social+media+in+the+2011+victorian+floods
TRANSCRIPT
Social Media in the 2011 Victorian Floods
June 2011 Sponsored by:
Contents 1. Executive Summary ..................................................................................................1 Executive Summary Continued... ..................................................................................2 Executive Summary Continued... ..................................................................................3 2. Background to the Floods ........................................................................................4 3. Background to the Review of the Use of Social Media in Flood Events ..................5 4. Objectives of the Review..........................................................................................6 5. Methodology ............................................................................................................7
5.1 Methodology Summarised......................................................................................................7 5.2 Detailed Methodology............................................................................................................7
6. Classification of comments ....................................................................................10 6.1 Some Examples of Comments from Different Sorts of Message Spreaders..........................11
7. Profile of the Event from SES Information Releases ..............................................12 7.1 SES Message Out .................................................................................................................12 7.2 The Response to the Floods in Social Media .......................................................................13
8. Nature of the Commentary ....................................................................................15 8.1 Examples of Personal Comments.........................................................................................16 8.2 Content of Commentary .......................................................................................................18 8.3 What’s Missing.....................................................................................................................21 8.4 Victoria Police Tweeting......................................................................................................22
9. Learnings for Future Social Media Monitoring ......................................................25 9.1 Some Guides for Monitoring ................................................................................................25 9.2 Detailed Content Analysis....................................................................................................25
10. Conclusions...........................................................................................................27 10.1 Communications Models ......................................................................................................28
11. Suggestions for Future Work................................................................................30 Appendix 1: Locations Covered...................................................................................31 Appendix 2: List Of Top Social Media Accounts..........................................................32 Appendix 3: Sample Of Community Facebook Pages (Public Pages)..........................35
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1. Executive Summary Introduction This report analyses social media commentary about the Victorian floods from 10 January to 4 March 2011. In this period there were two floods – one in rural Victoria (January) and one in Melbourne and surrounds (February). Objectives Wide ranging objectives were established for the review:
• Document social media mentions during Victorian Floods • Analyse comment by location and other characteristics • Ascertain the nature of comments • Establish flows of information • Establish the nature of sharing of warnings and other information • Explore the database for other useful insights • Recommend approaches for future events
Methodology Social media comment for the period 10 January to 4 March 2011 was collated using social media monitoring provider Buzz Numbers, and Twitter and Facebook feeds from Rowfeeder.com. The data was then analysed by Alliance Strategic Research. Data was cleaned from over 320,000 comments to those relevant to the Victorian Floods with an end number of 12,405 comments analysed. Comments were classified in a way to understand the nature of the comment. The classification was:
‐ People in the Floods‐ Official Posts ‐ News‐ Message Spreaders ‐ Warnings‐ Spectators/Commentary ‐ Message Spreaders ‐ Relief/Donations‐ Message Spreaders ‐ News (story about floods)‐ Message Spreaders ‐ News (story not about floods) ‐ Message Spreaders ‐ Information‐ Recovery/Post‐flood issues ‐ Social media ‐ Commentary ‐ not directly about floods (but including reference to
floods)
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Executive Summary Continued... Key Findings
• Social media has been used to comment about the Victorian floods – much of it stemming from news sources
• Data captured for this analysis possibly represents a fraction of the total commentary. The data collated is entirely dependent on key terms and unless these are used, the comment is not captured
• During the floods SES information releases strongly focused on warnings • Different social media channels have been used for different types of
communications and at different times in the events • Social media comment and Twitter in particular has the capacity to be highly
reactive, and possibly even “ahead of the news” • Comment via Twitter was most frequent. News services also use Twitter to
promote stories. • There is evident willingness to spread information about crisis events –
including fundraising • Well wishers and ‘spectators’ also have a reasonably high profile in the
commentary • Commentary drops away quickly after the events. Recovery and community
commentary declines also • Although news commentary drops away after the event, this source persists
for longest • Commentary in metropolitan areas was more personal, and there was a lot
more volume in a short period of time • Discussion of recovery issues as a share of comment increases after the event,
but is at low levels overall • Specific locations get mentioned frequently, larger centres more so than
smaller. The duration of inundation will also impact the comment for specific areas
• The nature of the comment is generally helpful and positive in its nature. The ironic or cynical comment evident in many other topics in social media is not evident in the comment about floods
• As the crisis is occurring there is commentary, as it abates so to does all comment
• Each and every event is likely to have a different profile • The communications task will become more complex as one too many
broadcasts fracture to become one to one message spreading, not only through known sources but individual to individual
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Executive Summary Continued... Suggestions for future work
• Successfully monitoring future events in social media requires comprehensive data collation as the events unfold
– Established relationship with a social media tracking software provider is the most time effective way to collate information
– Understanding the limitations of data tracks is important – Key terms need to be identified early and modified as needed – Key publishers established and followed – A human resource required to monitor and modify – Establishing hash tags early and monitoring if they change is essential
to track activity • Pre establishing tracking terms for categories of events (fire, flood) and
setting them up in a monitoring services ahead of events occurring will facilitate start‐up of monitoring as the event breaks.
– Detailed analysis content analysis is painstaking, so planning for that analysis is also recommended
– This will include planning of key words to be tracked and specific research questions
• Consider using SM aggregation tools for publication back into the SM stream – Eg. Paper.li
• Many mobile phones are SM enabled (Facebook and Twitter) and may be the last way people in a disaster have to communicate (as demonstrated after Yasi). As dependence on mobile technology increases the need to respond is likely to grow
• Apart from disaster communication there appears to be considerable scope to tap the willingness of people to help and contribute. Some targeted recovery promotion and activity may fall on fertile ground in social media.
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2. Background to the Floods In January and February 2011 Victorian experienced two flood events. January The January floods were widespread encompassing large areas of western and north western Victoria. Other areas of the state also experienced flooding at the same time, but in a more localised way. The January floods were regional and rural in nature affecting sparsely populated farm land, and regional towns. This flooding was, for most part, from rising rivers. Locations anticipated to flood, were advised in advance. The floods occurred between 10 – 20 January and some areas were inundated for some time. February The February floods were largely in densely populated urban areas in and around Melbourne. The flooding was more sudden than the January floods, and resulted from torrential rain. The floods occurred 4 – 5 February 2011.
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3. Background to the Review of the Use of Social Media in Flood Events
Online and social media outlets were used extensively during the Victorian and Queensland floods by media, services, communities affected by the floods, and by other concerned and interested people. Social media use adds a different dimension to emergency communications. The traditional communications model of announcements being conveyed through known media sources can potentially be circumvented with people getting their information from each other rather than official sources. Understanding the way in which social media was used in the Victorian floods was thought an important starting point in developing policy and approaches to the use of social media in future emergencies. Research was undertaken to inform social media strategies for all Victorian Government agencies including VICSES.
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4. Objectives of the Review Broad ranging objectives for the review were established and are summarised as follows:
• Document social media mentions during Victorian Floods
• Analyse comment by location and other characteristics
• Ascertain the nature of comments
• Establish flows of information
• Establish the nature of sharing of warnings and other information
• Explore the database for other useful insights
• Recommend approaches for future events Some of these objectives have been more fully answered than others.
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5. Methodology Detailed content analysis of social media comment is a relatively new field of research. It essentially draws on text analysis techniques. Social media monitoring services are able to collate commentary efficiently and to undertake rudimentary analysis by key word counts. However, most data sets need further refinement to ensure comments relate to the topic at hand, and understanding the content, nature, and purpose of comments involves far more than word counts.
5.1 Methodology Summarised
5.2 Detailed Methodology Data collation The data for this study was captured from online publication. Data is a comment from social media sources. The publication channels collected include: Twitter, open Facebook pages, open forums, open blogs and news sources (as identified by their domain description). News sources are wide ranging in their nature. The description includes well known large scale media operations (such the ABC, major masthead newspapers and television news), and also smaller scale, online only, news services. The data was largely extracted by Buzz Numbers which is a commercial social media monitoring company.
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Data was collected on the basis of the specific search terms ”Victoria” or “ Vic” or “Floods”. This data dated from 10 January. Buzz Numbers provided the data in an Excel format for analysis. A further source of commentary used was Rowfeeder.com which collates all comments from Twitter and Facebook. This information was collated from 26 January on the basis of the search term “Flood”. The data was handled in such a way to ensure there was no duplication of data with Buzz Numbers. In as much as possible comments about Queensland floods or floods in other parts of the world were excluded, nevertheless a total in excess of 320,000 comments about floods were collated. Not all of these related to the Victorian floods so the data needed to be cleaned. Data cleaning Both data sets were cleaned to ensure only commentary relating to the Victorian floods was included. This was undertaken using a propriety product of Alliance Strategic Research called Simple Text Cleaner. Comments on floods that included river or location names1 affected in the flooding, or simply Victoria floods or Vicfloods were retained in the data set, and all other comments discarded. During reading for classification further comments were deleted as not being relevant to the Victorian floods. Hence, comments relating to the Victorian floods that did not include the location names, or rivers, or the terms Victorian floods, Victoria floods or Vicfloods are not included in this analysis. This cleaning process reduced the data set from in excess of 320,000 comments to 12,405 relevant comments. All data collated was undertaken on the basis of key terms in the comment. It does not search on the basis of author name (or Twitter @handle), unless directed to. Hence key official sources such as @Victoriapolice are not strongly represented in the data set as their Tweets (in particular) did not always include the word Victoria and floods.
1 See appendix 1 for location and river names
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Data Classification Data extracted included the full text of the comment and other vital pieces of information such as the date and source (Twitter, Facebook, Blog, News, Forum).
In the case of Twitter comments the author name and handle are included, but not so in the case of Facebook and Forum comments. News sources names are all identifiable. The URL for every comment is also included in the data set.
The data was classified along themes emerging in the text, and guided by the brief. A key purpose of the study was to identify the role of social media in the Victorian flood event and in keeping with this requirement the purpose or intent of each comment was seen as highly relevant. Hence the commentary was coded using a framework that emerged from the contents itself, but with this purpose in mind.
Privacy The issues around privacy in social media are complex and to some extend untried. People who publish, make their comments public, via a channel known to be public, however this does not necessarily mean they understand they are publishing to the public. It is very easy for anyone to go back to a Twitter account and directly contact that person, and many blogs and open Facebook pages allow comment.
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6. Classification of comments Each comment was read by one reader (thereby ensuring consistency in classification) and one of the following classifications was attributed to each comment.
People in the Floods People experiencing floods (incl pics/videos & RTs2 of these) Official Posts Emergency Services & Government Departments and Agencies News News outlets/sources as defined by Buzz Media Message Spreaders ‐ Warnings RTs of official and unofficial warnings (inc road closures) Spectators/Commentary Spectators, well‐wishers, commentary about floods, observations about floods, any comment about floods from individuals (inc a lot of blogs) Message Spreaders ‐ Relief/Donations Information and RTs about donations/concerts/fundraising/help available to victims Eg: Lifeline/mental health Message Spreaders ‐ News (story about floods) RTs and relayers of news articles about the floods Flood updates (put out by news outlet), news articles, Message Spreaders ‐ News (story not about floods) RTs and relayers of news articles that just mention/make reference to the vic floods (but the article is not about the floods) Eg. Articles about global disasters/climate change Message Spreaders ‐ Information RTs and information about floods Eg. flood maps, relief centres & meetings, SES volunteer and other phone numbers Recovery/Post‐flood issues Economic implications, inc for various industries, house & food prices, government response to floods ($), political fallout Social media References to social media's role in communicating the floods; "twitter talk" ‐ the frequent message spreaders saying goodnight to each other, etc Commentary ‐ not directly about floods People (personal and organisations, but not news outlets) who make reference to the floods but are not talking about the floods specifically, inc (a lot of) blogs
2 RT = Retweets. Another’s message is passed on by using the ‘retweet’ function in Twitter. Eg. If I follow @Victorianpolice and get one of their messages I can retweet it and all my followers will receive the message (although they do not follow Victorianpolice). It effectively multiplies the message.
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Classifying the data in other ways and along themes is possible, but have not been explored further given the budget of this study.
6.1 Some Examples of Comments from Different Sorts of Message Spreaders3
• “come on queenslanders please give generously to the victorian flood appeal!! “ (Facebook) Message Spreaders ‐ Relief/Donations
• “A flood watch is current for the greater Melbourne catchments of Werribee, Maribyrnong, Yarra, Dandenong and Bunyip.” (Facebook) Message Spreaders – Warnings
• “RT @VictoriaPolice: Police aware of flooding in Keysborough, Hampton Park, Dandenong and Narre Warren areas. Pls don't ring triple 000 ...” (Twitter) Message Spreaders ‐ Information
• “Want to help cleaning up the vic floods. Anyone looking for a small group of friends to come and help clean this weekend? #vicfloods” (Twitter) Recovery/Post‐flood issues
• “Australia's top musical talent to perform for #vicflood relief tomorrow night in #Melbourne.. How good!! http://bit.ly/xxxxxx “ (Twitter) Message Spreaders ‐ Relief/Donations
• “After the devasting floods in Queensland and Victoria many organisations companies and crafters are helping out with the relief effort. Many craft sites are auctioning goods and services with the proceeds going to the flood appeal. Here are some of the sites: ...“ (Blog) Message Spreaders ‐ Relief/Donations
• “Australia warns of fresh floods: Residents in the flood‐hit city of Brisbane brace for a king tide as more towns in Victoria are eva...” (Twitter) Message Spreaders ‐ News
3 Quotes are as written by author. Twitter identities have been concealed
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7. Profile of the Event from SES Information Releases
7.1 SES Message Out Information releases in relation to the floods for warnings major/minor flooding, evacuations, updates, bulletins, emergency alerts, community news were issued over the course of the events. The following graph charts the number of information releases on a daily basis.
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Total of 653 releases over the period 10 Jan to 4 March
The nature of the message shifted over time in accordance with the floods as they unfolded. The main message though, is ‘warnings’, either major or moderate/minor (or unspecified).
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Nature of SES Releases Over Time
Major warnings Warnings Community/Advices Bulletins Misc
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7.2 The Response to the Floods in Social Media The total number of comments on Victorian Floods collated over the review period was 12,405. The social media comment peaks and drops away in line with the course of the flood events. When something is happening there are comments, then it drops away. We also observe this much more acutely in other social media tracking where an event will be very short lived in social media.
The social media comment is not necessarily directly informed by the SES information releases. Social media commentary was slow to pick up on the Victorian Floods in January (due possibly to media focus on the Queensland Floods) and was ahead of SES information releases in February.
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Comments per Day Compared to Number of SES Releases
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The different nature and location of two flooding events may in part account for the different profile. The February event was in Melbourne with a higher density of people, and was a sudden flooding event. The peak includes people involved in the event. The January event was in sparsely populated areas and was not sudden.
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The majority of comment collated is generated in Twitter ‐ Blogs have a surprisingly high profile, but blogs from news sources underpin these results (to some extent).
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Source of CommentCommunication Channel
The following analysis shows Twitter comment is event sensitive rising and falling quickly – this is also evident in other categories Alliance Strategic Research tracks. Blogs and news are more persistent sources of commentary. Facebook peaked in the Melbourne event, but did not feature strongly in the regional floods.
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Channel Over Time
twitter News Blogosphere facebook Forums Video
Unlike Twitter not all Facebook comments are public, so this chart cannot represent the full extent of Facebook commentary which is unknowable. As the event recedes, news sources continue to publish stories (albeit in smaller number) whereas the citizen journalist stops altogether. The public it appears is essentially responding to the event as it affects them at the time.
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8. Nature of the Commentary A large proportion of the social media commentary is news. News can be the headline for press articles or TV stories or online stories. These comments are aiming to attract readership. In this data set message spreading (of one sort or another) is a large part of the commentary. Message spreading does not just relate to warnings.
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Message Spreaders ‐ Information
Message Spreaders ‐Warnings
Recovery/Post‐flood issues
Spectators/Commentary
Message Spreaders ‐ News
Message Spreaders ‐ Relief/donations
News
Volume and Type of Comment
Over the course of the flooding events, not only does the scale of commentary shift, so too does the type of commentary.
Intent of Comment Over Time
People in Floods Official Posts News M.S. Warnings Spectators M.S. Donations M.S. News M.S. Info Recovery issues
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As the floods are occurring there is a great deal of news, and comments about where to donate and contribute to the relief funds. Later in the time line recovery issues have a higher share of discussion, and news stories dominate. Share of comment on donations does not dropped away until March. However this is off a very small base. Comment from people in flood situations is low overall, except for the Melbourne flooding event. This spike in comment is no doubt a result of the larger population and possibly a higher level of engagement with social media in urban areas.
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Comment from People in Flood Situations
The 192 comments on 4 February represent 29% of all of the comments made on that day. Across the whole data set from 10 January to 4 March personal comments represent 4% of the total commentary.
8.1 Examples of Personal Comments4 • “There have been meetings called for residents of Swan Hill Pental Island and
Tyntynder tomorrow so that we can be updated as to what is happening. There are rumors by the dozen floating around (pardon the pun) ‐ everything from the town will be completely washed away to the water will miraculously disappear. I’m not taking any notice of them but we are closing monitoring the radio to find out what is happening.” (Blog)
• “@xxxxx: RT @xxxxx Westernhighway between nhill horsham now open #vicfloods i know as i am on it” (Twitter)
4 Quotes are as written by author. Twitter identities have been concealed
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• “Massive storms just hit Melbourne! Ex TC Yasi 2500 klms away! In 11 years never seen my street in flood! Wow!” (Twitter)
• “Just got home flood waters were lapping over the bonnet of the car scary trip home” (Twitter )
• “Its so different when your part of a flood than watching it on news. I live near Murray River, but i didn't expect it right outside my house haha NEVER GOING TO FORGET TODAY!! Lol anyone want to give up there boat for me!? Haha” (Facebook)
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8.2 Content of Commentary The profile of the two floods in terms of comment intent is quite different, with Melbourne floods attracting more ‘spectators’ and comments from people in flood situations – in fact these two groups generated more messages than news services.
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News
Type of Comment by Flood Area
Vic Floods Melb Floods
Different channels are used in quite distinct ways for different message types. Twitter is most often used for spreading warnings and information, whereas blogs for commentary. Facebook also profiled strongly for people involved in the floods, but the overall number of comments was lower. Video was most often posted by people in the floods.
Indirect Commentary
Recovery/Post‐flood issues
Spectator/Commentary
Official Posts
Message Spreader ‐ Relief/donations
Message Spreader ‐News
People in the flood
News
Social Media
Message Spreader ‐ Information
Message Spreader ‐Warnings
Source by Intent of Comment
Blogosphere Facebook Forums News Twitter Video
Note: Classification is normalised to allow comparison of channels used
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Overall the location which attracted the greatest number of comments was Melbourne. It appears areas with larger populations attract more comment. Areas which were affected for longer periods such as Swan Hill also have more comment.
Location No. of MentionsMelbourne 1193Swan Hill 544Kerang 432Horsham 234Charlton 206Dimboola 151Ballarat 131Warracknabeal 127Rochester 103Donald 67Beulah 59Echuca 57Skipton 53Shepparton 51Richmond 34
The following graph charts the commentary by location over time. In terms of locations, comment about the Melbourne floods is short lived. Swan Hill commentary continues for some time – relating to the duration of the event.
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/201
1
Mentions of Locations by Date
Swan Hill Kerang HorshamCharlton Dimboola BallaratWarracknabeal Rochester Melbourne
20
Overall comment on specific rivers is relatively low given they were the source of the flooding in regional areas and the subject of many SES information releases.
322
195173
141
77 68
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Murray Loddon Wimmera Yarra Avoca Campaspe
Comments Naming Rivers
The Yarra had the highest number of warnings messages spread. There was comparatively little relating to non urban rivers.
94
144
9
119
1
19
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Wimmera Murray Yarra Loddon
Type of Commentary by River Mentions
People in Floods Official posts News MS Warnings Spectators
MS Relief MS News MS News Recovery Issues
The Yarra River flood attracted a lot of comment, but not around the flooding event in February. The early spike in comments about the Yarra related to an incident where two people floated down the flooded river with an inflatable doll.
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The Loddon and Wimmera rivers are commented upon when in flood, and comment on the Murray persisted over a long period.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
10/1/11
11/1/11
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31/1/11
1/2/11
2/2/11
3/2/11
4/2/11
5/2/11
6/2/11
7/2/11
8/2/11
9/2/11
10/2/11
11/2/11
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24/2/11
25/2/11
26/2/11
27/2/11
28/2/11
1/3/11
2/3/11
3/3/11
4/3/11
Mentions of Rivers by Date
Yarra Murray Loddon Wimmera Avoca Avon Campaspe
8.3 What’s Missing Our data collection has failed to identify activity from some agencies. A number of local governments were using social media, but the number of total comments is possibly understated. Government agencies who were known to have been active have not appeared strongly in the comments collated.
Entity No. CommentsLocal Government 13Consumer Affairs 11DHS 10Telstra 9Victoria Police 7VicGov 4Other Government 4Emergency services volunteers 3Other 7TOTAL 68
In part the reason for this is because comments were collated on the basis of the comment, and not on the basis of author. This clearly makes sense, but for the purposes of this study if the author did not refer to locations or rivers affected or Vic/Victoria flood the comment would not have been captured.
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8.4 Victoria Police Tweeting Victoria Police Tweeting doubled in January and February, even though we didn’t capture many of these tweets in our data set. Total Number of Tweets per Month from @Victoriapolice
Victoria Police’s Tweeting activity was around the events January Activity
Daily No. Tweets from @Victoriapolice ‐ January
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February Activity
Daily No. Tweets from @Victoriapolice ‐ February
Analysis of the content of Victoria Police comments shows there was wide use of two hash tags (#) being #vicfloods and #vicrains. The content of their tweets were primarily about road closures. Nonetheless given their use of #vicfloods the comments should have been picked up in our data feeds, but were not.
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In the February flood event the Victoria Police Twitter profile shows they have dropped the identifier #vicfloods and are exclusively using just #vicrains. The content of their tweets is primarily about road closures.
These examples demonstrate the importance of understanding the way in which people and agencies are talking about events, and establishing an agreed moniker early so comments can be easily followed. In other categories we have seen groups of people engaged in a topic discuss and agree the #hashtags that will be used.
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9. Learnings for Future Social Media
Monitoring There are number of learnings which can be used from this analysis of the Victorian Flood event. 9.1 Some Guides for Monitoring First and foremost, people did use social media to comment and convey messages about the floods. So the commentary exists, and is likely to exist in future major events as they occur. Second, the importance of establishing key words and understanding the language of the commentary quickly as well as understanding its fluidity is very important. How an event is talked about will vary from event to event, and within event. Human reading will be necessary to adjust monitoring systems to remain relevant to capture relevant comment as it occurs. There are two key aspects to monitoring. One is immediate and potentially responsive – it tracks the conversation in real time and is dealing with the commentary as it occurs. The second is to collate the data to review it in detail, understand the nature of it, and summarise the content in a meaningful way. These two activities have quite different purposes, but both are equally affected by the quality of search terms and collation structure which is established at the outset in the monitoring system used. Different events are likely to have different language associated with them, some of the language used can be anticipated and some of which will evolve within the event. Setting up search terms in advance for specific event types will allow a rapid start up of monitoring, which will then need to be adjusted as the language of the event evolves.
9.2 Detailed Content Analysis Detailed content analysis is a painstaking process particularly when the question being asked of the data set is ‘what is the nature of the commentary’. Where the question is specific such as ‘how many people asked for help through social media’ the analysis is far easier. In these early days of social media content analysis, the question is more often “what is the nature of the commentary” and “is there anything worthwhile knowing in the comments”.
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Essentially once the data is collated the researcher is left with many potential approaches to the data set. Some of this analysis can be more automated and some less. For example understanding “how many comments were made about Swan Hill?” can be automated, but “what was the nature of the comment about Swan Hill?” does not lend itself as well to automated classification. The sheer volume of social media commentary can also be an issue. For the Victorian Floods study the comment was readable since it was limited to 12,405 comments. (It is important to note that over 300,000 non relevant flood comments were discarded.) Some data sets will not be readable because they are simply too big and the cost of doing so too high. Taking a sample of commentary data then needs to be considered as an option. As mentioned earlier, detailed content analysis of social media is a relatively new field, and despite many of the technology solutions which appear to assist in the interpretation, the application of sound social research approaches will be as essential as they have ever been. Fully automated social media analysis is relatively inexpensive, and arguably relatively inaccurate – detailed content analysis whilst accurate and intelligent, is comparatively costly.
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10. Conclusions
• Social media has been used to comment about the Victorian floods – much of it stemming from news sources
• Data captured for this analysis possibly represents a fraction of the total commentary. The data collated is entirely dependent on key terms and unless these are used, the comment is not captured
• During the SES information releases strongly focused on warnings • Different social media channels have been used for different types of
communications and at different times in the events • Social media comment and Twitter in particular has the capacity to be highly
reactive, and possibly even “ahead of the news” • Comment via Twitter was most frequent. News services also use Twitter to
promote stories. • There is evident willingness to spread information about crisis events –
including fundraising • Well wishers and ‘spectators’ also have a reasonably high profile in the
commentary • Commentary drops away quickly after the events. Recovery and community
commentary declines also. • Although news commentary drops away after the event, it is the source which
persists most • Commentary in metropolitan areas was more personal, and there was a lot
more volume in a short period of time • Discussion of recovery issues as a share of comment increases after the event,
but is at low levels overall • Specific locations get mentioned frequently, larger centres more so than
smaller. The duration of inundation will also impact the comment for specific areas
• The nature of the comment is generally helpful and positive in its nature. The ironic or cynical comment evident in many other topics in social media is not evident in the comment about floods
• As the crisis is occurring there is commentary, as it abates so too does all comment
• Each and every event is likely to have a different profile • The communications task will become more complex as one to many
broadcasts fracture to become one to one message spreading, not only through known sources but individual to individual
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10.1 Communications Models A number of communications models are in play. The traditional model is ‘the Populace is given the message’:
A revised communications model is that the populace helps spread the official message, which is evident in many ways in the activity of the ‘message spreaders’ about the Victorian Floods.
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A further development of this is where the populace is directly informed via social media and spreads the message further through social media channels. This was particularly evident in the Queensland floods and Yasi where situation statements were released to all media.
Given the ease of publishing to social media in some events the populace itself will be the message informing media and emergency services. The Japan Tsunami is a particularly good example of this where a great deal of footage was provided to the world by people in situation. The extent to which this can happen will be very dependent on the nature of the event.
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11. Suggestions for Future Work
• Successfully monitoring future events in social media requires comprehensive data collation as the events unfold
– Established relationship with a social media tracking software provider is the most time effective way to collate information
– Understanding the limitations of data tracks is important – Key terms need to be identified early and modified as needed – Key publishers established and followed – A human resource required to monitor and modify – Establishing hash tags early and monitoring if they change is essential
to track activity • Pre establishing tracking terms for categories of events (fire, flood) and
setting them up in a monitoring services ahead of events occurring will facilitate start‐up of monitoring as the event breaks
• Detailed analysis content analysis is painstaking, so planning for that analysis is also recommended.
– This will include planning of key words to be tracked and specific research questions
• Consider using SM aggregation tools for publication back into the SM stream – Eg. Paper.li
• Many mobile phones are SM enabled (Facebook and Twitter) and may be the last way people in a disaster have to communicate (as demonstrated after Yasi). As dependence on mobile technology increases the need to respond is likely to grow
• Apart from disaster communication there appears to be considerable scope to tap the willingness of people to help and contribute. Some targeted recovery promotion and activity may fall on fertile ground in social media
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Appendix 1: Locations Covered Rivers Towns Towns Continued Towns Continued StateAvoca Appin Durham Newstead VictoriaAvon Appin South Durham Ox Omeo VicCampaspe Ararat Durmam Oswells Bridge VictorianCampaspi Arcadia Downs Echuca Oswells' BridgeHopkins Ballarat Ellerslie Oswell's BridgeLoddon Bandiana Euroa QuambatookMurray Barham Fairy Dell RichmondWimmera Barnadown Geelong RochesterGlenelg Beaufort Gelantipy RupanyupKeiwa Beulah Glenorchy SerpentineKing Bonang Great Western SeymourKing River Boort Halls Gap ShelfordSeven Creeks Bridgewater Halls' Gap SheppartonSeven Creeks River Brim Hall's Gap SkiptonYarra Buchan Hexham St ArnaudYarriambiak Calivil Horsham StawellYarriambiak Creek Campbells Bridge Inverleigh Strathbogie
Campbells' Bridge Jung Swan HillCampbell's Bridge Kerang TarnagullaCampbells Creek Kialla West Torrunbarray WeirCampbells' Creek Lexton TrawallaCampbell's Creek Lubeck TrawoolCarisbrook Marnoo WangarattaCasterton Maryborough WarracknabealCharlton McCoys Bridge WarrnamboolCheshunt McCoys' Bridge WedderburnClunes McCoy's Bridge Whiteheads CreekCreswick Melbourne Whiteheads' CreekDargo Miners Rest Whitehead's CreekDelacombe Miners' Rest WickliffeDergholm Miner's Rest WoorndooDimboola Murchison YeaDonald NatimukDrung Drung NavarreDunolly Newbridge
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Appendix 2: List Of Top Social Media Accounts
Number Most Active Addresses Number of Comments
1 abc.net.au 208 2 heraldsun.com.au 132 3 smh.com.au 109 4 theaustralian.com.au 102 5 geehall1 93 6 bigpondnews.com 75 7 theage.com.au 73 8 weeklytimesnow.com.au 70 9 news.ninemsn.com.au 67 10 youtube.com 61 11 vicfloodfeed 58 12 news.smh.com.au 56 13 micronstagmelbourne.soup.io 44 14 bendigoadvertiser.com.au 36 15 couriermail.com.au 32 16 Minxyferret 31 17 southernthunderer.com.au 31 18 IncidentAlert24 30 19 micronswithmelbourne.soup.io 30 20 babysgotstyle2 29 21 I_enigma 26 22 LatestAusNews 26 23 Smrt_News_AU 26 24 news.com.au 25 25 Seldomsean63 25 26 skynews.com.au 25 27 sl.farmonline.com.au 25 28 adelaidenow.com.au 23 29 AussieHeadlines 22 30 wilsonvoight 22 31 businessspectator.com.au 20 32 Jayne13 20 33 google.com 19 34 thecourier.com.au 19 35 IncidentAlert23 18 36 au.messages.yahoo.com 17 37 blogs.news.com.au 17 38 dailytelegraph.com.au 17 39 Aus_News 16
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40 smartcompany.com.au 16 41 ibtimes.com 15 42 IncidentAlert13 15 43 ArkabaHotel 14 44 brisbanetimes.com.au 14 45 DTNAustralia 14 46 Fairmont33 14 47 nzherald.co.nz 14 48 abccentralvic 13 49 asxnewbie.com 13 50 avoca.localspur.com 13 51 blogs.abc.net.au 13 52 desdemonadespair.net 13 53 fordforums.com.au 13 54 IncidentAlert20 13 55 thebigwetfeed 13 56 TomTomPrince 13 57 vic.nationals.org.au 13 58 3aw.com.au 12 59 ABCMilduraSwanH 12 60 annfinster 12 61 auTODAY 12 62 baysidebulletin.com.au 12 63 Bloss90 12 64 standard.net.au 12 65 visitvineyards 12 66 wabusinessnews.com.au 12 67 weeklytimesnow 12 68 au.ibtimes.com 11 69 consumervic 11 70 isria.com 11 71 loadingvideo.net 11 72 radionz.co.nz 11 73 sbs.com.au 11 74 sheppnews.com.au 11 75 tjmarx 11 76 warwickdailynews.com.au 11 77 BgoAddy 10 78 claireyhewitt.blogspot.com 10 79 IncidentAlert14 10 80 liz_baillie 10 81 thechronicle.com.au 10 82 vicpolicenews.com.au 10 83 billweckos 9 84 businessweek.com 9 85 essentialbaby.com.au 9
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86 IncidentAlert02 9 87 SCMediaNews 9 88 stawelltimes.com.au 9 89 thebull.com.au 9 90 annielul.blogspot.com 8 91 bbc.co.uk 8 92 blogs.crikey.com.au 8 93 Dwiyono 8 94 en.newnews.ir 8 95 farfetchfilm 8 96 GreenGadflyAus 8 97 mrg3515 8 98 saweatherobserver.blogspot.com 8 99 startupsmart.com.au 8 100 stuff.co.nz 8
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Appendix 3: Sample Of Community Facebook Pages (Public Pages) Compiled by OESC during and after the 2011 Victorian floods
Number Name Number of 'Likes' or
Friends
1 Horsham Floods Community Information Sharing Page 2767
2 Pakenham has flooded – Updates 1336 3 Victorian Floods (group) 1330 4 Kooweerup floods 970 5 Victorian Floods 638 6 ABC Mildura Swan Hill 430 7 Rochester, Victoria (location) 425 8 Quambatorium Quambatook 415 9 Australian Floods 2011 (victoria) Updates 339 10 Kerang, Victoria (location) 329 11 Mixx1077 (emergency broadcaster) 303 12 Casey Floods Feb 2011 285 13 Swan Hill Floods 183
Total 9750