More Research on Boston Marathon Official Twitter Activity #SMEM

Post by: Kim Stephens

Project Hazards Emergency Response and Online Informal Communication (HEROIC)* has posted two more reports that describe their research around the use of Twitter by public safety organizations during the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing (see the complete citation at the end of this post).  You can read them in their entirety by clicking the hyperlinked titles and then choosing “Research Highlights.”

• Tweeting Boston: The Influence of Micro-structure in Broadcasting Messages through Twitter
• Tweeting What Matters: Information, Advisories, and Alerts Following the Boston Marathon Events

Below, I briefly describe both of these reports and provide the most significant findings.

Emergency services working after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings

 Micro-structure in Broadcasting Messages

The Microstructure report reviews  “conversational microstructures.”  They specifically examined whether or not Federal, State or local entities took part in or were the focus of the conversation on Twitter.  For the purposes of the study,  conversational Tweets were identified if they included a hyperlink, a hashtag, an @ message  or were ReTweeted, each of which  “…signify varying dimensions of online engagement…. Aspects of conversational microstructure use are of interest because they provide insights into which Twitter messages are amplified and why.”

Findings

By studying the data in a systematic fashion (which they describe) they found something very interesting regarding the use of hashtags–by now a common item  in public Tweets, especially for advance notice events.  They discovered that even though this crisis lasted a week, there was NOT a consistent use of one particular hashtag by public safety organizations. They state:

While there were a series of events throughout the week, including the detonation of improvised explosive devices at the beginning of the week, the killing of a police officer at MIT, and the lockdowns of Boston and Watertown, there was no indication that a consistent hashtag emerged or trended among official organizations to organize their content into a traceable stream.

That finding, in my opinion, can be turned into a simple take-away lesson:  agencies that are part of the Joint Information System should immediately determine which hashtags will be used throughout an event to ensure the broadest possible message distribution (of note, the public initially used the tag #BostonMarathon, which was rarely used by public safety organizations). Furthermore, this could have easily been something decided upon when planning for the marathon. The researchers note:

Hashtags that were utilized varied by sector, such as #tweetfromthebeat, #WANTED, and #CommunityAlert by law enforcement, and #oneboston from local government, indicating different aspects of the response.  However, a single hashtag, related to the weeklong investigation and subsequent manhunt and capture, did not emerge.

Tweeting What Matters

Increasingly there are a variety of systems or channels in place to notify the public about what protective action measures they should take before, during or immediately following a crisis event. These systems include everything from the Emergency Alert System–which should reach almost everyone, to targeted text messages from local Universities,  to reverse phone calls from local government, to opt-in mobile applications from the State, etc., all of which were used at some point during the manhunt stage of the crisis. The Project HEROIC report, however, specifically examined Tweets that were posted that contained guidance  to  shelter-in-place, therefore “discussing the role of Twitter as a redundant channel for risk communications.”

Findings

Interestingly, they found that during the immediate aftermath of the bombing (on Monday) there were not a lot of official Tweets providing direction to the public. They speculate why: “…few [protective action] guidance-related tweets were posted, possibly signifying the lack of certainty about the event, the speed at which it unfolded, and having little information regarding what people should do in response.  However, at the end of the week, guidance tweets became more prevalent and focused on sheltering in place.”

They found that during the manhunt stage of the event Twitter was “definitely” used as a redundant channel to provide protective action guidance to the public; however, the public did not necessary repeat (ReTweet) these message as much as other content posted by official organizations. Again, this finding required the researchers  to speculate. They conclude that since the information about the protective action measure was provided  in so many different formats, it is quite possible that people did not feel the information required repeating–particularly not during the day once it was widely distributed and repeated on all forms of media.

Mission Hill Capture Celebrations

The take-aways for the researchers:

“With this in mind, it is becoming prudent for organizations to consider the kinds of information that is most desired by an online audience, at different points in time, and for different sectors of the public.

Messages can be crafted for both locally affected community members in need of advisories and guidance, as well as distant observers intent on serving as information conduits.  Future disaster communicators ought to learn from these detailed observations about public retweeting practices in order to determine how to more effectively focus, shape, and share messages that make a difference.”

Let me know what you think. Does their analysis fit with your own experience?

Sources:

Sutton, J., Johnson, B.,  Spiro, E.,  and Butts, C. (2013). “Tweeting What Matters: Information, Advisories, and Alerts Following the Boston Marathon Events.” Online Research Highlight. http://heroicproject.org

Sutton, J., Spiro, E., Johnson, B., Fitzhugh, S., and Butts, C. (2013). “Tweeting Boston: The Influence of Microstructure in Broadcasting Messages through Twitter.” Online Research Highlight. http://heroicproject.org

**Project HEROIC is a collaborative, NSF funded effort by researchers at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the University of California-Irvine to better understand the dynamics of informal online communication in response to extreme events.

Related articles

• Researchers Review Boston Bombing Social Media Activity (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• 3 Observations: Social Media and the Boston PD #BostonMarathon (idisaster.wordpress.com)
• Boston Marathon: Social Key in Response (cnbc.com)
• Research in to use of hashtags on Twitter (protohub.net)

Researchers Study Waldo Canyon Fire Twitter Activity

Post by: Kim Stephens

U.S. Air Force Academy Waldo Canyon Fire (Photo credit: Official U.S. Air Force)

Researchers at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the University of California-Irvin are currently participating in a project titled “Project Heroic”  (funded by the National Science Foundation). The overarching objective is “to better understand the dynamics of informal online communication in response to extreme events.”

As part of this project, the team turned their attention to analyzing Tweets surrounding the recent Waldo Canyon Fire, which started June 23, 2012. This fire was a significant event–the introduction to the research report summarizes the stats:

Over 32,000 residents from Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs and Woodland Park, as well as several small mountain communities along Highway 24, were forced to evacuate… More than 346 homes were destroyed… U.S. Highway 24 was closed in both directions for much of the event. The Waldo Canyon Fire is the most expensive fire in Colorado State history with insurance claims totaling more than US$352.6 million dollars, according to The Gazette.

This significance was reflected in the amount of Twitter “buzz” surrounding the event as well. The research team collected over 100,000 messages that used the hashtag #Waldocanyonfire from more than 25,000 unique Twitter users. (I find it interesting that they only analyzed Twitter data, however, the ability to easily quantify and sort the information makes the platform desirable for researchers.)

http://www.heroicproject.org/

They examined the data based on several factors: time of day Tweets were posted, content, who was posting (citizens or government organizations connected to the response effort) and who was following those accounts. Specifically they asked: Did these accounts have an increase in followers, and if so, what Tweeting behavior led to the greatest increase? (Not a surprise, they found that the more information an organization provides, the more people follow them.)  In terms of content, the Wordall above was used as a graphical representation of the types of information relayed by government accounts. As can be seen “evacuation” was the most often mentioned.

One thing I  found really interesting were the results of the Retweet analysis. They assumed that government information would be repeated, especially during an emergency, however, they found “this increase is largest for [local] organizations.” An aphorism often stated by the emergency management community is “All disasters are local”–Twitter is proving that statement to be more than a common saying. This also means, to me, that local organizations should learn how to use these tools–but that’s another post.

Lesson Learned

Based on their findings they drew some conclusions–which, by the way, are some of the same conclusions we in the SMEM community have noticed with only anecdotal evidence. It is quite nice to have hard numbers to back up our own observations. They found:

• When an event occurs local organization gain large numbers of followers.
• Establishing a social media strategy pre-event is important. Organizations should not judge attention demand for social media during non-event periods.
• Content generation on Twitter varies in a predictable way based on the time of day. Interpreting changes in attention needs to take this diurnal cycle into account.
• Original content tends to be produced by local organizations, while retweeted content tends to come from non-locals.
• Low rates of directed messaging indicate a trend to use Twitter as a broadcast channel more than a conversational channel.
• Inclusion of a URLs may show that these organizations recognize the limitations of information shared via Twitter, perhaps due to the character lengths, requiring links out to additional information.
• Hashtag use indicates these organizations are developing a sophistication in how to participate effectively during a disaster event.

Related articles

• WALDO CANYON FIRE: Social media dominates flow of fire info (gazette.com)
• How Social Media Is Helping Colorado Wildfire Relief (mashable.com)
• WALDO CANYON FIRE: UCCS already studying lessons to be learned (gazette.com)
• 9 Shocking Twitter Pictures From the Colorado Springs Wildfire (mashable.com)
• Social Media to Colorado’s Rescue (marchpr.com)
• Colorado fires sweep social media sites as readers look for info (denverpost.com)
• Colorado TV station uses hashtag in fire coverage (lostremote.com)