| Studies have been done on the role social media plays in the preparedness, mitigation, deployment, and recovery effort from a major disaster. This study examines whether or not there were differences between first responders and citizens contributing to emergency management responsiveness using social media in disaster preparedness, mitigation response, and recovery efforts in Miami-Dade, Broward, West Palm Beach, and Monroe Counties. The problem addressed in this study, although many emergency management agencies use social media during disasters, the knowledge, type, usage, behaviors, and impact and whether or not the public and first responders collectively will support a two-way social media communication system is unknown. The purpose of this research is to investigate and contribute to current research to gain an understanding of whether citizens and first responders will participate in using social media before, during and after a disaster. The social network theoretical framework was used for this study. This theory attempts to identify and clarify the impact on and to social media use during a disaster as well as the actions of individuals, type of social media uses, ties, linkage, and behavior of various social media groups. This research data shows that there were no differences between first responders and citizens contributing to emergency management responsiveness using social media. |
