Emma Potter-Hay Thesis (PDF 5MB)
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BROADCAST, PROMOTE, RESPOND, ENGAGE: COMPETING UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE PURPOSE AND VALUE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN AN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION Emma Jean Potter-Hay B.A. (Hons) Media and Communication, Political Science Submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Digital Media Research Centre Queensland University of Technology 2017 Keywords Crisis Communication Disasters Emergency Management Ethnography Government Organisational Studies Queensland Social Media i Abstract Natural disasters cause significant human casualties and damage to the natural and built environment. Ill-prepared communities are often those most significantly affected, particularly as disasters often occur with little or no warning. In recent years, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to aid in disaster warning, preparation and relief efforts has played an increasingly vital role in response efforts by emergency management organisations. Social media in particular are now widely used by affected members of the public during an emergency. As these platforms have become mainstream, governments have responded to the public’s expectation that information is available online, especially during disasters. Emergency management organisations now use social media to communicate during both routine and non-routine events. The integration of social media in emergency management now widely affects how these organisations communicate externally, as they challenge and reshape the roles and functions that constitute such organisations and their communicative relationships with the broader community. Scholars have acknowledged the tendency for research in this field to focus on the potential use of new technologies by emergency management and law enforcement agencies rather than on how these technologies actually function (see Sanders, 2014; Sheptycki, 2004; Mergel, 2013b). By acknowledging the research tendency, other scholars thus recognise the need for further empirical research into emergency management organisations’ social media use (Mergel, 2013b; Plotnick et al., 2015). By combining participant observation and in-depth interviews as well as other forms of ancillary data within an ethnographic approach to observe the current practice and uses of social media in one emergency management organisation, the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, this study provides a valuable contribution to the field by addressing and filling these acknowledged gaps. Although situated within media, communication and journalism studies, this research also borrows from other disciplines, including organisational sociology and emergency management, which together explain the organisational phenomena particular to this research better than the media and communication studies do. ii This thesis finds that the organisational restructure within Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) that occurred during this study had a direct and disruptive effect on social media use within the organisation, repositioning the social media function to within the existing media team who felt ill prepared and under resourced to manage this responsibility. This repositioning was met with resistance; media team members’ professional histories shaped this resistance, as their traditional journalism backgrounds influenced their views and uses of social media. This thesis describes how the organisation largely normalised (rather than adapted to) social media. In doing so, their efforts to engage in a two-way conversation with their audience were secondary to their one-way communication responsibilities. Drawing on Stark (2009), this thesis also describes the broader dissonant perspectives towards social media that existed in the organisation. While Stark argues that dissonance can be both productive and problematic, drawing on ethnographic examples, this study finds that dissonance was often problematic within QFES. Finally, this thesis describes and analyses the internal operational tensions around QFES social media use. These tensions include the prioritisation of operational duties over public information responsibilities, and the difficulties around requesting and receiving information from operational personnel located on the ground. iii Table of Contents Keywords ................................................................................................................................... i Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. viii Statement of Original Authorship ........................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ xii Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Origins of the research project ........................................................................................ 9 1.2.1 Disbanding of Department of Community Safety ............................................. 10 1.3 Context .......................................................................................................................... 11 1.4 Thesis Structure ............................................................................................................. 12 Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................... 17 2.1 Digital transformation of media and communication ................................................... 18 2.2 The social media moment ............................................................................................. 21 2.3 Social media and government ....................................................................................... 26 2.4 Social media and journalism ......................................................................................... 30 2.5 Disaster communication and social media .................................................................... 36 2.5.1 Information dissemination ................................................................................. 41 2.5.2 Intelligence gathering ......................................................................................... 43 2.6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 3: Design, approach and methodology .............................................. 51 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 51 3.2 Ethnographic research ................................................................................................... 53 3.2.1 Participant observation ....................................................................................... 55 3.2.1.1 Participants ...................................................................................................... 59 3.2.1.2 Ethnographic field notes .................................................................................. 60 3.2.2 In-depth, semi-structured interviews ................................................................. 63 3.3 Researcher’s position .................................................................................................... 67 3.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 4: Situating social media in the organisation .................................... 69 4.1 The Media and Corporate communications (MACC) branch ....................................... 69 4.2 Political instability in Queensland ................................................................................ 73 4.3 Factors influencing the uptake of social media ............................................................. 75 4.4 Entering the social media space .................................................................................... 78 iv 4.5 Commencing fieldwork amongst organisational disruption .......................................... 85 4.6 Establishing the Public Safety Business Agency (PSBA) ............................................. 90 4.7 Moving the social media function into media team ....................................................... 93 4.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 100 Chapter 5: Mapping the competing internal attitudes towards social media: a case of dissonance ................................................................................................ 104 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 104 5.2 Key concepts underpinning