Web 2.0 and Social Networking Services in Municipal Emergency Management: A Study of U.S. Cities

Given the increasingly important role social networking services play as information sources during and after disasters, this study aims to investigate how the municipal governments of major U.S. cities and their emergency agencies employed RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or Atom, webcasts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and photo-sharing platforms for emergency management. Our findings reveal that the emergency agencies of San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Jose were the top three performers on the Web 2.0 services. Regarding the social networking services provided by municipal emergency agencies, New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia ranked among the top three cities. The San Diego municipal government and its emergency agencies provided the most Web 2.0 channels, and New York City and its emergency agencies provided the most services through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and photo-sharing platforms (Flickr, Pinterest, and Instagram). Because large cities can support stronger collaboration and communication during crises by providing more services on social networking services, under-performing cities can enhance their services by learning from top-performing cities like San Diego and New York City.