AUTHOR(S): 

Anssi Numminen, Jyri Rajamäki

TITLE

The Will to Use Social Media in Crisis Communication in the European Union Area

KEYWORDS

European Union; EU; Citizens; Crisis communication; Social media; Mobile technology

ABSTRACT

In this study we asked how people who are moving can get information about crises by mobile technology and whether there could be some solution(s) to improve the sharing of information via social media during crises. We also conducted a case analysis about how the Munich Police Department did their crisis communication via Twitter during the Munich shooting crisis. The crisis communication progress work in the EU is getting better by projects which are improving for example common information sharing environments and making the protocols for cooperating authorities in the EU. There are no common guidelines for social media environments in the EU for how to make crisis communication in social media uniform and of good quality between authorities and the public. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have become widely used in crisis situations, where authorities and public people have gotten and given information worldwide. Our conclusion was that there should be minimum guidelines between EU authorities for crisis communication on social media platforms. In the future, the most used social media platforms should be developed for better crisis communication possibilities and this could be started by challenging authorities to sit down to discuss with social media actors..

Cite this paper

Anssi Numminen, Jyri Rajamäki. (2017) The Will to Use Social Media in Crisis Communication in the European Union Area. International Journal of Internet of Things and Web Services, 2, 42-54