The Role of Social Media in Disaster Management: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions

Social media is becoming an important tool for creating and disseminating news stories. It has become an alternative to new media, especially when things become chaotic and unpredictable in scenarios like disasters. Unfortunately, the number of man-made and natural disasters has increased in recent decades. Social media, combined with crowdsourcing, is proven to help address the effects of natural and human-made disasters. In this book chapter, first, we provide a brief review of how social media is being used in the context of disasters. Second, we present a use case of how social media is used in disaster situations providing a detailed account of the type and nature of messages that took place on the Twitter platform during Hurricane Sandy. Finally, based on a detailed literature review, we outline the opportunities and challenges of using social media for disaster management and also shed light on future directions.