Challenges in the adoption of crisis crowdsourcing and social media in Canadian emergency management

Abstract

When a disaster occurs, government agencies are responsible for managing the response and recovery efforts of the impacted communities and infrastructure. Crowdsourcing and social media are widely used in disaster response, yet their primary implementation and application are often via non-governmental agencies and private citizens. A review of the literature suggests that government emergency management agencies in Canada have made little documented progress in adopting crowdsourcing or social media for emergency management. Most of the literature around crowdsourcing and social media for emergency management focus on its use or role outside of Canada (e.g. the USA, Australia, etc.). In order for government agencies in Canada to progress, it is important to identify the Canada-specific barriers and constraints. This study offers a new perspective from Canadian government emergency management agencies to address this gap. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with 15 government officials from 14 agencies, this study identifies the primary challenges and constraints faced by Canadian agencies looking to adopt crisis crowdsourcing. Results indicate that organizational factors, policies, and federal legislation in Canada present barriers to crisis crowdsourcing (including crowdsourcing through social media) adoption within agencies at various levels of government. Based on these results, recommendations are made to support the adoption of crisis crowdsourcing amongst Canadian government agencies.