Use of social media in disaster management

This research in progress paper investigates the potential of Social Media in Australian natural disasters. In social context, the functional needs of disaster management agencies and communities are segregated into three dimensions including agency to agency interaction, agency to community interaction and community to community interaction. A framework proposed in this paper explores (a) the nature of interaction and (b) the ability of Social Media in facilitating the functional needs of interaction involving disaster management agencies and communities before, during and after a disaster. On the next stage of this research, multiple case studies with disaster management agencies and focus groups with communities will be conducted to validate the proposed framework.