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Emergency and Disaster Management
Research, Publications & Creative Work
Barriers; emergency management; Facebook; social media; Twitter
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Barriers To Use Of Social Media By Emergency Managers, Linda Plotnick, Starr Roxanne Hiltz
Barriers To Use Of Social Media By Emergency Managers, Linda Plotnick, Starr Roxanne Hiltz
Research, Publications & Creative Work
Social media (SM) are socio-technical systems that have the potential to provide real-time information during crises and thus to help protect lives and property. Yet, US emergency management (EM) agencies do not extensively use them. This mixed-methods study describes the ways SM is used by county-level US emergency managers, barriers to effective SM use, and recommendations to improve use. Exploratory interviews were conducted with US public sector emergency managers to elicit attitudes about SM. This was followed by a survey of over 200 US county level emergency managers. Results show that only about half of agencies use SM at all. …