Collaborative Research: Organizational development, operations, and new media among civilian flood-rescue groups

在这个项目中，将调查志愿人员群体的稳定性或正规化和增长，以及在这些过程中使用社交媒体的情况。具体而言，将通过与救援人员的密集访谈和参与，研究志愿者抗洪救援的过程、救援过程中影响即时决策的因素、志愿者团队发展的决策，以及利用社交媒体进行救援和团队发展。灾害是研究社会过程的独特机会，也是日益频繁的社会问题。近年来的灾难引入了由社交媒体和新技术支持的志愿者组织。有限的学术研究研究了这个志愿者救援运动，这些志愿者，或者这些救援行动。这些发现将有助于从学术上理解群体的形成和发展，以及新技术可能如何影响这一点。他们还将通过融入应急管理、减灾和恢复等课程，并通过直接与进行救援的组织以及更广泛的应急管理和公共社区分享，为公益做出贡献。为了实现研究目标，将进行民族志研究，包括参与开展救援的志愿者组织，与应急管理官员的20-40次访谈，对志愿者救援者的30-60次访谈，以及对民间志愿者救助者的20-30次访谈。在该项目的整个过程中，这将涉及在志愿者组织应对灾难时与他们一起培训和旅行，例如这些组织在2018年应对的三次灾难、佛罗伦萨和迈克尔飓风以及德克萨斯州东南部的洪水。参与者将扮演三个不同的角色：救生员、调度员和领导协调。此外，还将收集和归纳分析可用的社交媒体数据和媒体文章。地理信息系统技术将被用于分析救援地点的现有地理空间数据，这些数据将与灾害数据相关。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In this project, the stability or formalization and growth of volunteer groups and the use of social media in these processes will be investigated. Specifically, processes of conducting volunteer flood rescues, factors that affect immediate decision-making during rescues, decisions about volunteer group development, and use of social media for rescuing and group development will be researched through intense interviewing and participation with rescuers. Disasters are unique opportunities to study social processes, and they are also becoming more frequent social problems. Disasters of recent years have introduced volunteer organizations supported by social media and new technologies. Limited scholarly research has studied this volunteer rescue movement, these volunteers, or these rescue operations. Findings will contribute to scholarly understanding of group formation and development and how this may be affected by new technologies. They also will contribute to public welfare by being integrated in courses such as on emergency management and hazard mitigation and recovery, and by being directly shared with organizations that do rescues as well as the broader emergency management and public communities.To address the research goal, ethnographic research will be conducted that includes participation with volunteer organizations that conduct rescues, 20-40 interviews with emergency management officials, 30-60 interviews with volunteer rescuers, and 20-30 interviews with persons rescued by civilian volunteers. Over the life of the project, this will involve training and traveling with volunteer organizations as they respond to disasters, such as the three to which these organizations responded in 2018, Hurricanes Florence and Michael and floods in Southeast Texas. Participation will be in three different roles: boat rescuer, dispatcher, and leadership coordination. In addition, available social media data and media articles will be collected and analyzed inductively. GIS technology will be used to analyze available geospatial data on rescue locations, which will be related to hazard data.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.