Everyday Knowledge and Disaster Management: The Role of Social Media

Abstract

The connection between the media and disaster knowledge has been a subject of growing attention by both scholars and public officials. Adopting the theoretical framework by Michael Gardiner, this chapter looks at how disaster knowledge is constructed and disseminated by social media from an everyday perspective. It argues that with the proliferation of social media, disaster knowledge has been transformed from an expert-driven knowledge to an everyday knowledge, co-produced by different stakeholders. It also argues that social media can develop a stronger public awareness towards different forms of contingency by recontextualising disaster knowledge in the light of the diverse needs of local communities. This chapter makes use of Japan as a case study to illustrate how social media ‘everyday-ed’ disaster knowledge, thereby enhancing the disaster resilience of the local communities during and in the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.