Crowdsourced, voluntary collective action in disasters

Abstract

This paper explores how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are used for the public across the world to take their crowdsourced, voluntary collective action to effectively address natural disasters and man-made crises in the network age. The ICTs enable individuals to mobilize volunteers across the globe, report crisis situations from the ground, translate reported messages, carry out crisis mapping, and self-organize the coordination of relief resources. Although the ICTs-enabled, voluntary collection action can make a considerable contribution to emergency and crisis management, scholars and practitioners need to consider challenges and risks, including inaccuracy, bias, privacy and security issues, technological limitations, and burnout of online volunteers.