Making use of new media for pan-European crisis communication

Social or new media have over the past years become an integrated part of human communication, both as a means to establish and maintain social relationships, but also as a means of sharing and co-creating information. New media comes with an array of possibilities for individuals as well as organisations, corporations and authorities. Within the field of crisis communication new media possibilities, such as online sharing and social networking, has had an impact on the way crisis information is disseminated and updated. This paper addresses the issues related to using new media as a means of communicating crisis information and broadcasting alerting messages to the general population, and also discusses the role of new media in future pan-European alerting. It focuses on current and on-going research on social media for crisis communication. An extensive systematic literature review was done to identify factors that affect the use of social media for alerting and warning. These factors were mirrored in experiences, collected through interviews, in crisis communication organisations in three European regions (Sweden, Czech Republic and Spain). The factors finally form the basis for suggestions regarding the design of technological tools for both communication and information collection as part of a pan-European alerting system.