Presentation to the Eidos National Conference - "Social Media in Times of Crisis" 4 April 2013

1. Dr Mark Bahnisch, Fellow of the Centre
for Policy Development

3.  http://larvatusprodeo.net/archives/2013/04
/sociological-insights-into-social-media-in-
times-of-crisis/

4.  When things that are unexpected or disturbing occur, we
can see what we often cannot and this is firstly why
„natural‟ disasters are also social events (Burgess 2006)
and secondly why “disasters expose our social structure
more sharply than other important events” (Perrow, 1998).
 Thornbug, Kottnerus and Webb (2007) suggest that crises
„deritualise‟, and thus pose problems for meaning and
action. Faced with these problems, communications assist
sense giving and communal processes reveal patterns of
distributed and collective sense making (Kendra &
Wachtendorf 2006). Empirical research on disaster
response shows that the first impulse is often not just to
reach out to neighbours, friends, family, citizens but also
to work out together what is happening and what can
happen. Social media can amplify and bring order to these
impulses.

5.  Social class, it has been found, most significant
predictor of awareness of flood risk (Burningham et al
2008). It would be surprising if similar results weren't
obtained for other forms of risk. While on one
hand, disasters reveal an imagined community
encompassing the interdependence of many smaller
networks, on the other hand this revelation of
networks and network effects can lead to both
resilience/solidarity and discord (Albright 2006).
 Informational capacities and their leveraging into the
capacities for co-ordinated action are variable
according to the pre-existent strength of networks
and of trust. So we need to think about the fact that
social networks, repricocity and trust are important
elements of „social resilience‟ (Patterson et al
2007), and to take 'social resilience' into account.

6.  There is a reason why, in the aftermath of the Brisbane
floods in 2011:
 (a) Areas with low levels of social capacity (Goodna, for
instance) suffered most from the inability to insure risk and to
attract „voluntary‟ assistance in rehabiliting physical spaces;
and -
 (b) Areas with high levels of social capacity (Kenmore, for
instance) exhibited symptoms of individualistic self-interest at
crisis points – where affluence reigns and community is
hidden, „each person for themselves‟ will tend to become a
rule.
 The now (unfortunate) exemplar of this social law is the
fracturing of New Orleans along lines of race, class, and
ability. We can also see what occurred in the „recovery‟ as
an accentuation of a previously hidden (to many) social
crisis, a crisis of cohesion and equality.
 “Upstream” of the flood is the overall social story of who
people perceive their neighbour to be, and how willing
they are to co-operate.

7.  So, we can derive from this a principle – prescriptive communication
treating citizens as passive objects to be herded is unlikely to be
optimal, and is unjust as well as counter-productive from a democratic
perspective. Governance of social media emergency strategies needs to
emulate the figure of the good shepherd, who goes after the missing
sheep having already trusted the 99 sheep to find their own way.
 (a) In order to „normalise‟ action in times of crisis, strategies like
emergency plans are useful and effective because they empower.
Create, and enable the creation of patterns of ritual, habit and
meaning.
 (b) But policy also needs to understand that trust is variable within
communities, and to both work with the grain of emergent networks
which are revealed by crisis and to build capability and resilience into
networks that are frayed. There is not one platform, not one app, not
one community. Twitter, Facebook can be impediments as well as
enablers, and their reach will not be universal.
 (c) For instance, chains of communication may include the isolated to
a greater degree than realised, if a trusted other can be identified.
These models have robustness in small communities (as demonstrated
through research into bushfires in Victoria) but there is a challenge in
mapping these patterns and mobilising them in much more complex
urban formations.

8.  Contact me – mbahnisch@gmail.com
 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkBahnisch
 LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mbahnisch
 Academia.edu:http://uq.academia.edu/Mark
Bahnisch
 Blog: http://larvatusprodeo.net/