Information School News

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly and Research Associate Dr. Ioanna Tantanasi have published an article entitled ‘Social media’s not all bad- it’s saving lives in disaster zones ‘ for the Conversation UK last week. The piece draws on their  CascEff and IMPROVER work on social media and crisis communication. Thanks to Stephen Harris for his editorial support and the invitation to comment on this issue.

Dr Ioanna Tantanasi has joined the Information School as a Research Associate. She will work with Work Package leader Dr Paul Reilly on the EU Horizon 2020 project 'IMPROVER.' Ioanna will help develop educational resources for the project and will also be responsible for co-authoring peer-reviewed outputs. We would like to welcome her to the Information School and look forward to working with her over the next nine months.

This week, Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly will be presenting two papers at the MeCCSA conference , which will be held at London South Bank University (10-12 January). The first one builds on Dr Reilly's research on social media and contentious politics in Northern Ireland, with the second based on data collected as part of the Horizon 2020 project IMPROVER . The programme for the conference can be found here and the abstracts of Dr Reilly's two talks can be found below: 1) Reilly, P. Loyalists against Democracy: Assessing the role of social media parody accounts in contentious Northern Irish politics Abstract: Parody accounts on social media have emerged as one of the key focal points for the debate of contentious political issues in Northern Ireland over the past five years. Some commentators have praised these accounts for providing a voice for the ‘silent majority,’ while others have condemned what they view as their crude stereotyping of working-class loyalist communitie...

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly's CascEff research report on the role of social and traditional media in crisis communication has been cited in the UK Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology POSTnote 564: Communicating Risk. Dr Reilly was also one of several UK academics to be an invited reviewer of this publication. It can be downloaded here .

Last week, Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly, along with Dr Tina McGuiness from the Management School, ran an event for local schools entitled 'Could social media help you during a disaster?', as part of the 2017 ESRC Festival of Social Science. The description of the event was: Can social media help build disaster resilience in Sheffield? What role, if any, should social media users, and young people in particular, play in efforts to mitigate the effects of these incidents in their communities and help keep themselves and others safe? Recent research has suggested that social media can help emergency services during human made and natural disasters through the ‘push and pull’ of crisis information. The eyewitness perspectives shared by citizens on social media can help first responders build situational awareness and identify those areas most in need of assistance. At the same time, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can provide emotional and material support to those affec...

Dr Paul Reilly and Dr Elisa Serafinelli presented the AESOP guidelines at the 5th International Crisis Communication Conference that took place in Lisbon, Portugal between 19-21 October, 2017. The list guidelines for effective crisis communication has been developed within the Horizon 2020 funded EU project IMPROVER . The paper discussed how critical infrastructure resilience can be enhanced through the communication practices of critical infrastructure operators. In its conclusion,the paper proposed a set of guidelines (AESOP) for critical infrastructure operators to implement in order to increase critical infrastructure resilience through the use of both traditional and digital media.

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly is currently looking for a full-time Research Associate (fixed term for 22 months, to start as soon as possible with provisional end date of 30 May 2018, and probable extension to 31 August 2018) for the EC Horizon 2020 project IMPROVER: Improved risk evaluation and implementation of resilience concepts to critical infrastructure.’ The closing date for applications is 22 November 2017 and further details on the role can be found here If you have any questions about the role please contact Paul at: P.J.Reilly@sheffield.ac.uk

Dr Elisa Serafinelli presented the AESOP Guidelines for effective communication between Critical Infrastructure operators and members of the public during crisis situations at the IMPROVER project workshop that was held at the Joint Research Centre, in Ispra Italy on the 11th and 12th May 2017. Recommendations included: creating platforms and/or channels of communication that can provide feedback about CI operators’ services before, during and after a major incident. The guidelines was published along with the deliverables for task 4.2. Researchers, operators and the IMPROVER consortium joined forces for two days of presentations, knowledge sharing, and networking. The workshop was also an opportunity to present IMPROVER project activities and results in order to get feedback from critical infrastructures (CI) operators.

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 ...

Rémy Bossu, Laura Peterson and Charlotte Farras from the Euro-Med Seismological Centre (pictured alongside the iSchool's Dr Paul Reilly and Dr Dimitrinka Atanasova) visited the University last week as part of the EC Horizon 2020 project IMPROVER. The two day workshop (19-20 January), organised by Work Package leader Dr Paul Reilly, brought together researchers from the University of Sheffield and the EMSC to discuss the role of social media in disaster response. Both partners are currently working on two deliverables for IMPROVER, which will focus on public expectations of critical infrastructure during disasters and the role of social media in creating early warning systems for people who live in disaster prone areas. These deliverables will be made available on the project website ( www.improverproject.eu ) later this year. The workshop also marked Dr Atanasova's last contribution to IMPROVER before she leaves the Information School in February 2016. On behalf of Dr...