Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Bridging the Gap: A Case Study of Utilizing Social Media to Accelerate Recovery and Structuring Disaster Management

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Social Computing and Social Media (HCII 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14705))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 382 Accesses

Abstract

The widespread availability of the internet and smartphones and active participation in social media platforms reflect a substantial advancement in information and communication technology. Despite Bangladesh’s economic progress and widespread technology adoption, recurring natural disasters disrupt lives and hinder development. Using a mixed-method approach, our study examines the effectiveness of social media in disaster management activities in Bangladesh with the goal of aiding the traditional approaches with social media to alleviate post-disaster suffering. The research involves analyzing official social media data from Facebook and Instagram using CrowdTangle. This quantitative analysis is followed by semi-structured interviews with 57 people affected by the 2022 floods in Sylhet. Additionally, our study involves interviews with disaster management organizations in Bangladesh to gather valuable insights from an organizational standpoint. According to the CrowdTangle analysis, most social media activity on Facebook and Instagram during the Sylhet flood was related to the disaster itself. Around 65% of Facebook posts and 70% of Instagram posts were directly linked to the flood. The interviews highlight the difficulties faced during such crises, as well as the potential of social media in managing disasters. The study sheds light on the difficulties faced during disaster management in developing countries such as Bangladesh and offers a path toward faster recovery from the aftermath of such disasters.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.crowdtangle.com/.

  2. 2.

    https://bdrcs.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/20220618Flash-Flood_SitRep-3_BDRCS.pdf.

  3. 3.

    https://www.thedailystar.net/environment/climate-crisis/natural-disaster/news/tk-1238cr-lost-flood-sylhet.

References

  1. Bangladesh among top 3 countries for Facebook active user growth: Meta — thedailystar.net. https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/bangladesh-among-top-3-countries-facebook-active-user-growth-meta-3238806. Accessed 24 Jan 2024

  2. Bangladesh lost \$11.3b due to natural disasters last year: UN — tbsnews.net. https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/environment/climate-change/bangladesh-lost-113b-due-natural-disasters-last-year-un-321319. Accessed 24 Jan 2024

  3. WorldRiskReport 2022: Focus: Digitalization — preventionweb.net. https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/worldriskreport-2022-focus-digitalization. Accessed 24 Jan 2024

  4. Al Hasibuzzaman, M., Noboneeta, A., Begum, M., Hridi, N.N.C.: Social media and social relationship among youth: a changing pattern and impacts in Bangladesh. Asian J. Soc. Sci. Legal Stud. 4(1), 01–11 (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., Stephen, A.T.: The future of social media in marketing. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 48(1), 79–95 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Barde, V., Sinha, P., Mohanty, U., Panda, R.: Reversal nature in rainfall pattern over the Indian heavy and low rainfall zones in the recent era. Theoret. Appl. Climatol. 146, 365–379 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bingqing, L., Zhang, X., Jin, W.: Real world effectiveness of information and communication technologies in disaster relief: a systematic review. Iran. J. Public Health 49(10), 1813 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Cahyono, S.T., Kuntjorowati, E., Hermawati, I., Rusmiyati, C., Purnama, A., et al.: Disaster risk management based on local wisdom in handling natural disaster victims. In: IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 1109, p. 012023. IOP Publishing (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Cox, L.A., Jr.: Decision theory challenges for catastrophic risks and community resilience. In: Cox, L.A., Jr. (ed.) AI-ML for Decision and Risk Analysis: Challenges and Opportunities for Normative Decision Theory, pp. 157–183. Springer, Cham (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32013-2_5

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Dahal, L., Idris, M.S., Bravo, V.: “it helped us, and it hurt us” the role of social media in shaping agency and action among youth in post-disaster Nepal. J. Contingencies Crisis Manag. 29(2), 217–225 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Dong, Z.S., Meng, L., Christenson, L., Fulton, L.: Social media information sharing for natural disaster response. Nat. Hazards 107, 2077–2104 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Dubbelink, S.I., Herrando, C., Constantinides, E.: Social media marketing as a branding strategy in extraordinary times: lessons from the covid-19 pandemic. Sustainability 13(18), 10310 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Faisal, M.R., Budiman, I., Abadi, F., Haekal, M., Delimayanti, M.K., Nugrahadi, D.T., et al.: Using social media data to monitor natural disaster: a multi dimension convolutional neural network approach with word embedding. Jurnal RESTI (Rekayasa Sistem dan Teknologi Informasi) 6(6), 1037–1046 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Gupta, K., Oladimeji, D., Varol, C., Rasheed, A., Shahshidhar, N.: A comprehensive survey on artifact recovery from social media platforms: approaches and future research directions. Information 14(12), 629 (2023)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Haque, S.E., Nahar, N.: Bangladesh: climate change issues, mitigation, and adaptation in the water sector. ACS ES &T Water 3(6), 1484–1501 (2023)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Huang, Q., Xiao, Y.: Geographic situational awareness: mining tweets for disaster preparedness, emergency response, impact, and recovery. ISPRS Int. J. Geo Inf. 4(3), 1549–1568 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Kabir, M.E., Kamruzzaman, P.: Exploring the drivers of vulnerability among disadvantaged internal migrants in riverbank erosion prone areas in north-west Bangladesh. J. South Asian Dev. 17(1), 57–83 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Kobiruzzaman, M.: Role of social media in disaster management in Bangladesh towards the covid-19 pandemic: a critical review and directions. Int. J. Educ. Knowl. Manag. (IJEKM) 4(2), 1–14 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Lovari, A., Bowen, S.A.: Social media in disaster communication: a case study of strategies, barriers, and ethical implications. J. Public Aff. 20(1), e1967 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Mavrodieva, A.V., Shaw, R.: Social media in disaster management. In: Media and Disaster Risk Reduction: Advances, Challenges and Potentials, pp. 55–73 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Ogie, R., James, S., Moore, A., Dilworth, T., Amirghasemi, M., Whittaker, J.: Social media use in disaster recovery: a systematic literature review. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 70, 102783 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Parker, L., Bourgoin, C., Martinez-Valle, A., Läderach, P.: Vulnerability of the agricultural sector to climate change: the development of a pan-tropical climate risk vulnerability assessment to inform sub-national decision making. PLoS ONE 14(3), e0213641 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Pfefferbaum, B., Van Horn, R.L., Pfefferbaum, R.L.: A conceptual framework to enhance community resilience using social capital. Clin. Soc. Work J. 45(2), 102–110 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Phengsuwan, J., et al.: Use of social media data in disaster management: a survey. Future Internet 13(2), 46 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Prasad, M., Islam, M.M.U.: A quantitative study on usage measure of social media platforms in Bangladesh. In: Information Literacy Skills and the Role of Social Media in Disseminating Scholarly Information in the 21st Century, pp. 121–130. IGI Global (2023)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Ramakrishnan, K., Yuksel, M., Seferoglu, H., Chen, J., Blalock, R.A.: Resilient communication for dynamic first responder teams in disaster management. IEEE Commun. Mag. 60(9), 93–99 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Ramakrishnan, T., Ngamassi, L., Rahman, S.: Examining the factors that influence the use of social media for disaster management by underserved communities. Int. J. Disaster Risk Sci. 13(1), 52–65 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Ray, A., Bala, P.K.: Social media for improved process management in organizations during disasters. Knowl. Process. Manag. 27(1), 63–74 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Shandraseharan, A., Kulatunga, U.: Social media for disaster management: the Sri Lankan context. Int. J. Constr. Manag. 23(4), 648–655 (2023)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Suzad Mohammad, Fairuz Shaiara & Sadia Sharmin

  2. United International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Abdullah Al Jobair

  3. International University of Business Agriculture and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Suzad Mohammad

Authors
  1. Suzad Mohammad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Abdullah Al Jobair
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Fairuz Shaiara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sadia Sharmin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Suzad Mohammad .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Adela Coman

  2. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Simona Vasilache

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Mohammad, S., Al Jobair, A., Shaiara, F., Sharmin, S. (2024). Bridging the Gap: A Case Study of Utilizing Social Media to Accelerate Recovery and Structuring Disaster Management. In: Coman, A., Vasilache, S. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media. HCII 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14705. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61312-8_11

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61312-8_11

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-61311-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-61312-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics