Research on emergency information management based on the social network analysis — A case analysis of panic buying of salt

Abstract

In order to study the characteristics and effects of information diffusion during emergencies, social network analysis is applied to the current research on urban emergency information management. The basic structure of the social network, its social organization, the position of participants in the network, and the influence of relations between them on the path, speed and scale of information diffusion are studied to reveal the interaction mechanism. In this paper, the social network analysis theory is applied to the case of “panic buying of salt” in China, emergency information diffusion network topology and inter-city emergency information diffusion network are generated by using Uncinet 6.0, and network density, average distance, centrality, and closeness are also calculated. Research shows that based on the topological structure of social network, information diffusion during emergencies has dynamic and complex characteristics; the topological structure of social network decides the “power” of the participants; stability and information management effectiveness of the core network are positively correlated.