Join us for a Public lecture by Prof Deborah Bunker, Professor of Systems and Information at the University of Sydney Business School presented by QUT Centre for Future Enterprise
As Time Goes By: Temporal Characteristics of Social Media and Information Ojective-Subjective Tensions in Crisis Communication
Deborah Bunker, Maryam Shahbazi, Christian Ehnis and Tania Sorrell
Social media communication is integral to framing an effective crisis response but is generally impacted by high volumes and an overload of information and misinformation, i.e., infodemic conditions. The social media connection content (i.e., information) and connection type (i.e., communications strategies) that are shared between actors (e.g., emergency response organisations and the public) underpins the development of trusted shared situational awareness for effective crisis management. This study investigates how local public health organisations use Facebook to mitigate COVID-19 misinformation and create effective trusted shared situational awareness. We show how the nature of the event and social media temporal characteristics can create information objective-subjective tensions and create misinformation on public health social media channels. This undermines an agreed and accurate representation of reality that is expected of trusted, shared situational awareness. We conclude that developing communications strategies to manage information these tensions becomes especially important during an evolving crisis scenario where situational awareness and knowledge are developed over time and information and advice may change in response to changing crisis conditions.
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About the presenter
Deborah Bunker is a Professor of Systems and Information (Research Affiliate) at the University of Sydney Business School and an Honorary Professor at the Sydney Institute of Infectious Diseases. She is a Chief Investigator on an EU Horizon 2020 project RISE_SMA Social Media Analytics for Society and Crisis Communication and a Norwegian Research Council SAMRISK Work Program project INSITU Sharing Incident and Threat Information During Crises. Professor Bunker is the immediate past Chair of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.6 (Transfer and Diffusion of IT). She is currently the Interim President of the Australian Council of Professors and Head of IS (ACPHIS) and is a Member, National Committee for Information and Communications Sciences (NCICS) of the Australian Academy of Science. Professor Bunker has also served twice as a Member of the Research Evaluation Committee (Mathematics, Information and Computing Sciences Panel) for the Excellence in Research for Australia evaluation process (ERA 2018, 2015). She has been a Track Co-Chair for the International Conference on IS (ICIS 2015, 2018) and was also a Program Co-Chair for the inaugural ICSRAM Asia Pacific Conference in Wellington, in November 2018. Professor Bunker is a Distinguished Editorial Advisory Board Member, International Journal of Information Management, Senior Editor for Information Technology and People and is also a Section Editor for the Australasian Journal of Information Systems.
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