social media and the 2013 uk heat wave - iscram 2014

Social media and the 2013 UK heatwave: opportunities and challenges for

future events

AuthorsHayley Watson and Rachel L. Finn

Trilateral Research & Consulting

19 May 2014, ISCRAM, USA.

@COSMIC_FP7

http://www.cosmic-project.eu

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

Duration

24 months

Total funding

€1,228,896.00

Team

7 Partners from 5 countries

Co-ordinator

European Dynamics (Greece)

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ABOUT COSMIC

COSMIC will deliver a set of instructions, recommendations & best practices for the use of social media in emergency situations.

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This paper…

• To consider: does the type of crisis have the ability to impact the value of the use of social media in a crisis?

• This paper is part of a wider examination of 8 case studies.

• Methodology:• Non-representative, exploratory

analysis of the use of SM during the 2013 UK heat wave.

• Policy documents, news articles, websites, SM feeds - national weather forecasters, public health bodies, charities and critical infrastructure providers


THE HEATWAVE

• July - August 2013

• South East England – 32°C / 89.6°F – triggered a level three warning as temps had exceeded the level for 3 consecutive days.

• 540-760 excess deaths in England, 60-100 in Wales (early estimates)

• Dry weather led to storms – caused disruption to transport service providers, power supplies.

• Public Heath England primarily used e-mail, television and radio to issue heat wave warnings


USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

SM used by authorities, service organisations and charities to distribute messages about the event and its health implications and other effects via one-way communication:

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USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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FUNCTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Service organisations used SM as a form of two-way communication to collect information from the public about vulnerable individuals and power outages

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ENGAGEMENT

SM less successful for relaying information

•BRC few re-tweets: 70, 745 followers – less than 15 retweets of health related messages.

•Virgin Trains messages were re-tweeted six times.

•Retweets from individuals rather than information brokers – One exception is the UK Power Networks message, which was re-

tweeted by the Peterborough Telegraph, a regional newspaper.

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AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT – UK MET OFFICE – 5,419 SUBSCRIBERS

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HASH TAGS

• #heatwave– Mixed use – health messages, preparedness, commercial –

advertising, personal – complaining/celebrating.

• Mixed Geography…The hashtag also included information about heat waves in other locations (e.g., Germany and the USA) making it difficult to use it to organise information about the events in the UK.

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IN COMPARISON…

• Boston attacks - BPD; – from 55,000 followers, to three hours after the attacks growing to

100,000 followers, and by the end of the ordeal, they had grown to having 300,000 followers (McKay, 2014).

• Explanation:

– Type of crisis? – Newsworthiness

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ACCOUNTING FOR A LACK OF ENGAGEMENT…

• Type of crisis & who it affects…Who is using social media

• Met Office Facebook page included a general discussion of people enjoying the hot weather, as well as a comment that (sarcastically) questioned the use of warnings

• The way it was used by some organisations – could it have been better?


“Do we really need warnings we survived without them before

here's a clue if the sun is shining it could get hot you don't need to tell

us”.

“Do we really need warnings we survived without them before

here's a clue if the sun is shining it could get hot you don't need to tell

us”.

LESSONS LEARNED

• Traditional methods of communications remain valuable

• We can’t rely solely on the public to relay information…instead efforts are needed to encourage working relationships between different stakeholders in preparing for, responding to & recovering from a crisis

• Remember – AMM “Audience, Message & Medium”

• Reflection needed on the value of SM important to progressing in this area

• Further research that considers the type of crisis

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COSMIC – NEXT STEPS…

Istanbul – International workshop – 4 September 2014Involving Citizens in Emergency Preparedness and Response4


Guidelines – members of the public, as well as public & private organisations.

LinkedIn: COSMIC Project

THANK YOU

If you have any further questions or would like to be kept up-to-date with the projects findings and events please contact:

•Hayley Watson: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

social media and the 2013 uk heat wave - iscram 2014

Environment