Application of Social Media in Crisis Management (eBook)

Babak Akhgar is Professor of Informatics and Director of CENTRIC (Center of excellence in terrorism, resilience, intelligence and organized crime research) at Sheffield Hallam University and Fellow of the British Computer Society. He has more than 100 referred publications in international journals and conferences on information systems with specific focus on knowledge management (KM). He is member of editorial boards of a number of international Journals, Chair and program committee member of several international conferences. He has extensive and hands on experience in development, management and execution of large international security initiatives (e.g. Application of social media in crisis management , intelligence based combating of terrorism and organised crime, Gun crime, cyber security, Big Data and cross cultural ideology polarization) with multi million Euros budgets. In addition to this he is the technical lead of 3 EU Security projects; "Courage" on Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism and "Athena project" on Application of social media and mobile devices in crisis management and TENSOR on identification of terrorist generated internet content. He has co-edited a book on Intelligence management (Knowledge Driven frameworks for combating Terrorism and Organised crime). His recent books are titled Strategic Intelligence Management (National Security Imperatives) and Information and Communications Technologies Emerging Trends in ICT Security, Application of Big Data for National Security and Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism-practitioners guide. Prof Akhgar is board member of European Organisation for Security (EOS), and member academic board of SAS UK.  David Waddington is Professor of Communications, Co-director of the Cultural, Communication & Computing Research Institute, Academic Chair of CENTRIC (Center of excellence in terrorism, resilience, intelligence and organized crime research) and Head of the Communication & Computing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). He was also Chair of his faculty's Research Ethics Committee from February 2008 to February 2013.  Waddington has been employed at SHU (which was previously known as Sheffield City Polytechnic) since 1983 - initially as a Postdoctoral Research Associate on an ESRC project investigating 'Communication processes within and around "flashpoints" of Public Disorder'. This focus on the policing of riots, disorderly demonstrations and picket-line confrontations was instrumental to the development of Waddington's 'Flashpoints Model of Public Disorder', which is frequently referred to in the European, North American and Antipodean policing literatures.  Among his best-known publications are the seminal (with Chas Critcher and Karen Jones, Routledge, 1989); Contemporary Issues in Public Disorder (Routledge, 1992); Public Order Policing: Theoretical and Practical Approaches (Willan, 2007); Rioting in France and the UK: A Comparative Analysis (co-edited with Fabien Jobard and Mike King, Willan, 2009); and Riots - An International Comparison (with Matthew Moran, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Waddington is currently on the International Editorial Board of Mobilization: An international Social Movements Journal. From 2011-2013 he was External Evaluator of the EU-funded GODIAC project, which brought together 12 European partner countries in search of a distinctively more enlightened and permissive 'European approach' to protest policing.   Detective Inspector Andrew Staniforth of West Yorkshire Police has extensive counter-terrorism experience in the UK. As a professionally qualified teacher, he has designed national counter-terrorism training and exercising programmes, delivered training to police commanders form across the world and has supported missions of the United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch. Andrew is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Leeds and a Non-Resident Fellow in Counter-Terrorism and National Security at the Trends Research and Advisory Institute. Andrew is the author and editor of numerous articles on counter-terrorism and national security. His most recent books include; Blackstone’s Counter-Terrorism Handbook (3rd edition) (Oxford University Press 2013); Blackstone’s Handbook of Ports and Borders Security (Oxford University Press 2013); Preventing Terrorism and Violent Extremism (Oxford University Press 2014); Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism Investigators Handbook (Elsevier, 2014); Blackstone’s Handbook of Cyber Crime Investigation (Oxford University Press in press 2017); and Big Data Applications for National Security (Elsevier 2015). Qualified in PRINCE2, Andrew now leads an innovative police research team at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire, progressing multi-disciplinary international research and innovation projects. Andrew is the Project Coordinator of ATHENA, funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme.

Acknowledgments 5
Contents 7
Editors’ Biographies 9
Authors’ Biographies 11
Contributors 15
Chapter 1: Introduction 17
1.1 Scope and Primary Objective 17
1.2 Identifying the Need for an Interactive Approach 18
1.3 An Overview of Contents 20
References 23
Part I: Human Factors and Recommendations for Best Practice 24
Chapter 2: Human Factors in Crisis, Disaster and Emergency: Some Policy Implications and Lessons of Effective Communication 25
2.1 Prevalent Myths and Misconceptions 25
2.2 Shared Fate and Unity of Purpose 26
2.3 Policy Implications 28
2.4 Lessons for Communication Strategy 30
2.5 A Place for Social Media 32
References 33
Chapter 3: Crisis Management, Social Media, and Smart Devices 35
3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Defining Crisis and Identifying Key Questions for Crisis Sense-Making 37
3.3 Unpacking Crisis Leadership Tasks and the Implications of Social Media and ‘Smart’ Devices 39
3.4 Summary and Prescriptive Reflections 43
References 45
Chapter 4: Case Studies in Crisis Communication: Some Pointers to Best Practice 48
4.1 Introduction 48
4.2 The Case Studies 49
4.3 Social Media and Public Disorder: The English Riots, 2011 49
4.3.1 Context 49
4.3.2 Public Use of Social Media 50
4.3.3 Police Use of Social Media 51
4.4 Social Media and Terrorist Incidents: The Oslo and Utoya Attacks, 2011 53
4.4.1 Context 53
4.4.2 Public Social Media Use 54
4.4.3 Official Communications and Use of Social Media 55
4.5 Social Media and Natural Disasters: The Tohoku Earthquake 57
4.5.1 Context 57
4.5.2 Public Use of Social Media 58
4.5.3 Official Use of Social Media 60
4.6 Review of Best Practice and Recommendations 61
4.6.1 Recommendation 1: Social Media Use Should Be Planned and Established Well in Advance of a Crisis 62
4.6.2 Recommendation 2: Strategies Should Be Used to Maximise the Potential of Public Use of Social Media, While Minimising Potential Risks 62
4.6.3 Recommendation 3: Social Media Should Be Employed in a Timely Manner 63
4.6.4 Recommendation 4: The Official Social Media Source Must Inspire Public Confidence 63
4.6.5 Recommendation 5: Crisis Communicators Should Engage in Two-Way Communication 64
4.6.6 Recommendation 6: Social Media Messages Must Adopt an Appropriate Tone 64
4.6.7 Recommendation 7: Social Media Communications Should Be Clear and Unambiguous 64
4.6.8 Recommendation 8: Access to Social Media and Mobile Internet Must Be Considered 65
References 65
Part II: Technological Design and Development of ATHENA 69
Chapter 5: Best Practices in the Design of a Citizen Focused Crisis Management Platform 70
5.1 Introduction 70
5.2 Social Media in Crisis Situations 72
5.3 Managing Information Overload 74
5.4 Information Credibility 75
5.4.1 Prioritization 78
5.5 Map-Based Interfaces 79
5.6 Mobile Devices and Applications 80
5.7 Search and Rescue 82
5.8 Concluding Recommendations 84
References 85
Chapter 6: Analyzing Crowd-Sourced Information and Social Media for Crisis Management 87
6.1 Introduction 87
6.2 Obtaining Structured Crisis Data 88
6.3 Assessing Credibility and Priority 90
6.3.1 Credibility Assessment of Twitter Messages 94
6.4 Sentiment Analysis 96
6.4.1 Sentiment Taxonomy 97
6.4.2 Example of ATHENA Sentiment Analysis 97
6.5 Aggregation to Reduce Information Overload 98
6.6 Filtering and Searching 99
6.6.1 Design Considerations 101
6.6.1.1 Geographical Location 101
6.6.1.2 Validity, Credibility, and Priority 101
6.6.1.3 Information Source 102
6.6.1.4 Ability to Perform Free-Text Searches 102
6.6.1.5 Information Aggregation 102
6.6.2 Requirements for Filtering and Searching During a Crisis 103
6.6.3 Requirements for Filtering and Searching Postcrisis 103
6.7 Results and Evaluation 104
6.8 Conclusion 105
References 105
Chapter 7: The ATHENA Mobile Application 107
7.1 Introduction 107
7.2 Description of the ATHENA Mobile App and User Types 109
7.3 ATHENA Mobile App Features 113
7.3.1 ATHENA Mobile Crisis Map 113
7.3.1.1 Map Pins 113
7.3.1.2 Searches and Filters 115
7.3.1.3 Map Services: Google Map and Open Street Maps 115
7.3.1.4 Zones 116
7.3.2 List View 116
7.3.3 ‘Send a Report’ Feature 117
7.3.4 ‘I Need Help’ Feature 119
7.3.5 Messages (Trusted Users Only) Feature 121
7.4 Conclusions 121
References 122
Chapter 8: Standardization to Deal with Multilingual Information in Social Media During Large-­Scale Crisis Situations Using Crisis Management Language 124
8.1 Introduction 124
8.2 Numbers of Messages and Speed of Dissemination 126
8.3 Filtering by Sources and Types of Social Media Communications 127
8.4 Multiple Natural (Human) Languages in Crises 129
8.5 Text Analytics 131
8.6 The Problem of Synonymy 132
8.7 Crisis Management Language 133
8.8 ‘CML Light’ for Social Media in Crises 135
8.9 Information Quality 137
8.10 Summary 139
References 139
Chapter 9: Cloud-Based Intelligence Aquisition and Processing for Crisis Management 141
9.1 Introduction 141
9.2 Problem Definition 142
9.3 ATHENA Logic Cloud 146
9.3.1 Service Proxies 148
9.3.2 Interoperability: Principles and Tools 149
9.3.3 Contextualized Request and Delivery of Information 152
9.4 The A-Cloud and Security 153
9.4.1 Security Properties 153
9.4.2 Securing the A-Cloud 155
9.5 Martello 155
9.5.1 Interaction Model 156
9.6 Live Testing Exercise 157
9.7 Conclusion 159
References 160
Part III: Salient Legal Considerations 162
Chapter 10: The Relevant Legal Framework 163
10.1 Introduction 163
10.2 Legal Framework 164
10.2.1 The Council of Europe 164
10.2.2 The European Union 165
10.3 Data Protection Principles 166
10.3.1 New Legislation 167
10.3.2 Exemptions 168
10.3.3 Member States’ Laws 169
10.3.4 Jurisprudence 169
10.4 ATHENA 170
10.4.1 The Crisis Mobile App 170
10.4.2 Social Media 171
10.4.3 The Crisis Information Processing Centre (CIPC) 171
10.4.4 Crisis Command and Control Intelligence Dashboard 172
10.5 Potential Issues 172
10.6 Additional Considerations 175
10.7 Conclusion 176
Chapter 11: Legal Considerations Relating to the Police Use of Social Media 177
11.1 Introduction 177
11.2 ATHENA 178
11.3 Police Use of Social Media 180
11.4 Legislative Instruments 184
11.5 Applying the Law 186
11.6 Issues Relating to ATHENA 190
11.7 Conclusion 192
References 194
Part IV: Testing and Evaluating the ATHENA System 197
Chapter 12: Preliminary ATHENA Case Studies: Test-Bed Development and Delivery 198
12.1 Introducing the Case Studies: Their Purposes and Objectives 198
12.2 The First Exercise: Izmir (Turkey) 199
12.3 The Second Exercise (Ljubljana, Slovenia) 202
12.4 The Third Exercise (Ljubljana, Slovenia) 204
12.4.1 Background and Design 204
12.4.2 Implementing the ATHENA System 205
12.5 Outcomes and Lessons Learned 207
12.6 Conclusion 209
Chapter 13: The Final ATHENA Test Case: An Integrated View of ATHENA 210
13.1 Introduction 210
13.2 The Exercise 211
13.2.1 Location 211
13.2.2 Participants 212
13.2.3 The Scenarios 215
13.2.3.1 Background 215
13.2.3.2 Scenario One: A Normal Day [Approximately 20 min] 215
13.2.3.3 Scenario Two: Conflict [Approximately 30 min] 216
13.2.3.4 Scenario Three: Bus Attack [Approximately 30 min] 217
13.2.3.5 Scenario Four: Gas Leak [Approximately 25 min] 217
13.2.3.6 Scenario Five: Vulnerable Adult with Child [Approximately 3 h] 219
13.2.3.7 Social Media Activity 219
13.3 Data Collection 220
13.3.1 Direct and Participant Observation 220
13.3.2 Feedback Questionnaire 220
13.3.3 Group Interview Session 221
13.4 Evaluating the ATHENA System 221
13.4.1 Technology 222
13.4.2 User Needs 223
13.4.3 Ethical Considerations 226
13.4.4 Additional Considerations 228
13.5 Conclusions 228
Chapter 14: Concluding Remarks 230
14.1 The ATHENA Initiative: Raising ‘Situational Awareness’ 230
14.2 Communicative Requirements 231
14.3 Technological Components 232
14.4 Legal and Practical Considerations 233
Reference 234
Index 235