Tobias Ed
Global Security Department, Associated Press, Washington, DC, USA.
J Bus Contin Emer Plan. 2011 Oct;5(3):208-23.
The recent use of social media by protesters in Iran, Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere has focused new attention on this communications medium. Government agencies and businesses, as well, are using social media to push information to their stakeholders. Those who are on the front lines of this information revolution, however, realise that social media is most effective when the communication is two-way. Unlike other media, social media allows information sharing. This, in turn, provides emergency managers with new situational-awareness resources when trying to mitigate an incident. As Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate told Information Week on January 19th, 2011: 'We can adjust much quicker if we can figure out how to have (a) two-way conversation and if we can look at the public as a resource. The public is putting out better situational awareness than many of our own agencies can.' This paper provides examples of how social media can be used as a situational-awareness resource and specific 'tools' that can be used to assist with this task.
伊朗、埃及、也门及其他地区的抗议者近期对社交媒体的使用，使人们对这一通信媒介重新给予了关注。政府机构和企业也在利用社交媒体向其利益相关者推送信息。然而，处于这场信息革命前沿的人们意识到，社交媒体在双向交流时最为有效。与其他媒体不同，社交媒体允许信息共享。这反过来又为应急管理人员在试图减轻事故影响时提供了新的态势感知资源。正如联邦紧急事务管理局（FEMA）局长克雷格·富盖特在2011年1月19日对《信息周刊》所说：“如果我们能搞清楚如何进行双向对话，并且将公众视为一种资源，我们就能更快地做出调整。公众提供的态势感知比我们许多机构自身能提供的还要好。”本文提供了社交媒体如何用作态势感知资源的示例，以及可用于协助完成这项任务的具体“工具”。
