about crisis response technology?

Beyond simulations for crisis response, there has been recent research about crisis
response. In particular, scholars are interested in how technology has communicative
technology make high stress situations more manageable. In essence, crisis
management is about communication and evacuation (i.e. direct outgoing traffic &
crowd control) and coordination.

Mobile Technology: How has recent innovation fill technological gaps?

Responders require accurate information about the crisis, civilians and location (i.e.
geo-data). Using QR code, responders are equipped with quick access to information
designed to assuage location navigation challenges. It is also easy for responders and
decision makers to better visualize information in order to make more informed
choices.

Twitter conventions such as topical hastags help centralize information. More

specifially, Pang & Ng (2017) claims “[t]opical hashtags enable Twitterers to co-create
fluid and dynamic discourse around a topic. Hashtags also facilitate information
discovery as anyone searching for a hashtag can see all tweets with the same
hashtag” (p.440). Additionally, retweets also support sharing information. For
example, 2844 of the 3486 tweets (i.e. 82%) were retweets(Pang, Pang & Ng, 2017).
Evidently, “[t]he retweet feature allows users to repost and share meaningful or
news-worthy tweets, and accounts for much of the traffic on Twitter.” (Pang, Pang &
Ng, 2017, p.445) In combination with other details such as geo-tagging, these text
features may change the response time and the decision making process of the crisis
management system.

Mobile Collaboration
Beyond physical technological development determining how crisis are supported,
collaboration methods also influence the way in which emergencies are managed.
Since crisis management involves the extensive coordination and collaboration of
different supporters and volunteers, it is vital to utilize highly efficient mobile
collaborative tools. Onsite responders and off-site decision makers benefits from
customized, relevant, and timely information organizational applications. For
example, interactive spreadsheet-based tools make it easier to collaborate because it
allows for synchronous and asynchronous modification. Ginige et al. (2014) suggests
that spreadsheets are useful because “information collected by different users
through several sources, can be conveyed, queried, managed and analysed in a
seamless manner”(p.551). Spreadsheets enable users to efficiently assemble
information and resources and to effectively facilitate and track action items.
Individuals in distress benefits from concurrent access and synchronic modifications.

Design Considerations
How can developers take advantage of current technology to strengthen crisis
management solutions?

Let’s inspect more closely at the effective components crisis response management.

Mobile Education
Digital Literacy
Responders and decisions makers should be highly and digitally literate. It is essential
that civilians and responders have to be well versed in formal and secular (i.e. social
media) forms of ICT. Ginige et al. (2014) supports that “[s]preadsheets were
considered a favorable choice, as the most natural digital counterpart of printed data
sheets that are currently being used.” (p.566) As opposed to common misconception,
in high stress situations such as a natural disaster, it is important that individual in
distress uses familiar applications.
- “As a matter of fact, the usage of common daily tools such as spreadsheets to
deal with the emergency situations can enhance the management process,
because the responders’ familiarity with filling out traditional paper forms
help them reduce stress associated with a crisis. Unfamiliarity can notably
impact the effective use of a new technology in crisis situations.” (Ginige et al,
2014, p.552)

Digital Citizenship
It is important to continue to diligently practice digital citizenship. The instantaneous
exchanges via current ICT offers more opportunities for misinformation to spread.
Decision makers and crisis responders should still carefully assess the credibility of all
available facts regardless of the communicated platforms it was sourced from.

- “The instantaneous nature of Twitter might have prompted mainstream

media reporters to post a piece of news without going through the traditional
necessary and rigorous fact-checking process. The analysis results also
indicate that second degree retweets play an important role in the spreading
of misinformation. Even after the original source tweet was removed, second
degree retweets can still act as the source for the propagation of
misinformation.” (Pang, Pang & Ng, 2017, p.447)

Crisis preparedness
Mobile education about crisis preparedness may help civilians to better handle
emergencies. More specifically, “the public has to realize their personal role in
emergency preparation.” (Javan & Blooma, 2017, p.544) Social media platforms
appear to be suitable outlets for providing and sharing facts to prepare civilians for
crisis. The myriad of multimedia options and social media platforms make learning
more mobile and accessible. When developing e-courses for its citizens, government-
sponsored MOOCs may help protect national interest.
Mobile Culture

For responders and decision makers, the alert broadcasting feature is a critical
support system that keeps a community calm and action ready. Messages should be
concise and have a salient directive. To limit confusion, alert systems should push action-
based notifications to affect area and general news to the whole network ( Kurian, 2017).

Identify innovators as point of contact

Innovators are more inclined to share information. Pang & Ng (2017) supports that
“[o]pinion leaders play an important role in propagating information, whether it is in
support or in opposition to the misinformation.” (p.450) Responders and decision
makers should identify local and influential opinion leaders. This dynamic culture
requires continuous updating and maintaining. Nonetheless, even if information is
transmitted from highly creditable source, there can still be people who mistrust the news
(Egnoto, Griffin, Svetieva & Winslow, 2016). Therefore, it is important that civilians receive
consistent news from various reliable sources.

Limit misinformation
With an efficient communicative system, it is easy for misinformation to spread.
Responders and decision makers are better able to decipher accurate information
when they perform cross platform analysis to compare and contrast information.
These big data analysis may require additional technological support to visualize
results.

“At a minimum, risk communicators should attempt to monitor, if not use, social media
channels during a crisis to disperse information and gauge what information the recipients
might need next.” (Egnoto, Griffin, Svetieva & Winslow, 2016, p.63)

Privacy
Since personal information is required to better aid relief efforts, it is easily to forget
one’s obligation to keep details confidential. When supporting, it may be best to
minimize personal data in order to protect privacy (Jasmontaite & Dimitrova, 2017).
Application designers can follow this by striving to “[d]efine narrowly the purpose(s)
of each application and limit usage of personal data to the identified purpose(s).”
(Jasmontaite & Dimitrova, 2017, p.29)

Gratitude
It is important to note that a crisis is a series of emotional events. Positive mobile culture
trends also develop from successful crisis management. Social media are often a suitable
platform to promote expressions of gratuity and appreciation. Kurian et al. (2017) found that
user generated content also contains many posts related to appreciating responders’
support.

Mobile Technology
Current and future mobile technological advancement can help increase the
effectiveness and efficiency of organizing relief efforts. Podcasts and other
multimedia presentation options can provide instructional and self-help information
in an engaging way. Newer programs can better perform cross system analysis in
order to prevent system failure. There should be application to seamlessly integrate
official sources and unofficial information with reliability or credibility ratings. Future
mobile technology such as cloud solutions may help resolve storage issue.

Post Distress issues

Relief efforts continue after immediate danger is removed. New sets of challenges
arise after urgent emergencies have subsided. Consider natural disasters like
earthquakes. Public and private structures may take years to rebuild. Hence, the
crisis management response system should contain components that can facilitate
long-term relief solutions.
References

Egnoto, M. J., Griffin, D. J., Svetieva, E., & Winslow, L. (2016). Information sharing
during the University of Texas at Austin active shooter/suicide event. Journal Of
School Violence, 15(1), 48-66. doi:10.1080/15388220.2014.949376

Ginige, A., Paolino, L., Romano, M., Sebillo, M., Tortora, G., & Vitiello, G. (2014).
Information sharing among disaster responders—An interactive spreadsheet-
based collaboration approach. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW),
23(4-6), 547-583. doi:10.1007/s10606-014-9207-0

Jasmontaite, L., & Dimitrova, D. (2017). Online Disaster Management: Applicability of

the European Data Protection Framework and Its Key Principles. Journal Of
Contingencies & Crisis Management, 25(1), 23-30. doi:10.1111/1468-
5973.12142

Kurian, J. C., Kurian, J. C., John, B. M., & John, B. M. (2017). User-generated content
on the Facebook page of an emergency management agency: A thematic
analysis. Online Information Review, 41(4), 558-579.

O’Neill, C. & O’Neill, M. (2012, 2012). How to step up in the face of disaster. (TED
Talk). Retrieve from
https://www.ted.com/talks/caitria_and_morgan_o_neill_how_to_step_up_in_t
he_face_of_disaster/transcript#t-543663

Pang, N., Pang, N., Ng, J., & Ng, J. (2017). Misinformation in a riot: a two-step flow
view. Online Information Review, 41(4), 438-453.

World Humanitarian Summit (2016) A world in crisis. (image). Retrieved from

https://www.careinternational.org.uk/emergencies/world-humanitarian-summit-
2016