Communication is vital in every organization, and more so in the inception and incorporation of disaster management. Different modes of communication instigates collaboration in various operations. There are different methods of communication, they involve techniques such as; physical interface, which is commonly referred to as face-to-face communication, and online communication. (Whybark, 2007). Online communication is the most popular and highly utilized form of communication in the world today. It is in this perspective, that online communication has been widely embraced and popular across the world, allowed to the vast and fast growth of technology over the years. There are various forms of online communication that cuts across telephone, visual and print media, and social media, among others. Social media tops the lists of online communication that has made online communication become very effective. The aim of this paper is to examine what facilitates effective online collaboration and organization. It will be achieved by discussing various examples and theories of online collaboration and organization in the context of disaster management.
There are many ways that an organization can use online tools to improve collaboration. In the event of disaster management, there is a need for an effective mode of communication, and thus, it becomes quite difficult to rely on the traditional methods of communication (Arazy, 2006). Personal communication is one of the oldest forms of communication, and is widely used in disaster management programs over the years widely before the inception and adoption of online communication. Personal communication is quite effective in instances where the victims of a catastrophe are in a short radius of distance and can be easily accessed (Scholtens, 2008). Other methods that can be used in disaster management include; online communication and the cellular calls among others. Since the interest of the paper is on online collaboration that emerges from online communication, the paper will go into details on how online communication can be utilized to improve disaster management programs.
Online communication plays an important role in disaster management. In the wake of a disaster that is either a man-made or a natural catastrophe, there are methods devised to save the victims (Mollick, 2014). The life of the victims should be well taken care of, meaning they should be mitigated in time and ensure that minimum losses are incurred. Use of technology and efficient communication are among the practical factors leading to effective disaster management programs (Latonero & Shklovski, 2011). Close observation shows that communication is vital in achieving the objectives of disaster management where online communication is one of them (Altay & Green, 2006).
Recent history has proved communication as not only a necessary tool of disaster management mitigation, but as the central tool for an effective disaster management program. Media is one of the forms of communication that contributes to collaboration in disaster management programs, more so catastrophes that strike unexpectedly and hard. People do not understand that media, as a form of online communication plays an important role in the management beside other skills like data management and analysis techniques. The primary use of media in the disaster management is increasing knowledge and awareness among the population of the world. The population becomes aware of the origin of hazards and the behavior, thus, equipping them with techniques of preventing them at the same time taking the necessary precaution, it has also helped in providing a prompt coverage and reporting (White, 2009). In general, the media enhances the response in the event of a disaster.
There are many theories studied in the Module showing contribution of online communication specifically the media on collaboration and organization, the theory brings to light the power of media in communication and network society. It reveals the relationship that exists between the communication and the power in the society. The literature highlights how media has become the center of power in the community and its effectiveness in the disaster management programs.
Admittedly, Castel (2007) contends to the fact that since communication provides the meaning of different things in the society, the role of the mind affects communication. He also defines the power as the structural capacity that a social actor imposes over the other social factors (Castels, 2007). There exists power relations in the entire institutional framework that were determined by the history of communication. The historical process can be defined using domination and counter domination. The example describes in depth the relationship that exists between the power, communication, and technology, and how these tools can be put together to bring about a very reliable disaster management program. Communication has influenced the way things are done nowadays, and this has been majorly accelerated by the invasion of social media.
The whole idea of the role that communication in general defines an effective disaster management program, is based on the socialized communication. It involves changing the people's mind to seek support. Media has played a significant role on how information is relayed in the world today. It acts as the primary channel and the connection between leaders and citizens, the television and social media lead in the line. However, the contribution of the written media is significant because it is believed to provide the in-depth information while the television gives diffused information to the audience. There is a great transformation of the current form of communication in the society. Various systems of leadership highly depend on the media to spread their memorandum and agendas and also to receive lesser hostility.
Despite that media playing a vital role in leadership, it does not mean that it solely results to power. Politicians for instance, have the power over the media, and this is a perfect example of how effective it can be when incorporated in disaster management programs. Social media works 24 hours unlike the other forms of media because it works around the clock due to the variations in time across the different parts of the world. It can relay the information for 24 hours, thus, becoming a very efficient form of communication, however, it is not all the information sent by the media is efficient. The media houses and channels have a significant influence on the reaction of the audience to an individual message, and the mandated workforce in disaster management programs need to take advantage of these platforms.
The other new media space is rise of self – communication, otherwise referred to as face- to- face communication. The emergence of the Internet has contributed the development of self-communication significantly, with platforms such as Skype becoming highly utilized in this effect. The digital media and mobile communication are the other tools of social media that have improved the way people connect everywhere around the globe at chosen times. In the recent past, the media was dominated by a type of communication that involved the distribution of a one-way message from one source to the other.
The Internet is leading in online collaboration because it provides a platform for the people to exchange message in a multimodal way that is transmitted in both synchronous and asynchronous manner. The Internet is not a new technology as it was first used in 1969 but it is only in the last decade that it gained popularity and spread over the world when it hit a billion users. Secondly, mobile technology is also on the increase with mobile users hitting the two billion mark of usage globally as compared to 19 million in the year 1991. With the cell phones, people can access the internet easily, especially the Social Media platforms such as; Facebook and Twitter among others.
With the combination of mobile phones, the internet with a mix of broadband technology has significantly boosted communication, more so online collaboration. The realm of social life has increased with invention of different means of sustaining the usability of mobile phones. Mass communication systems, SMS, blogs, and wikis are contributing much to the spread of information. The mode of communication has increased because the possibility of sharing files over the internet has been developed. This is to show how online collaboration can be effectively used in disaster management programs for efficiency and effectiveness.
The development of the web has contributed much in blogging. Recently, there have been many personal blogs made by individuals airing their views in regards to the world happenings at different periods of time. The other noticeable development is the corporate interest of the internet-based communication. In fact, it is among the significant developments that have led to increase in self-mass communication. Mass communication means that it reaches many people over the globe. The message can be received by everyone since it is multimodal and digitized, such that it can be converted into different forms which are compatible with freely downloadable software.
The same example can be widely applied in the field of disaster management. Cooperation and organization are vital to the success of disaster management. Online communication will assist the operation by ensuring that the people on the site of a catastrophe are informed because internet coverage is vast and widely spread. In addition, it is not easy to destroy internet coverage since it is not physical. Being connected is the most important thing in the operation during the disaster, however, as seen from the example, the online platform can make things worse rather than beneficial. The people on the internet can contribute much to distortion of the information. The media can change it to suit the expectation of the audience since they are in business. Two of the examples studied in Module II can confirm it.
The first example is the article written by The National Consortium: “The Study of Terrorism and Response Team.” It explains the social media use during a disaster, it describes the contribution of social media during the event of a disaster (Fraustino, Liu, & Jin, 2012). The article starts by explaining how the Americans for the first time stated that the internet is their most preferred and reliable source of information. Therefore, it is an implication that during the disaster, most of them are online and therefore, they can get their first-hand information direct as it happens. A good example is when the Tsunami hit Japan, most people were connected to the internet, and there were more than 5000 tweets per second. It shows how the people were able to follow the events of disaster online. Social media has varied use in the disaster.
After informing and sharing the disasters, the public puts pressure on the body mandated to oversee an operation, to respond and address the issues raised by the public. The other good example is a disaster that happened at 2010, and the American Red Cross were able to notice that 75% of the people who posted online had an expectation that help will arrive in the next one hour, and thus, the relevant body responded and help was dispatched in due time. Having this, proves that the social media is important and plays a very vital role in the event of disaster management, it is important to explore the role and what is known about social media in the event of a disaster. It also explores what needs to be tested and what is not known. It can be argued that the disaster management bodies usually risk using the social media information despite it being very effective.
Besides, there is a direct relationship between disaster communication and the media. First, the emergency management deals with the information and any communication made by the government, there are numerous bodies that are charged with the responsibility of managing emergencies, responders, and mostly the information shared by the public through the social media platform. Social media has emerged as a very vital tool of relaying information that can be utilized fully by disaster management programs. People are free to relay information and get comments and reply from the public, and thus, it can be rated as the most reliable and convenient method of relaying information. Besides, the old forms of communication that spanned from smoking and dispatching of messengers, new and improved media such as; newspapers, television, radio, and face-to-face communication are more conventional, and thus, they help in spreading the message. The social media communication is timely and reaches everyone across the globe, thus being the most reliable followed closely by visual media.
There are various reasons why the public prefer using the social media to other forms of communication. The research outlines various reasons why the online collaboration mode is the most preferred. First, is that online communication is very conventional. It is easy to transfer information from one person to another very fast. The other reason is that there is no formality in sharing the information, as someone gets the information from the person they are close to, or they are familiar with, like a friend on social media. It based on the personal recommendations such that you cannot receive information from any party you are not interested.
The other reason why people prefer social media is that the messages are flagged with humor. Humor and levity can make a message spread to many people. Messages sent via social media are timely and not filtered. A person can access the message at a click after the information is posted. The reader gets the first-hand information, which is not the case in other platforms like television where the messages are filtered for viewing (Waugh & Streib, 2006). The paper gives the role of social media during the disaster explaining, in that it assists in passing the information and helps the emergency management team to monitor the responses from the public.
The other example from the module that can be used, is an article about Crowd sourcing Sensing and Collaboration Using Twitter. It is currently viewed as the best platform of the social media for sharing the information (Demirbas, Bayir, Akcora, & Yilmaz). The articles argue that it can possibly be designed and implemented as a crowd-sourced sensing and collaboration system (Demirbas, Bayir, Akcora, & Yilmaz). There are various applications of Twitter that make it better for crowd-sourcing compared to other social media platforms.
The existing Twitter domain offers news, which makes the platform be deemed as the fastest way one can get information. Many of the news centers have signed up accounts where they share the news even before the studio casting (Demirbas M., Bayir, Akcora, Y.S., & Ferhatosmanoglu, 2010). For instance, CNN, one of media houses in the communication sector, maintains 55 twitter accounts that have more than five million followers. It means these people can view a single tweet at once.
Twitter also has an alert system that can be used in any place as long as there is internet. The emergency management bodies can use these alert systems to people in a location where the disaster has occurred. The other feature is that Twitter can be integrated into a Smartphone, the Twitter application is simple and user-friendly since it gives the user a simple interface. This feature of Twitter makes the application very useful in the event of a disaster. The application can assist in relaying the messages to the interested people, it is fast and easy to use. The bodies managing disaster can use it to communicate to a large mass of individuals at the same time.
In conclusion, online communication helps in collaboration and organization during emergency management. The online methods of communication are better than the old media in terms or reliability and time. Among the communication modes discussed in the paper that the disaster management teams can use, social media is the most effective and efficient mode of communication, and all disaster management programs should embrace social media.
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