The use of social media in disaster situations has become a common phenomenon. Events such as the 2013 European floods or the Love Parade disaster in 2010, show that citizens, for example, use Facebook or Twitter to communicate with each other and (self-) organize help. Emergency service (BOS), such as the fire and police departments, communicate via social media with the public or use the content provided for situation assessment. The target of the research project is to study the positive and negative effects of social media in disaster situations, to enhance the objective and perceived security of citizens. To this end, empirical studies and published studies are used to research current usage patterns and future use potentials. Based on this, prototypes are developed and tested that both citizens and emergency services are supported. Besides the University of Siegen, the University of Paderborn as coordinator, IES Solutions (Italy), Oxford Computer Consultants, Tavistock Institute (both UK) Vestlandsforsking (Norway) and the Federation of European Union Fire Officer Associations (Luxembourg), the European Emergency Number Association (Belgium), the Institute of Fire and rescue technology (Germany) and the Scientific and Research Centre for Fire Protection (Poland) are involved.
This project is funded by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration with the delivery number 608352.
