The future of social media use during emergencies in Australia: insights from the 2014 Australian and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference social media workshop

Social media is becoming an important source of information during disasters and other emergency events. In recent years, both in Australia and internationally, an increasing number of people have turned to social media, both to find relevant and up-todate information and to voice their concerns and experiences of emergency events. Similarly, emergency services and response agencies have been using social media platforms, primarily for the purpose of communicating updates and other essential material to their respective networks. This paper discusses insights from a workshop that was conducted at the 2014 Australian and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference, during which participants discussed the current strengths and limitations of social media use in the context of emergencies, the future of social media use and the associated barriers and enablers.