Social media in disaster risk reduction and crisis management

ISBN/ISSN: 1471-5546
Author(s): Number of pages: pp. 1-17

This paper reviews the actual and potential use of social media in emergency, disaster and crisis situations. It considers the widespread adoption and use of social media by members of the public throughout the world and the intense interest generated by this field, which leads to an examination of the ethics of social media usage in crisis situations. It addresses the imperative for emergency managers to adapt their working practices to the challenge and potential of this development and the need to heed the ethical warnings and ensure that social media are not abused or misused when crises and emergencies occur.

With kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media: Science and Engineering Ethics, December 2013, doi:10.1007/s11948-013-9502-z