Building online citizen engagement for enhancing emergency management in local European government. The case of the November 2015 Paris attacks
| Date | 08 April 2019 |
| Pages | 219-238 |
| Published date | 08 April 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-09-2016-0286 |
| Author | María del Mar Gálvez-Rodríguez,Arturo Haro-de-Rosario,Manuela García-Tabuyo,Carmen Caba-Pérez |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Building online citizen
engagement for enhancing
emergency management in local
European government
The case of the November 2015 Paris attacks
María del Mar Gálvez-Rodríguez, Arturo Haro-de-Rosario,
Manuela García-Tabuyo and Carmen Caba-Pérez
Department of Business and Economics, University of Almeria, Almeria, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine European citizen engagement for enhancing emergency
management and, more specifically, in the context of the terrorist attacks which occurred in Paris, France on
November 15, 2015. To do so, two main research questions are raised. First, are there differences in the levels
of citizen engagement between the country affected, France, and other European countries? Second, what
factors foster a high level of citizen engagement in France?
Design/methodology/approach –First, a comparative content analysis of the Facebook pages of local
governments in France and other capital cities of the European Union (EU) was carried. Second, a
multivariate regression analysis was performed.
Findings –Although the level of online citizen engagement was greater in France than in the other EU cities
analyzed, similarities were detected in the messages sent, responses and moment of participation. Moreover,
there are certain types of online social behavior that encourage interactive conversations among citizens as
well as between citizens and their local governments.
Practical implications –This research enables local governments to understand the similarities and
differences between citizens and local governments from the affected country and those from outside it when
using social media to engage in emergency management. It also provides further insight for managers of local
governments in the country affected with regards to the need to be aware of the influence of online collective
behavior that emerges from the information they publish. As a result, the attainment of a high level of
citizens’participation in their social media can differ.
Originality/value –This paper advances in the scarce knowledge of high levels of online engagement
(conversational interactions) in emergency situations.
Keywords Participation, Facebook, Crisis, Crisis informatics theory
Paper type Research paper
The seven coordinated terror attacks in Paris the night of Friday 13 November 2015 left at least 130
people dead and hundreds wounded. In response to this massacre, a state of emergency was
declared across the country to help fight terrorism. Social media was the place where millions of
people around the world first heard about it[1].
Introduction
Although shocking crisis situations such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks have
occurred in several European countries, there is a clear lack of recent strong evidence of
citizens’reactions on the use of social media in such countries. In this respect, the most of the
evidence comes from the USA (Reuter et al., 2016). Moreover, there is no doubt on the leading
role that local governments have played in the management of any emergency situation
(Shen and Chu, 2014). However, most of the public sector studies focusing on the use of
social media for improving disaster response are carried out at a national level rather than at
a sub-national level (Yu et al., 2017).
Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 2, 2019
pp. 219-238
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-09-2016-0286
Received 29 September 2016
Revised 10 October 2017
28 January 2018
Accepted 14 March 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
219
Online citizen
engagement:
2015 Paris
attacks
To overcome an emergency situation, it is crucial to engage the public with the
aim of strengthening the capacity of the community to successfully carry out the four
phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery
(Kurian et al., 2017). The term engagement is “an acknowledgement that interactants are
willing to give their whole selves to encounters. Engagement assumes accessibility,
presentness, and a willingness to interact”(Taylor and Kent, 2014, p. 387). This is in
accordance with Graham et al. (2015), who stated that giving citizens a participatory space
in emergency management fosters the expanded knowledge, shared learning, personal
responsibility and increased social capital. As a result, citizenship more resilient and
prepared in such moments of threat is generated.
Current studies on emergency situations and online information have enriched the
literature with fresh findings such as the propose of new methods and models to detect
emergencies and manage public online opinion (Du et al., 2017; Yu et al., 2017), the
identification of the web technologies most used by citizen-based response
organizations in crisis situations (Lai, 2017) or identification of the themes that most
emerge in social media along all the phases of emergency management (Kurian et al., 2017).
However, there is still a lack of attention on the different reactions of online engagement
between citizens from both the country where the crisis occurs and those from outside
the country affected. Furthermore, there are only few studies focusing on the drivers
of a high level of citizen online engagements, that is interactive conversations (ICs), during
crisis situations.
Hence, this study aims to analyze European citizen engagement in emergency
situations and, more specifically, with regards to the events shortly after the terrorist
attacks which occurred in Paris, France in November 2015. To do so, this paper posits two
main research questions:
RQ1. Are there differences in the levels of citizen engagement between those within the
country affected, France, and other European countries?
RQ2. What factors foster a high level of citizen engagement in France?
The contributions made by this paper are several. Up to now, the knowledge regarding
citizens’response via social media is little, and the few studies published mainly address the
first two levels of engagement (clicking actions and text comments). Hence, this study
contributes to go a step further and advance toward the highest level of online engagement,
which is the generation of ICs. Likewise, the literature has neglected comparative analyzes
of social media in emergencies, and with this research, the view of both the country affected
(France) and external reactions of European Union (EU) citizens is covered. In addition, this
research contributes to the lack of empirical studies focused on which factors should local
government take into account to monitor and foster online citizens engagement during
emergency management situations.
Literature review
Social media use in emergency situations
Previous research on the use of social media during crises has emphasized the important
operational and emotional support roles of such technologies. In particular, in connecting
people, updating the information and providing reassurance about safety (Pohl et al., 2016).
In this regard, the free expression of feelings and emotions over the deaths and wounded,
and the anger toward those responsible have been salient features and common themes in
social media analysis (Al-Saggaf and Simmons, 2015).
Regarding the type of emergency, social media has been used, among others, in earthquakes
(Yates and Paquette, 2011), storms (Lachlan et al., 2016) and ri ots (Panagiotopoulos et al., 2014).
220
OIR
43,2
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