Paper co-authored by Paul Reilly, Elisa Serafinelli and colleagues nominated for ISCRAM prize

A paper co-authored by Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly, Research Associate Dr Elisa Serafinelli and their colleagues from EMSC was nominated for a prize at the 2017 ISCRAM (Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management) conference.

This work, entitled 'Public expectations of social media use by critical infrastructure operators in crisis communication' and based on results from the EC H2020 IMPROVER project, explores public expectations of social media use by critical infrastructure operators during crisis situations.

Previous research into the role of social media in crisis communication has tended to focus on how sites such as Twitter are used by emergency managers rather than other key stakeholders, such as critical infrastructure (CI) operators. This paper adds to this emergent field by empirically investigating public expectations of information provided by CI operators during crisis situations. It does so by drawing on key themes that emerged from a review of the literature on public expectations of disaster related information shared via social media, and presenting the results of an online questionnaire-based study of disaster-vulnerable communities in France, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. Results indicate that members of the public expect CI operators to provide disaster related information via traditional and social media and to respond quickly to their queries on social media. CI operators should avail of the opportunities provided by social media to provide real-time information to disaster affected communities.

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