An investigation of spontaneous volunteers’ social media engagement in emergency disaster management

This research aims to understand how social media platforms facilitate spontaneous volunteers to participate in the actual crisis communication for major disasters. It collects suggestions from spontaneous volunteers to better communicate with them and integrate them with official responders and traditional volunteer organisations for efficient disaster management.

The study will:

• describe how social media acts as a resource and facilitates spontaneous volunteers to communicate, collect information, share knowledge, promote their cause and achieve their objectives before, during and after a disaster
• explore spontaneous volunteer experiences of using social media to plan, manage, respond to and support emergency management. It will investigate how social media supports their agency, and ability to form bottom-up self-organised groups using their digital voice
• collect suggestions from spontaneous volunteers to provide better communication and integrate them with official responders and traditional volunteer organisations for efficient disaster management.