Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On the Challenges of Using Social Media for Crisis Management

  • Chapter
Fusion Methodologies in Crisis Management

Abstract

In crisis situations, the challenge of understanding the current situation is tightly linked to the ability to process the variety and the amount of information provided by the multiple sources. In particular, social media can provide additional insight on real-time events, providing that the information that they relay is accurately retrieved, evaluated, and fused. In this chapter, we describe various mechanisms and functions necessary for information fusion and understanding, starting from social media exploration and retrieval, then describing the fusion process and the associated management of information uncertainty, concluding with a description of the methodology and experiments we use to tackle the intrinsic big volume of data and processing required for social media information analysis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The list does not intend to be exhaustive.

  2. 2.

    Official Website of the foundation: http://ushahidi.com/.

  3. 3.

    http://www.cosmic-project.eu.

  4. 4.

    http://research.shu.ac.uk/centric/index.php/research-projects/athena.

  5. 5.

    http://isar.i112.eu.

  6. 6.

    http://crisiscommons.org/.

  7. 7.

    The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) makes the GTD available via an online interface on the website of the project: http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/.

References

  • Aligne F (2009) Which information and decision support system for the crisis management? In: NATO RTO-MPIST-086

    Google Scholar 

  • Aligne F, Mattioli J (2010) The role of context for crisis management cycle. In: Burstein F, Brézillon P, Zaslavsky AB (eds) Supporting real time decision-making. Annals of information systems, vol 13. Springer, New York, pp 113–132

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • American Red Cross (2010) The case for integrating crisis response with social media

    Google Scholar 

  • Belov N, Gerken P (2009) Mixed initiative soft data fusion associate. In: 12th international conference on information fusion, pp 1897–1902

    Google Scholar 

  • Blondel V, Guillaume J-L, Lambiotte R, Lefebvre E (2008) Fast unfolding of communities in large networks. J Stat Mech: Theory Exp 10:P10008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bunke H, Foggia P, Guidobaldi C, Sansone C, Vento M (2002) A comparison of algorithms for maximum common subgraph on randomly connected graphs. In: Lecture notes on computer science, vol 2396. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 123–132

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron M, Power R, Robinson B, Yin J (2012) Emergency situation awareness from twitter for crisis management. In: Proceedings of the 21st international conference companion on World Wide Web. ACM, pp 695–698

    Google Scholar 

  • Capet F, d’Allonnes AR (2014) Information evaluation in the military domain: doctrines, practices and shortcomings. In: Capet P, Delavallade T (eds) Information evaluation. Wiley-ISTE, p 103

    Google Scholar 

  • Capet P, Delavallade T (2014) Information evaluation. Wiley-ISTE

    Google Scholar 

  • Castillo C, Mendoza M, Poblete B (2010) Twitter under crisis: can you really trust what we RT? InL 1st workshop on social media analytics, SOM’10

    Google Scholar 

  • Castillo C, Mendoza M, Poblete B (2011) Information credibility on Twitter. In: Proceedings of the 20th international conference on World Wide Web, number 11. ACM

    Google Scholar 

  • Chein M, Mugnier M-L (2008) Graph-based knowledge representation: computational foundations of conceptual graphs. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Conte D, Foggia P, Vento M (2007) Challenging complexity of maximum common subgraph detection algorithms: a performance analysis of three algorithms on a wide database of graphs. J Graph Algorithms Appl 11(1):99–143

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Coombs WT (2007) Crisis management and communications. IPR

    Google Scholar 

  • Crocq L (2007) Formation et sensibilisation nrbc, haut comit franais pour la dfense civile

    Google Scholar 

  • Crooks A, Croitoru A, Stefanidis A, Radzikowski J (2013) #Earthquake: twitter as a distributed sensor system. T GIS 17(1):124–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Date K, Gross GA, Khopkar SS, Nagi R, Sambhoos K (2013) Data association and graph analytical processing of hard and soft intelligence data. In: Proceedings of the 16th international conference on information fusion. IEEE, New York, pp 404–411

    Google Scholar 

  • Deparis É (2013) Création de nouvelles connaissances décisionnelles pour une organisation via ses ressources sociales et documentaires. Ph.D. thesis, Université de Technologie de Compiégne, Compiégne

    Google Scholar 

  • Flizikowski A, Holubowicz W, Stachowicz A, Hokkanen L, Kurki T, Paivinen N, Delavallade T (2014) Social media in crisis management the iSAR+ project survey. In: Hiltz S, Pfaff M, Plotnick L, Shih P, Tapia A (eds) Proceedings of the international ISCRAM conference

    Google Scholar 

  • Goujon B (2009) Uncertainty detection for information extraction. In: Proceedings of the international conference on recent advances in natural language processing, pp 118–122

    Google Scholar 

  • Gouttas C, de Maupeou S, Mabiala Y, Delavallade T, Huyot B (2013) Visual analytics innovative services for cyber-security. In: NATO symposium on visual analytics, IST-116

    Google Scholar 

  • Gross G, Nagi R, Sambhoos K, Schlegel D, Shapiro S, Tauer G (2012) Towards hard+soft data fusion: processing architecture and implementation for the joint fusion and analysis of hard and soft intelligence data. In: 15th international conference on information fusion, pp 955–962

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang C-M, Chan E, Hyder AA (2010) Web 2.0 and internet social networking: a new tool for disaster management? Lessons from taiwan. BMC Med Inf Dec Mak

    Google Scholar 

  • Imran M, Castillo C, Lucas J, Meier P, Rogstadius J (2014) Coordinating human and machine intelligence to classify microblog communications in crises. In: Hiltz S, Pfaff M, Plotnick L, Shih P, Tapia A (eds) Proceedings of the international ISCRAM conference

    Google Scholar 

  • Initive HH (2011) Disaster relief 2.0: the future of information sharing in humanitarian emergencies. Technical report, UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohler H, Lambert DA, Richter J, Burgess G, Cawley T (2013) Implementing soft fusion. In: Proceedings of the 16th international conference on information fusion, FUSION 2013, Istanbul. IEEE, New York, pp 389–396

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumar S, Barbier G, Abbasi M, Liu H (2011) Tweettracker: an analysis tool for humanitarian and disaster relief. In: International conference on weblogs and social media (ICWSM), pp 1–1

    Google Scholar 

  • Laudy C (2010) Introducing semantic knowledge in high level information fusion. Ph.D. thesis, Paris 6 University

    Google Scholar 

  • Laudy C (2011) Semantic knowledge representations for soft data fusion — efficient decision support systems - practice and challenges from current to future. Chiang Jao Publisher

    Google Scholar 

  • Laudy C, Ganascia J-G (2009) Using maximal join for information fusion. In: Graph structures for knowledge representation and reasoning (GKR 2009) collocated with the twenty-first international joint conference on artificial intelligence (IJCAI-09)

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerbinger O (1997) The crisis manager: facing risk and responsibility/Otto Lerbinger. Erlbaum, Mahwah

    Google Scholar 

  • Lesot M-J, Delavallade T, Pichon F, Akdag H, Bouchon-Meunier B, Capet P (2011) Proposition of a semi-automatic possibilistic information scoring process. In: 7th conference of the European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology, pp 949–956

    Google Scholar 

  • Lesot M, Pichon F, Delavallade T (2014) Quantitative information evaluation: modeling and experimental evaluation. In: Capet P, Delavallade T (eds) Information evaluation. Wiley-ISTE, p 187

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu Y, Jiang X, Chen H, Ma J, Zhang X (2009) MapReduce-based pattern finding algorithm applied in motif detection for prescription compatibility network. In: Advanced parallel processing technologies, vol 5737. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, pp 341–355

    Google Scholar 

  • Llinas J, Nagi R, Hall D, Lavery J (2010) A multi-disciplinary university research initiative in hard and soft information fusion: overview, research strategies and initial results. In: 13th international conference on information fusion, pp 1–7

    Google Scholar 

  • MacEachren A, Robinson A, Jaiswal A, Pezanowski S, Savelyev A, Blanford J, Mitra P (2011) Geo-Twitter analytics: applications in crisis management. In: Proceedings of 25th international cartographic conference, p 1

    Google Scholar 

  • McKay BD, Piperno A (2014) Practical graph isomorphism, II. J Symb Comput 60:94–112

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Meier P (2013) Two signs of things to come in disaster response: learning from typhoon Yolanda. Opening Keynote Address at CrisisMappers 2013 http://www.engagingcities.com/article/two-signs-things-come-disaster-response-learning-typhoon-yolanda

  • NATO (2003) STANAG2511. Intelligence Reports

    Google Scholar 

  • Ndiaye SN, Solnon C (2011) CP Models for Maximum Common Subgraph Problems. In: 17th international conference on principles and practice of constraint programming (CP). Lecture notes in computer science. Springer, New York, pp 637–644

    Google Scholar 

  • Peary B, Shaw R, Takeuchi Y (2012) Utilization of social media in the East Japan earthquake and tsunami and its effectiveness. J Nat Disaster Sci 34(1):3–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pichon F, Dubois D, Denoeux T (2012) Relevance and truthfulness in information correction and fusion. Int J Approx Reason 53(2):159–175

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Pichon F, Labreuche C, Duqueroie B, Delavallade T (2014) Multidimensional approach to reliability evaluation of information sources. In: Capet P, Delavallade T (eds) Information evaluation. Wiley-ISTE

    Google Scholar 

  • Pine JA, Lemoine J, Benhadda H (2005) Un nouvel outil de classification non supervisée de documents pour la découverte de connaissances et la détection de signaux faibles: Rares text. Journée sur les systèmes d’information élaborée

    Google Scholar 

  • Plantenga T (2013) Inexact subgraph isomorphism in MapReduce. J Parallel Distrib Comput 73:164–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raymond J, Willett P (2002) Maximum common subgraph isomorphism algorithms for the matching of chemical structures. J Comput Aided Mol Des 16(7):521–533

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roth F, Giroux J, Herzog M (2013) Crisis mapping in Switzerland: a stakeholder analysis. 3rg special report, Risk and Resilience Research Group, Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH

    Google Scholar 

  • Sakaki T, Okazaki M, Matsuo Y (2010) Earthquake shakes Twitter users: real-time event detection by social sensors. In: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World Wide Web, pp 851–860

    Google Scholar 

  • Shafer G (1976) A mathematical theory of evidence. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Singh VK, Gao M, Jain R (2010) Situation detection and control using spatio-temporal analysis of microblogs. In: Rappa M, Jones P, Freire J, Chakrabarti S (eds) Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World Wide Web. ACM, pp 1181–1182

    Google Scholar 

  • Smets P (1993) Belief functions: the disjunctive rule of combination and the generalized Bayesian theorem. Int J Approx Reason 9(1):633–664

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Smets P, Kennes R (1994) The transferable belief model. Artif Intell 66(2):191–234

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Solnon C (2010) Alldifferent-based filtering for subgraph isomorphism. Artif Intell 174(12–13):850–864

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Sowa J-F (1984) Conceptual structures: information processing in mind and machine. Addison-Wesley, Reading

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Starbird K, Palen L (2010) Pass it on: retweeting in mass emergency. In: Proceedings of the 7th international ISCRAM conference

    Google Scholar 

  • Stollberg B, de Groeve T (2012) The use of social media within the global disaster alert and coordination system (gdacs). In: Proceedings of the 21st international conference companion on World Wide Web. ACM, pp 703–706

    Google Scholar 

  • Ullmann JR (1976) An algorithm for subgraph isomorphism. J ACM 23(1):31–42

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Vieweg S, Hughes AL, Starbird K, Palen L (2010) Microblogging during two natural hazards events: what Twitter may contribute to situational awareness. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, pp 1079–1088

    Google Scholar 

  • White T (2009) Hadoop: the definitive guide, 1st edn. O’Reilly Media

    Google Scholar 

  • Yager R (1984) Approximate reasoning as a basis for rule-based expert systems. IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern 14:636–643

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • San Su Y, Wardell C III, Thorkildsen Z (2013) Social media in the emergency management field. Technical report, National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), CNA Analysis and Solutions

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao Z, Wang G, Butt AR, Khan M, Anil Kumar VS, Marathe MV (2012) SAHAD: subgraph analysis in massive networks using Hadoop. In: Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE 26th international parallel and distributed processing symposium. IPDPS ’12. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, pp 390–401. doi:10.1109/IPDPS.2012.44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS.2012.44. ISBN: 978-0-7695-4675-9

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Johann Dreo, Christophe Gouguenheim, Florence Aligne, and Juliette Mattioli for fruitful discussions and collaborative work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thales, 4 av. des Louvresses, 92622, Gennevilliers, France

    Thomas Delavallade

  2. Thales, 1 av. Augustin Fresnel, 91767, Palaiseau, France

    Simon Fossier, Claire Laudy & Gaëlle Lortal

Authors
  1. Thomas Delavallade
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Simon Fossier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Claire Laudy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Gaëlle Lortal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Delavallade .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA

    Galina Rogova

  2. State University of New Yorkat Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA

    Peter Scott

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Delavallade, T., Fossier, S., Laudy, C., Lortal, G. (2016). On the Challenges of Using Social Media for Crisis Management. In: Rogova, G., Scott, P. (eds) Fusion Methodologies in Crisis Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22527-2_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22527-2_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22526-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22527-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation