#CRISIS: USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE SIMULATIONS
International Conference: A Quest for Humanitarian Effectiveness? 14- 16September 2015, Manchester UK http://www.humanitarian-quest.org/ Humanitarian crises are increasingly complex to navigate – not least because of the number of actors involved. Addressing current and future humanitarian challenges requires improving professional practice, critical debate and learning. Simulation-based learning has been part of organisational training programmes for many years . Simulations are “highly effective and engaging ways of increasing preparedness and building capacity” . They enable learners to explore the complexity of crises in order to develop approaches and respond to evolving dilemmas and challenges using a rich set of skills. The more recent use of simulations within academic institutions offers a unique opportunity to combine practical, field-based approaches with high-level critical debate and analysis. In parallel, forms of social media such as Twitter, Skype, Facebook and blogging are becoming recognised as having an important role to play in communication during emergencies. This paper focuses on the use of social media as part of multi-stakeholder simulations delivered during humanitarian programmes at two universities – the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Graduate School of Governance at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The Johannesburg programme was a four-day simulation. The exercise used a live web platform designed for the simulation, skype messaging to deliver the simulation. It involved over 20 actors and spanned various sites including an informal settlement, the inner city and a local government emergency services training site. The LSTM programme was a four-hour simulation. The exercise used Twitter, MeerKat, Storify and Blackboard (Virtual Learning Environment) to deliver and archive the simulation; it involved two actors and took place in and around the university buildings. The paper offers insights into the effectiveness of Twitter and web-based platforms to aid realistic, two-way communication within humanitarian simulations.
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#CRISIS: USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE SIMULATIONS
- 1. 1 HCRI International Conference: A Quest for Humanitarian Effectiveness? 14/9/15 #CRISIS: Using social media as communication tools in humanitarian response simulations Bridget Stefan, Lecturer Alex Spiers, Educational Technologist
- 2. Introduction Refugees in city image http://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/14_athens_img.jpg
- 4. #LSTM01
- 5. Watergeddon
- 7. Photo by Marc Wathieu - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License https://www.flickr.com/photos/88133570@N00 Created with Haiku Deck Key lessons
- 8. 8Photo by oggin - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License https://www.flickr.com/photos/85755792@N00 Alex Spiers, Educational Technologist @alexgspiers Bridget Steffen, Lecturer @steffen_bridget Thanks for listening…
Notes de l'éditeur
- First School est 1898 Support over 100 Academic Staff Teaching over 500 students Across a range of Masters, Diploma’s and short courses 2014 Degree award Powers
- http://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/14_athens_img.jpg Context: Today, crises are complex and changing in nature CC refugees, Urban responses, info age We can do better with the current humanitarian system to be more prepared and respond faster, better. Danger: entrench existing standards/toolkits into unwieldy responses not suited to future crises (=science approach). We need more reflection/innovation/recognition that each context is unique (= art approach): We can go further to redefine system/practice to meet the challenges of crises of the future. Through 2 examples, presentation illustrates: Relevance of simulations for: bridging the art/science gap; its greatest value is as an innovation lab to help redefine HA for the future. How SM enhances learning and enables innovation. What are sims? Multi-dimensional tool that replicates an evolving crisis in a condensed timeframe, in and in a controlled envt. Used: capacity building, preparedness, building relationships. Evolve through injects: changes in context/tasks required. Debrief: greatest learning.
- Context - Fictitious complex emergency involving ethnic conflict, mass cross-border displacement, flooding, cholera and host-refugee tension. Objectives Experience concepts of vulnerability, power and capacity, where participants play and respond with multiple roles in the crisis. What - Through a 1-day simulation, experienced attack on village at ‘night’, fleeing and crossing a border, established a response by agencies, government, host and affected people, kidnap...etc.
- SM Used: Twitter for injects: To individual (tasks/actions) To group (context injects) Between participants (IM) Meerkat (with media actors): external viewing via media interview Storify: accessed and used in debrief
- Context - Futuristic scenario of SA in ten years: climate change causing severe drought and extreme water rationing. Water supply privitisation, radical election outcome, popular uprising leads to mass destruction of water infrastructure, large-scale water theft, violence and looting, displacement, and a public health crisis. Objectives Reflect and innovate new approaches that make us more relevant/effective in dealing with crises of the future (indiv/system-wide level). Too much ‘science’ in our responses: stuck in patterns – break out of our blinkers. What Desk-based research, task-focused (indiv/group), occasional role-play. Multiple debriefs throughout (end of each day) enabled final debrief to go deeper, linking theory to experience of practice, to developing new theory.
- SM Used: Google-drive: task requests and submissions (group submissions possible from students in multiple locations). Facebook: Injects about the context (newsflashes, blogs, affected people directly). Also for participant Information Management - key crisis comms – drive task Whatsapp: logistics backup (informing students of content uploaded to FB/Google) How SM enhanced sim: Enhance level of adaptability of a simulation to participants actions/choices – enhances learning Reflects the complexity of information flows in real crisis Reduces reflection? Access: Free, low-cost sim to implement (no actors, no expensive on-site exercises). Danger: Digital divide?
- SM broadens access to simulation learning: distance learning simulations with: scattered students; remotely managed by a remote coordinator; or both. Caveat: SM can increase the digital divide and participants need to fully understand how to engage with it to prevent a digital divide; SM not appropriate for every context (e.g. Locations with limited internet access, where people do not use SM, e.g. some community-based simulations). Multiple SM platforms make simulations more realistic: it reflects the challenge of engaging with multi-way communication, and managing information from multiple, broad-based sources, which exists in all crisis settings. Danger: Are we overestimating SM use/potential for the future? SM makes simulation more responsive: finely tailors evolution of the simulation to participant’s decisions/actions. With enhanced learning opportunities through SM, simulations can have a system-wide impact in two major areas: Simulations improve existing responses (bridging ‘science’ and ‘art’ approaches to HA): In the field, simulations are often used to practice existing approaches (e-prep drills, CB). Danger: entrench patterns of inappropriate/problematic practice. An academic environment is an opportunity help to bridge the gap between a scientific approach (applying standards, policies, toolkits, guidelines etc) with a more artistic approach (recognises importance of individual context analysis, requiring a different approach, centrality of human relationships, political nature of HA). (Operation Perfect storm) Simulations are innovation labs: redefining HA on a canvas of the future (Watergeddon). Playing out the future through personal, group and system-wide mind expansion and innovation, allows us to re-imagine the present. Debriefs are critical for deepening one’s reflection on the simulation experience, generating new theory and new humanitarian approaches. Because of its broad use from organisational level to grassroots level, communities can potentially participate in re-defining what these future humanitarian approaches could look like.