Toward More Audience-Oriented Approaches to Crisis Communication and Social Media Research

Since the launch of sites such as Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006, and Instagram in 2010, social media have altered the pace and landscape of crisis communication. People post thousands of tweets per second as crises unfold, for example, and now often obtain crisis news and updates from family and friends online before professional news media report it. Social media have opened up new possibilities for crises as well. Indeed, people use social media for more than crisis information seeking or sharing. In the context of disasters, they increasingly expect emergency managers to constantly monitor and respond to social media posts, often demanding immediate action. However, emergency responders have yet to fully catch up with the demand, still primarily using social media for one-way information pushing rather than responding to and conversing with their publics.