Communication in the face of a school crisis: Examining the volume and content of social media mentions during active shooter incidents

Narrative In Police Communication: The Art Of Influence And Communication For The Modern Police Organization

“…Events such as the UK riots in 2011 and active-shooter situations at schools are just two occasions in which police organizations utilized external communication to manage the public perceptions of the situation and attempt to remain in control (Denef, Bayerl, & Kaptein, 2013;Mazer et al, 2015). In both cases, social media was used to disseminate information and gauge community response to the incidents.…”

“…For example, if an individual was armed and considered a threat to the community, the RPD would be well within its rights to make that individual's photo readily available to community members. In fact, this type of crisis communication by police organizations has been normalized by social media use during the UK riots of 2011 and active shooter incidents at schools (Denef, Bayerl, & Kaptein, 2013;Mazer et al, 2015). However, it seems unconscionable that the photos of potentially innocent individuals are published in a highly public way without due process.…”

Social Networking Sites in the Aftermath of a Crisis - the Enabling Role for Self-organization

“…In particular, SNS offer new ways for people to participate during crisis events, including seeking local and timely information, quickly activating their social networks, and making these efforts more visible. These features enable a new form of citizen journalism and active public participation during various crisis events [38], such as earthquakes (e.g., [43,70,88]), floods (e.g., [5,77,79]), terrorist attacks (e.g., [10,14,51]), hurricanes (e.g., [20,44,58]), and campus shootings (e.g., [27,46,79]). Different SNS are used in crisis-related communication, such as popular SNS like Facebook and Twitter but also more specific crisis-related platforms like Ushahidi [72].…”

“…The literature has identified that the public participates in SNS during crisis circumstances to stay informed (e.g., [8,46,54]) and to exchange information (e.g., [40,72,81]). These actions can be categorized into three distinctive participatory behaviors [80].…”

Untitled

“…They were also most likely to utilize a phone call or a text message to immediately connect with others before turning to social media. However, despite the fact that social media is gaining attention in the area of crisis communication and school shootings (Mazer et al, 2015;Omilion-Hodges & McClane, 2015), legacy media are still the dominant source for information concerning most crises and disasters. Because social media often contains misinformation about crises , some organizations are understandably reluctant to adopt it as a tool for crisis communication.…”