IMPORTANCE AND INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND Research Paper

IMPORTANCE AND INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND DISASTER PREPAREDNESS - Research Paper Example This will also involve a discussion on the major challenges facing disaster management and how the social media can be used to defray these challenges. The paper will concentrate on information sharing, disaster preparation and decision-making as well as information collection. These four social media functions will then be mapped on to three crisis management phases of awareness, reaction, and recovery to outline how a variety of social media tools may be utilized to improve crisis communications. The paper will also share several cases of global organizations and governments that use social media for crisis management. The research paper proposes a model to improve government utilization of social media for crisis management that includes the necessity for a mandate, distinct guidelines and several key capabilities that need to be developed. The proposed tools will help governments and organizations in emergency management and disaster preparedness. According to Sturges (2004) crisis management is an important organizational function that deals with planning and dynamic occurrence reaction to situations as they take place, usually in unpredictable ways. The flowing effects of a happening crisis can thrash a country’s or an organization’s capability to function effectively and may bring about serious harm to its citizens, institutions, assets, and repute. The emergence of an array of social media tools has transformed the landscape of crisis management significantly over the last few years with promises for social action now becoming certainties. With the availability of various software tools such as online discussion forums and news aggregators, organizations are now able to distribute, attain, and scrutinize information in a more efficient manner and expansively. While social media has the capability to bar a crisis from getting out of control,