Leveraging Social Computing for Personalized Crisis Communication using Social Media.
BACKGROUND
The extensive use of social media in modern life redefines social interaction and communication. Communication plays an important role in mitigating, or exacerbating, the psychological and behavioral responses to critical incidents and disasters. As recent disasters demonstrated, people tend to converge to social media during and following emergencies. Authorities can then use this media and other computational methods to gain insights from the public, mainly to enhance situational awareness, but also to improve their communication with the public and public adherence to instructions.


METHODS
The current review presents a conceptual framework for studying psychological aspects of crisis and risk communication using the social media through social computing.


RESULTS
Advanced analytical tools can be integrated in the processes and objectives of crisis communication. The availability of the computational techniques can improve communication with the public by a process of Hyper-Targeted Crisis Communication.


CONCLUSIONS
The review suggests that using advanced computational tools for target-audience profiling and linguistic matching in social media, can facilitate more sensitive and personalized emergency communication.
Department of Emergency Medicine, Recanati School for Community Health Professions, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Dmitry
D
Leykin
Department of Emergency Medicine, Recanati School for Community Health Professions, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Limor
L
Aharonson-Daniel
The Community Stress Prevention Centre (CSPC), Israel; MA program in Dramatherapy, Tel-Hai College, Upper Galile, Israel.
Mooli
M
Lahad