The document summarizes research on analyzing Twitter data in real-time during crises to improve emergency management. It discusses a case study of analyzing tweets during a storm that hit the Pukkelpop music festival in Belgium in 2011. Key findings included: 1) early warnings of the storm were present on Twitter; 2) tweets provided information on damage and casualties, with retweets spreading verified information; and 3) hashtags like #Hasselthelpt facilitated community resilience and support efforts. The researchers conclude Twitter monitoring could help confirm or refute rumors and inform crisis communications.

1. Towards realtime Twitter analysis
ISCRAM 2012
Arnout de Vries (TNO), Teun Terpstra (HKV), Geerte Paradies (TNO), Richard Stronkman (Twitcident)
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM > 23 april 2012
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2. Discussion and future work
1 minute ago
Results: early warning, facts and feelings, resilience
5 minutes ago
Analysis (Pukkelpop) and research method (Twitcident)
10 minutes ago
Goal: “Monitor and analyze Twitter during incidents in
real-time to improve crisis management”
15 minutes ago
Social sensors and citizen journalism
20 minutes ago

3. 3
M Bouman
10 januari 2011
TNO Nieuwe huisstijl
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4. Social media & emergency management
Red river floods
SLIDE 4

6. Pukkelpop
Storm incident 2011
August 18th 2011, 6.15 PM
6

7. Finding and filtering: keywords,
syntactical, context and
semantic features. More info:
7

8. Pukkelpop Twitter visual analysis
156.157 tweets total in 2 days
Tweets /min
576 tweets/min
SLIDE 8

9. Pukkelpop Twitter visual analysis
Selection of 96.957 tweets between noon and midnight Tweets /min
12 AM 12 PM
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10. Geographical spread of Tweets
Total spread afterwards:
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11. Pukkelpop Twitter: filter messages
2. Damage and casualties
Messages about
(rumours on)
casualties and deaths
3. ‘Community resilience’
1. Early warning People offering help in
various ways (e.g.
twitterlists)
‘Dangerous weather’
messages as early
indicators
SLIDE 11

12. Early warnings?
Impact
Indication? storm
Words used 25 minutes before impact
1. Weather: storm, thunder, cloud bursts, hail, ….
“ ”
2. Locations: Brussel, Gent, Hasselt, …
3. Severity: intense, enormous, drama, ‘hell’, !…
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13. Pukkelpop Twitter: early warning
1. Early warning
I pity those on #pukkelpop ! It was pitch dark
here for over 15 minutes! And hail storm,
lightning, thunder, …OMG!
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14. Damage: photo’s from eye witnesses
14

15. Pukkelpop Twitter: damage & casualties
2. Damage and casualties
• Retweets expressing doubts
• Some messages reach 10k SMS from the Standard: according to fireman of
Sint-Truiden 6 deaths on #pp11 because of storm
users in 3 minutes #shitman
• Hyperlinks (news or photo
websites) high propagation
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16. Pukkelpop Twitter: community resilience
• #Hasselthelpt, #Genthelpt, #Brusselhelpt, …
• Creation of Twitterlists (e.g. PatriceF)
• Sharing of phone numbers
• Creation of Twitter accounts
3. ‘Community resilience’
#Hasselthelpt 2 beds, shower and breakfast,
ask @Daffybal - pick up at church possible, we
live behind the festival grounds
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17. Discussion
Festival goers were taken by surprise, so it seems. But (weak) signals
were there.
Retweets accounted for large amounts of tweets on damage and
casualties and only occurred when pictures (in case of damage) or links
to official news sites (i case of casualties) were available. This suggests
social norms on twitter prevent propagation of unverified information
about delicate topics.
Solidarity is important in coping with disasters (Starbird et al). Within 2
hours the #hasselthelpt initiative was followed massively. This suggests
social media can facilitate community resilience that originate from
nearby people.
Twitter monitoring could enable crisis managers to confirm or refute
rumors and take emotional responses into account in crisis
communications.
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18. Future research
Early detection and early warning:
Examples: Queensday, (death) threats and weather conditions
Filters for damage and casualties need to be verified for other
incidents. New topic filters such as resilience need more research.
Retweets and source credibility are indeed related. Images and
links, besides the author, play an important role in assessing
credibility.
Indicators for assessing real-time credibility seem possible
and are valuable for crisis response teams.
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19. Implications for crisis management
Visual analysis provide a good start to identify abnormalities
Filtering on damage could have provided pictorial 'evidence'
# of retweets attract attention and point toward a hot topic from a
'trusted' source, and news about damage or casualties mostly have
high propagation
Not just about technology: organizational solutions needed for
embedding social media usage in crisis communications, such as
more experience, knowledge and policies.
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20. Questions? #daretoask

21. Thank you!
Demonstration:
TUESDAY afternoon
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
at Concourse level
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22. TIMELINE
First relevant
pictures showing
Start incident: Reports damage (collapse
heavy rainfall about of tent)
damage Large amounts of
Indications of and rumour spread about Initiation of
heaviness of casualties #deaths #Hasselthelpt
storm GSM network
Reports Deaths semi- is fixed
heading to confirmed by
about “SMS use
~ 21:00
Pukkelpop individual
19:15
only” is asked
16:22
19:38
20:19
18:35
18:30
19:12
deaths
18:15
from citizens journalist for
August 18th 2011 August 19th
19th aug12:00 AM
Fire depts Sint
21:56
20:06
20:50
19:40
19:53
18:24
19:19
19:03
Truiden say 6
@Pukkelpop
deaths and
message with
Hasselt says 1
“
death 7 injured
Belgian press handelingsper Official news:
started reporting spectief” 5 deaths, tens
@Pukkelpop
First pictures (individual (phone injured,
first message
showing panic accounts) number and festival
since incident
URL) cancelled
Press
conference
Announcement (TV): 2 deaths
Dutch press that festival is and 40 injured
starts cancelled for the
reporting night
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23. Pukkelpop Twitter: damage & casualties
Tweets/min on ‘Damage’ topic Tweets/min on 'Casualty' topic
News media
rumors
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24. Pukkelpop Twitter visual analysis
Of which 94.109 were created from the start of the disaster (6:15 PM) Tweets /min
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25. Flood control 2015
Flood control 2015 programme:
Stimulates the development of (IT) innovations in order to
promote smarter protection against floods and other water related
hazards.
Social media and crisis management project
Gathering information from technical sensors
e.g. weather, dikes, waterlevels
-> But also from the HUMAN sensor
which information could humans provide?
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