Social Media Influencing C2 in Underdeveloped and Degraded Operational Environments
Abstract
The ubiquity of online and mobile technologies across the World and their rapid adoption by citizens in the face of emergencies and crises is rapidly changing the C2 operational environment for responses to natural disasters, terrorist threats, and social upheavals. Equipped with sophisticated smartphones, citizens embrace their role as the first in situ sensors, displaying an active producer-consumer behavior by capturing high-definition images and videos, sharing the contents with others, and commenting on information posted by others. Similarly, when information is scarce, social media have been elected by citizens as valuable instruments for identifying and locating victims, assisting search and rescue operations, accessing crisis-related information on open community-based repositories, and influencing specific cliques and groups in society, especially in the organization and coordination of mob protests. This new digital social arena has been brought to C2 operational environments and organizations are under pressure to understand and cope with this new reality. In this paper, we analyze documented case studies of emergency and crisis events characterized by underdeveloped and degraded operational environments that involved strong military or security-related intervention and generated significant social media dynamics. Ranging from natural disasters to terrorist events to social turmoil and upheavals, these cases highlight social media as a fundamental information source in the support of actionable Intelligence and effective connecting and collaboration.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA588783
Entities
People
- Barbara Manso
- Marco Manso
- Margaret D. Hayes
- Richard E. Hayes