Twitter and natural disasters: lessons from Japan
papers that have so far discussed Twitter at around 3,000, many of those studies point to the important role Twitter has played in quickly disseminating information about world events, such as Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, terrorism in Mumbai and other places, Iran street protests, and events that have since unfurled in the Middle East, the earthquake in Chile, flooding, forest fires, shooting incidents, and even the crash-landing of a passenger aircraft on the Hudson River in New York. As such, some researchers have suggested that Twitter is more than a communication tool and can function as real-time earthquake detection, election results forecasting, enterprise microblogging, as well as in word-of-mouth marketing, foreign language learning, celebrity watching, and media profiling.
Adam Acar and Yuya Muraki found that Twitter posts in disaster struck areas and the areas that are indirectly affected were somewhat similar. Most of the tweets in disaster -hit areas were warnings, help requests, and reports about the environment. Official local authority Twitter accounts set up at the time of the earthquake were particularly useful, well followed and retweeted extensively, especially when warnings of an imminent tsunami were predicted. The team adds updates asking desperately for help were “heart-breaking,” while other updates highlighted specific happenings such as the rise and fall of the sea, burning buildings, and explosions. The biggest problem, however, was the reliability of twitter updates, particularly in calls for help, that were misplaced or lies.
Another problem they uncovered was the low signal-to-noise ratio for messages using hashtags. Hashtags are keywords prefixed with the # symbol that would normally allow users to filter updates of interest. Hashtag misuse led to difficulties in finding important messages in the areas earthquake hit directly. The researchers also found that although many users were concerned by the number of unfounded rumors, there were too few official updates from the government and the mass media
There are three major conclusions that emerge from the study, the team says, although whether or not these would improve the value of Twitter in times of disaster remains to be seen. First, all users should have more responsibility for their tweets. Secondly, everyone should realize that Twitter is a public communication tool. Thirdly, information sources should be made clearer in updates. They add that appropriate use of hashtags and a method for regulating inappropriate or false retweets might be implemented. Further research is now needed to assess whether or not announcing official hashtags during disasters would solve any of the problems seen during recent tragic events in Japan.
—Read more in “Twitter for Crisis Communication: Lessons Learnt from Japan’s Tsunami Disaster,” International Journal of Web Based Communities (2011, in press)
