Start Date

16-8-2018 12:00 AM

Description

Could a Tweet save a life? The attention that public agencies and IS research have been dedicating to social media analysis in the last ten years seem to assume it could. Not only IS research in crisis-management is deeply oriented to harness the power of social media analysis, but public agencies are also following on this wave of enthusiasm for information extraction from social media (Twitter in particular). Our paper is an attempt to challenge some of the assumptions behind the ability to use crisis-related information on social media effectively, in particular, geospatial data. In particular, we suggest that current estimates about the volume of georeferenced data might be overoptimistic and ~35% of the georeferenced might not be precise enough to be used effectively in crises response initiatives such as localizing victims in the aftermath of an \ earthquake.

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Aug 16th, 12:00 AM

Effective Use of Twitter Data in Crisis Management: The Challenge of Harnessing Geospatial Data

Could a Tweet save a life? The attention that public agencies and IS research have been dedicating to social media analysis in the last ten years seem to assume it could. Not only IS research in crisis-management is deeply oriented to harness the power of social media analysis, but public agencies are also following on this wave of enthusiasm for information extraction from social media (Twitter in particular). Our paper is an attempt to challenge some of the assumptions behind the ability to use crisis-related information on social media effectively, in particular, geospatial data. In particular, we suggest that current estimates about the volume of georeferenced data might be overoptimistic and ~35% of the georeferenced might not be precise enough to be used effectively in crises response initiatives such as localizing victims in the aftermath of an \ earthquake.