User-generated content on the Facebook page of emergency management organizations: perspectives of emergency management administrators

This article examines the benefits and challenges of user-generated content (comments) on the Facebook pages of emergency management organisations (EMOs) that manage natural disasters. Although organisational communication literature acknowledges the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for information dissemination as part of emergency management, less attention has been paid to comments posted by external organisations and members of the public. To address these gaps in the literature, this article presents preliminary findings from a qualitative study of user posts on the Facebook page of two publicly funded EMOs. An information classification framework is adopted to understand the technological, organisational and social implications of these posts. This interpretive research employs a manual thematic analysis of text comments; it is followed by a qualitative semi-structured interview with seven emergency management administrators. Preliminary findings indicate that a study of comments posted by users to EMOs’ SNSs can yield valuable lessons for stakeholders from past emergencies.