<p><strong>Title</strong>:      Kriskommunikation på 140 tecken; En kvantitativ innehållsanalys om media och myndigheters traditionella roller vid pandemikrisen A(H1N1) via SVT Rapport och Krisinformation.se:s twitterflöden.</p><p><strong>Author</strong>:                         Arne Wetterholm & Petter Westlund</p><p><strong>Tutor</strong>:                         Mats Eriksson</p><p><strong>Course</strong>:                         Medie- & Kommunikationsvetenskap C, inriktning PR</p><p><strong>Semester</strong>:                         Autumn 2009</p><p><strong>Purpose</strong>:      The purpose of this study is to analyse how twitter-feeds has been reporting the A(H1N1) pandemics. Do authorities and media keep their classical approach towards new crisis in a new media channel like Twitter.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Method & material</strong>:      The analysis is conducted through a quantitative research method where two Twitter feeds will be used as the main source of the material. The 50 latest messages of the feeds in both Twitter microblogs Krisinformation.se and SVT PlayRapport will be represented in the material.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Theories</strong>:      The theoretical background consists of Jan van Dijk and Manuel Castells theories of the network society. The theories of classical approach on authorities and media are also a part of the theoretical background along with theories about the modern web.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Main results</strong>:      The main results of this study points towards a continuous approach of both authorities and media in the Twitter feeds. That means that new opportunities of crisis information don’t mean new approaches for authorities and media when reporting a crisis.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>:     crisis information, crisis communication,  Twitter, SVT, Rapport, Krisinformation.se, kriskommunikation, A(H1N1), nya influensan, svininfluensan, swine inluenza, microblog, mikroblogg, kvantitativ, quantitative, innehållsanalys, context analysis.</p>

During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the City of Ottawa implemented a program to disseminate vaccination clinic information using the microblogging tool Twitter. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and evaluate whether this program constitutes a communicative model. The challenge for crisis communicators has been to convince a confused and skeptical public to be vaccinated against the virus. Drawing on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Rousseau’s The Social Contract, the theoretical framework of this thesis feeds from Heidegger’s (1977) views on technology, new media, Web 2.0 technologies, Eid’s (2008) Crisis Decision-Making Model for Media Rational Responsibility, Rowan, Botan, Krepes, Samoilenko and Farnsworth’s (2008) CAUSE model, Crozier’s (1967) Theory of Bureaucratic Dysfunction and New Public Management. The thesis employs a case study approach and utilizes a qualitative research design to analyze the Twitter messages and internal City of Ottawa documents, and to conduct in-depth interviews with employees. Findings reveal and explain that the City of Ottawa’s program constitutes a flawed communicative model. A recommended communicative model is put forth in order to improve the areas of planning, human resources and message design. This model contributes to the emerging field of social media, and is intended to help health crisis decision-makers communicate their messages effectively.

This thesis reports on the use of Twitter during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic to explore its use as an “infoveillance” approach complementary to traditional surveys and content analysis.  This study aimed to: 1) report on the use of “H1N1” versus “swine flu”, 2) conduct a qualitative analysis of tweet content, and 3) assess the feasibility of Twitter as a real-time content, sentiment, and public attention trend tracking tool. A manual content analysis of tweets revealed that H1N1 resources were the most commonly shared.  Few tweets provided inaccurate information.  News websites were the most popular resources while official agencies were rarely referenced directly.  Our automated analysis correlated well with manual results and showed that Twitter activity was influenced by external events. This study describes the character and quality of Twitter communications during the H1N1 pandemic, and illustrates the potential of using social media to conduct real-time “infodemiology” studies for public health.

This thesis reports on the use of Twitter during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic to explore its use as an “infoveillance” approach complementary to traditional surveys and content analysis.  This study aimed to: 1) report on the use of “H1N1” versus “swine flu”, 2) conduct a qualitative analysis of tweet content, and 3) assess the feasibility of Twitter as a real-time content, sentiment, and public attention trend tracking tool. A manual content analysis of tweets revealed that H1N1 resources were the most commonly shared.  Few tweets provided inaccurate information.  News websites were the most popular resources while official agencies were rarely referenced directly.  Our automated analysis correlated well with manual results and showed that Twitter activity was influenced by external events. This study describes the character and quality of Twitter communications during the H1N1 pandemic, and illustrates the potential of using social media to conduct real-time “infodemiology” studies for public health.

During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the City of Ottawa implemented a program to disseminate vaccination clinic information using the microblogging tool Twitter. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and evaluate whether this program constitutes a communicative model. The challenge for crisis communicators has been to convince a confused and skeptical public to be vaccinated against the virus. Drawing on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Rousseau’s The Social Contract, the theoretical framework of this thesis feeds from Heidegger’s (1977) views on technology, new media, Web 2.0 technologies, Eid’s (2008) Crisis Decision-Making Model for Media Rational Responsibility, Rowan, Botan, Krepes, Samoilenko and Farnsworth’s (2008) CAUSE model, Crozier’s (1967) Theory of Bureaucratic Dysfunction and New Public Management. The thesis employs a case study approach and utilizes a qualitative research design to analyze the Twitter messages and internal City of Ottawa documents, and to conduct in-depth interviews with employees. Findings reveal and explain that the City of Ottawa’s program constitutes a flawed communicative model. A recommended communicative model is put forth in order to improve the areas of planning, human resources and message design. This model contributes to the emerging field of social media, and is intended to help health crisis decision-makers communicate their messages effectively.

Title:      Kriskommunikation på 140 tecken; En kvantitativ innehållsanalys om media och myndigheters traditionella roller vid pandemikrisen A(H1N1) via SVT Rapport och Krisinformation.se:s twitterflöden. Author:                         Arne Wetterholm &amp; Petter Westlund Tutor:                         Mats Eriksson Course:                         Medie- &amp; Kommunikationsvetenskap C, inriktning PR Semester:                         Autumn 2009 Purpose:      The purpose of this study is to analyse how twitter-feeds has been reporting the A(H1N1) pandemics. Do authorities and media keep their classical approach towards new crisis in a new media channel like Twitter.   Method &amp; material:      The analysis is conducted through a quantitative research method where two Twitter feeds will be used as the main source of the material. The 50 latest messages of the feeds in both Twitter microblogs Krisinformation.se and SVT PlayRapport will be represented in the material.   Theories:      The theoretical background consists of Jan van Dijk and Manuel Castells theories of the network society. The theories of classical approach on authorities and media are also a part of the theoretical background along with theories about the modern web.   Main results:      The main results of this study points towards a continuous approach of both authorities and media in the Twitter feeds. That means that new opportunities of crisis information don’t mean new approaches for authorities and media when reporting a crisis.   Keywords:     crisis information, crisis communication,  Twitter, SVT, Rapport, Krisinformation.se, kriskommunikation, A(H1N1), nya influensan, svininfluensan, swine inluenza, microblog, mikroblogg, kvantitativ, quantitative, innehållsanalys, context analysis.

During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the City of Ottawa implemented a program to disseminate vaccination clinic information using the microblogging tool Twitter. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and evaluate whether this program constitutes a communicative model. The challenge for crisis communicators has been to convince a confused and skeptical public to be vaccinated against the virus. Drawing on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Rousseau’s The Social Contract, the theoretical framework of this thesis feeds from Heidegger’s (1977) views on technology, new media, Web 2.0 technologies, Eid’s (2008) Crisis Decision-Making Model for Media Rational Responsibility, Rowan, Botan, Krepes, Samoilenko and Farnsworth’s (2008) CAUSE model, Crozier’s (1967) Theory of Bureaucratic Dysfunction and New Public Management. The thesis employs a case study approach and utilizes a qualitative research design to analyze the Twitter messages and internal City of Ottawa documents, and to conduct in-depth interviews with employees. Findings reveal and explain that the City of Ottawa’s program constitutes a flawed communicative model. A recommended communicative model is put forth in order to improve the areas of planning, human resources and message design. This model contributes to the emerging field of social media, and is intended to help health crisis decision-makers communicate their messages effectively.

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During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the City of Ottawa implemented a program to disseminate vaccination clinic information using the microblogging tool Twitter. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and evaluate whether this program constitutes a communicative model. The challenge for crisis communicators has been to convince a confused and skeptical public to be vaccinated against the virus. Drawing on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Rousseau’s The Social Contract, the theoretical framework of this thesis feeds from Heidegger’s (1977) views on technology, new media, Web 2.0 technologies, Eid’s (2008) Crisis Decision-Making Model for Media Rational Responsibility, Rowan, Botan, Krepes, Samoilenko and Farnsworth’s (2008) CAUSE model, Crozier’s (1967) Theory of Bureaucratic Dysfunction and New Public Management. The thesis employs a case study approach and utilizes a qualitative research design to analyze the Twitter messages and internal City of Ottawa documents, and to conduct in-depth interviews with employees. Findings reveal and explain that the City of Ottawa’s program constitutes a flawed communicative model. A recommended communicative model is put forth in order to improve the areas of planning, human resources and message design. This model contributes to the emerging field of social media, and is intended to help health crisis decision-makers communicate their messages effectively.

Durant les situations de crise, telles que les catastrophes, le besoin de recherche d’informations (RI) pertinentes partagées dans les microblogs en temps réel est inévitable. Cependant, le grand volume et la variété des flux d’informations partagées en temps réel dans de telles situations compliquent cette tâche. Contrairement aux approches existantes de RI basées sur l’analyse du contenu, nous proposons de nous attaquer à ce problème en nous basant sur les approches centrées utilisateurs tout en levant un certain nombre de verrous méthodologiques et technologiques inhérents : 1) à la collection des données partagées par les utilisateurs à évaluer, 2) à la modélisation de leurs comportements, 3) à l’analyse des comportements, et 4) à la prédiction et le suivi des utilisateurs primordiaux en temps réel. Dans ce contexte, nous détaillons les approches proposées dans cette thèse afin de prédire les utilisateurs primordiaux qui sont susceptibles de partager les informations pertinentes et exclusives ciblées et de permettre aux intervenants d’urgence d’accéder aux informations requises quel que soit le format (i.e. texte, image, vidéo, lien hypertexte) et en temps réel. Ces approches sont centrées sur trois principaux aspects. Nous avons tout d’abord étudié l’efficacité de différentes catégories de mesures issues de la littérature et proposées dans cette thèse pour représenter le comportement des utilisateurs. En nous basant sur les mesures pertinentes résultant de cette étude, nous concevons des nouvelles caractéristiques permettant de mettre en évidence la qualité des informations partagées par les utilisateurs selon leurs comportements. Le deuxième aspect consiste à proposer une approche de modélisation du comportement de chaque utilisateur en nous basant sur les critères suivants : 1) la modélisation des utilisateurs selon l’évolution de l’évènement, 2) la modélisation de l’évolution des activités des utilisateurs au fil du temps à travers une représentation sensible au temps, 3) la sélection des caractéristiques les plus discriminantes pour chaque phase de l’évènement. En se basant sur cette approche de modélisation, nous entraînons différents modèles de prédiction qui apprennent à différencier les comportements des utilisateurs primordiaux de ceux qui ne le sont pas durant les situations de crise. Les algorithmes SVM et MOG-HMMs ont été utilisés durant la phase d’apprentissage. La pertinence et l’efficacité des modèles de prédiction appris ont été validées à l’aide des données collectées par notre système multi-agents MASIR durant deux inondations qui ont eu lieu en France et des vérités terrain appropriées à ces collections. / During crisis events such as disasters, the need of real-time information retrieval (IR) from microblogs remains inevitable. However, the huge amount and the variety of the shared information in real time during such events over-complicate this task. Unlike existing IR approaches based on content analysis, we propose to tackle this problem by using user-centricIR approaches with solving the wide spectrum of methodological and technological barriers inherent to : 1) the collection of the evaluated users data, 2) the modeling of user behavior, 3) the analysis of user behavior, and 4) the prediction and tracking of prominent users in real time. In this context, we detail the different proposed approaches in this dissertation leading to the prediction of prominent users who are susceptible to share the targeted relevant and exclusive information on one hand and enabling emergency responders to have a real-time access to the required information in all formats (i.e. text, image, video, links) on the other hand. These approaches focus on three key aspects of prominent users identification. Firstly, we have studied the efficiency of state-of-the-art and new proposed raw features for characterizing user behavior during crisis events. Based on the selected features, we have designed several engineered features qualifying user activities by considering both their on-topic and off-topic shared information. Secondly, we have proposed a phase-aware user modeling approach taking into account the user behavior change according to the event evolution over time. This user modeling approach comprises the following new novel aspects (1) Modeling microblog users behavior evolution by considering the different event phases (2) Characterizing users activity over time through a temporal sequence representation (3) Time-series-based selection of the most discriminative features characterizing users at each event phase. Thirdly, based on this proposed user modeling approach, we train various prediction models to learn to differentiate between prominent and non-prominent users behavior during crisis event. The learning task has been performed using SVM and MoG-HMMs supervised machine learning algorithms. The efficiency and efficacy of these prediction models have been validated thanks to the data collections extracted by our multi-agents system MASIR during two flooding events who have occured in France and the different ground-truths related to these collections.