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CONTENTS


Task Force for a Resilient America

I. Our National Narrative ............................................................................................5
II. 21
st
Century National Security: The Value of Resilience ........................................9
III. Understanding the Values of a Networked World .................................................11
IV. Connecting Citizens in Times of Crisis .................................................................13
V. Raising Awareness .................................................................................................19
VI. Taking Action ........................................................................................................22
VII. Conclusion .............................................................................................................26

Task Force Members

Acknowledgements

References




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Task Force for a Resilient America

The objective of the Center for National Policys Task Force for a Resilient America has been to
bring together leaders in the fields of social networking, security, emergency response, advertis-
ing, public relations, public opinion polling, market research, as well as screenwriters, producers,
media executives, and academics, to analyze methods of promoting cultural resilience. The Task
Force has explored which tools, and in particular those made available through developments in
social networking, are the most effective in empowering our fellow citizens to embrace resilience
in the face of natural or man-made disasters. Task Force members were gathered in small and
informal groups to offer their insights on understanding how to strengthen cultural resilience.
Two specific goals of each of the Task Force meetings were: (1) understanding the public mood
and developing the most effective messages to promote resilience as an individual and societal
value, and (2) to explore which tools, in particular those made available through developments in
social networking, can be harnessed to most effectively empower Americans to have the ability
to withstand, nimbly respond and recover, and adapt to the risks and disruptions that might occur
in their daily life due to natural or manmade disasters.
The Task Force for a Resilient America was a national project, with meetings held over the
spring and summer of 2011 in Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, DC.
The first Task Force meeting took place on April 25
th
with the collaboration of University of
Southern Californias Annenberg School and was hosted by the TakePart division of Participant
Media (the Hollywood production studio for Al Gores Inconvenient Truth and David Guggen-
heims Waiting for Superman).
The second Task Force meeting was held on June 16
th
at the Center for National Policy in Wash-
ington, DC.
The third Task Force meeting met on June 21
st
and was graciously hosted by HBO at their Head-
quarters in New York City.




The content of this report is reflective of the authors opinions and does not necessarily reflect the policies or
views of Task Force members.

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I. Our National Narrative

At the dawn of the 21
st
century, the United
States of America was the most prosperous
and secure nation in the history of the world.
At home, a record economic expansion had
produced twenty million new jobs in the
1990s alone, the financial sector was boom-
ing and the federal budget was in surplus
with debt being paid down for the first time
in memory. Overseas, the existential threat
of the Cold War was over, freedom was on
the march across the globe and the war in
Kosovo demonstrated American military
supremacy and diplomatic mastery unrivaled
since the days of Rome. America was a na-
tion secure in its prosperity and looking
forward to the possibilities of the future.

The 9/11 Decade
On September 11, 2001 the sense of security
present for most in American society was
shaken to its core and a decade opened that
has tested the fortitude of all of our citizens.
Even as smoke circled above Manhattan, the
American people were poised to become
actively engaged in the defense of their na-
tion against a foe unlike any they had ever
faced before. Across the nation, United
We Stand was the watchword of a people
shocked by loss, alert to threats previously
unknown and sobered by the new reality of a
long struggle ahead. In the wake of the at-
tacks of September 11
th
, the possibility for a
renewed sense of community and citizen
engagement toward the achievement of pub-
lic good was on full display.
Yet the American people were told to revert
to the usual and carry on with their lives as
if nothing had changed, when in fact every-
thing had changed. A failure of imagination
and leadership led to a missed opportunity to
tap into the energy of the American people
and their desire to build a better and safer
nation. Official Washington turned not to
the American people for the source of our
response to 9/11 but to a professional pro-
tector class that had risen in response to the
Cold War and been in place inside the Belt-
way for decades.
This rise of the professional protector class
was a consequence of the awesome power
unleashed by nuclear weapons, which led to
an accretion of power in the hands of a few
experts. The very complexity of the weap-
ons involved and the calculations necessary
to ensure that catastrophic miscalculations
were not made that might trigger their re-
lease, led to the creation of a new priesthood
entrusted with the power of life or death on
a global scale. A new class of professionals
schooled in game theory and throw weights
soon came to be seen as having the ultimate
power to protect and defend the United
States. And so the national response to 9/11
was placed in the hands of these experts.
The American tradition of citizen militias
of community mobilization in times of dis-
aster seemed quaint at best, and danger-
ously inadequate and inappropriate at worst,
in an era of fail-safe and mutually assured
destruction. But if the threat to Americas
security in the 21
st
Century was to be found
in asymmetric warfare, then the best re-
sponse to protect against such a threat was
most certainly to better prepare Americans
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at the individual and community level to be
able to prepare for, respond to and recover
from those very kinds of attacks. However,
the traditional national security establish-
ment did not value, and was not organized to
encourage the kind of citizen engagement
and community action, necessary to prepare
communities for a new reality in national
security. It was perhaps too much to ask
professionals whose entire careers were
predicated on using the tools of state power
to protect America from any and all threats
to adjust their thinking, change their strategy
and shift their resources to reflect a new
threat environment that would require citi-
zen engagement and participation on a level
not seen since the Second World War. It
was impossible to expect such a change
when the national security establishment
was called upon to respond to the attacks of
September 11th.
The result was a seemingly unending and
open ended War on Terror characterized
by electronic eavesdropping, detention and
rendition, debates on the efficacy of torture
and an inability to end the threat of Al
Qaeda to the American Homeland. Citizens
were told to carry on as usual and leave the
war on terror to the experts.
Two inconclusive and costly wars fed the
discontent and led to political division at
home and fractured alliances abroad. For
such a seemingly powerful nation, America
seemed unable to ensure its own security
and unable to effectively shape events in the
world beyond our shores.
At home, Hurricane Katrina exposed incom-
petence and ineffectiveness at all levels of
government in planning for and responding
to a very predictable natural disaster. Amer-
icans watched in shock as a great American
city drowned and thousands were left
stranded. Once again, American power
seemed useless in the face of crisis. As the
decade staggered to a close, the great banks
and insurance companies of the financial
sector collapsed into turmoil in the fall of
2008, the auto industry went bankrupt and
the economy fell into the Great Recession.
At a time when the nation yearned for unity
and a sense of purpose to overcome these
great challenges, instead citizens were of-
fered increasingly vitriolic politics from
both the left and the right. As the 9/11 Dec-
ade comes to a close, Americas political
system political polarization rather than a
sense of unity or shared responsibility is
the order of the day. After a decade of being
battered by bad news, the attitudes of the
American public reflect an increasing sense
of helplessness and despair in the face of
crisis. According to public opinion research,
the vast majorities of Americans feel power-
less in the wake of this turbulence and be-
lieve that tomorrow will not be better than
today for themselves or their children; in
essence acknowledging the end of the
American Dream.

The Promise of Community
There is another story that began to emerge
during the 9/11 Decade. While the institu-
tions of government, finance and corporate
America seemed unable to respond effec-
tively to meet the needs of the nation in
times of crisis, individual Americans began
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to take it upon themselves to link up, be-
come connected, form new communities and
take action to make a difference where they
could.
In the minutes and hours after the attacks of
September 11
th
, Americans instinctively
rushed forward to be part of the solution.
Across the nation millions pledged time and
resources for relief efforts and hundreds of
thousands lined up to offer blood. In the
rubble of the Pentagon, office workers and
first responders worked day and night to
provide aid. In New York, a rescue armada
of civilian craft, that included motorboats,
yachts, tug boats and ferries, carried over
500,000 people to safety while smoke
shrouded Manhattan Island. And at Ground
Zero, police and firefighters rushed into
harms way and paid the ultimate sacrifice
to save those they did not even know.
Even after being told after 9/11 to simply go
about their business, this instinct for mean-
ingful civic engagement, for connection,
remained within the American people.
While official Washington seemed unable or
unwilling to foster this new patriotism, citi-
zens across the nation would soon find tools
available to them that would place in their
own hands the ability to affiliate, organize
and take action without waiting for direc-
tion.
While the 9/11 Decade was characterized by
mass disruptions that called into question the
optimism found at the birth of the new Mil-
lennium, the means for empowering citizens
to meet and master the turbulence of modern
life could be found in the rise of social net-
working. The same decade that produced
9/11, Katrina and the Great Recession also
gave birth to the greatest revolution in
communications and citizen empowerment
since the rise of print. Social networking
technologies allowed for not just the con-
veyance of information via broadcast, but
also for connection between individuals in a
way like no other. Individuals could build
their own affinity groups across all tradi-
tional boundaries, share information and
opinions; become their own broadcasters,
their own organizers.

A Brief History of a Social Revolution
The story of the rise of social media is a sto-
ry that has taken place in the 9/11 Decade.
In 2002, the website Friendster.com became
one of the first sites to encourage online
connection between real-world friends.
Friendster grew to 3 million users in about
three months, with a peak of 115 million
users in 2008.
1
Myspace.com, hoping to
emulate Friendster, was created in 2003.
While it was the most popular social net-
working site in the world for several years,
its popularity eventually waned and was
surpassed in 2008 by Facebook.com.
2

Facebook was launched in 2004 and is cur-
rently the most popular social networking
site in the world, with 750 million members
across the globe. Facebook is now the se-
cond most visited site on the internet after
Google.com. The pace of innovation in the
social media space quickly accelerated with
the creation of the video sharing website
YouTube in 2005, which allows individuals
to upload, share and view videos.
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Twitter, an online social networking and mi-
cro-blogging service, was launched in 2006.
Twitter gained rapid popularity with its abil-
ity to allow users to send and resend text
based posts of up to 140 characters, infor-
mally known as tweets. At the time of the
writing of this report Twitter has over 200
million users globally.
3
The newest social
networking site on the scene is Google+,
which launched in June 2011. While it took
both Facebook and Twitter over 800 days
after their creation to reach an audience of
10 million users, Google+ matched this feat
in just over two weeks.
4

The advent of social networking via social
media like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and
Google+ allowed for the creation of trusted
communities outside official channels. Pos-
sibilities for social action became realities.
Citizens previously without a voice were
able to be heard. People without a formal
organization were able to find a way to
make an impact.
As the 9/11 Decade lurched toward its end,
the transformative power of social media in
daily life became more apparent. Social me-
dia has become an integrated aspect of daily
life for most Americans. At least 52% of
Americans engage in social media and ap-
proximately 46 million check sites like Fa-
cebook and Twitter multiple times each day.

5 6
Over half of all Americans over twelve
years of age use Facebook. In 2011, the av-
erage person has double the amount of
online friends than actual physical friends
whom they see on a regular basis.
7

No longer seen as an outpost of the young or
trendy, social media became not just main-
stream, but an essential part of daily life.
Increasingly, most Americans are using so-
cial media tools to interact not only with
friends but with government as well. Two
thirds of American adults use the internet to
look up information or complete a transac-
tion on a government website and almost a
third of online adults have used social tools
such as blogs, social networking sites and
online video as well as e-mail and text alerts
to keep informed about government activi-
ties.
8

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approached,
the social media revolution was in full
swing. Social media firms like Facebook,
LinkedIn and those relying on social media
like Google and Apple were worth hundreds
of billions of dollars, employing tens of
thousands and surging in terms of market
capitalization. In the Middle East, the tools
of social media fostered a real revolution in
political affairs and the ushering in of demo-
cratic movements into power. At home the
possibilities for social and political change
were just as profound if only seemingly less
dramatic. A nation that was told after the
attacks of September 11
th
to carry on as usu-
al had in its hands the tools to build a more
resilient nation.




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II. 21
st
Century National Security:
The Value of Resilience

The medium is not always the message. So-
cial media devoid of purpose and content is
merely for entertainment and amusement.
For the power of social media to be used to
better prepare the American people to be
able to respond, recover and adapt in the
face of disasters, to build more resilient
communities, citizens must be willing to
meaningfully participate in assuring safety
for themselves, their neighbors, and the na-
tion. There is strong evidence that, if asked,
many are willing to do so.
The first reaction of the American people to
the attacks of September 11
th
was found in
the spirit of first responders rushing into
harms way to save neighbors they did not
know. It was seen in the rescue armada of
civilian ships that boatlifted stranded citi-
zens to safety. The essence of the American
peoples response to September 11
th
was
made manifest by the hundreds of thousands
who offered their own blood to save their
fellow citizens and by the thousands who
broke through the rubble of Ground Zero in
rescue and recovery attempts. The spirit
most appropriate and most necessary to meet
the challenge of Al Qaeda was that found in
the passengers of Flight 93, who on that
bright September morning understood the
threat to their nation, and organized and took
action. On that September day, it was eve-
ryday people who took the most effective
action to preserve, protect and defend the
nation. It was the professional protector
class that found itself impotent in the face of
a new threat. The national security commu-
nity was largely powerless and ineffectual in
the face of the unfolding threat.
Sadly, despite the demonstrated capabilities
and willingness by Americans in the imme-
diate aftermath of 9/11 to help, Washington
never made the ask. Instead the national
security community was mobilized to wage
a war on terrorism beyond U.S. shores.
Over the course of the 9/11 Decade, the De-
fense budget was doubled, new federal
agencies were created, surveillance was ex-
panded, wars were launched, and a trillion
dollars were spent on projecting power into
the heart of the Middle East.

Resilience: The Best Defense
Yet the very nature of terrorism and the
asymmetric warfare favored by Americas
non-state enemies renders traditional notions
of deterrence, diplomacy and force projec-
tion increasingly obsolete. It has become
clear that the investment that has been made
in attempting to eliminate the Al Qaeda
threat to American security has been ex-
tremely costly both in terms of national
treasure and lives and has led to a trans-
formation of that threat, rather than having
eliminated it. One constant that remains is
that Al Qaeda continues to pursue Osama
Bin Ladens stated goal of bleeding the
United States of resources by using methods
of asymmetric warfare to prompt military
overstretch abroad and the costly and disrup-
tive efforts to bolster protective measures at
home in response to attacks or near-misses.
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To meet the national security threat most
likely to affect Americans in the decades to
come, our best defense is one based on the
greatest traditions of our nation and one
suited for the times. Americas best defense
is to return to citizen engagement with our
security. Building more resilient communi-
ties can best prepare Americans to meet the
most likely threats to their safety and pros-
perity in the years to come; such as the natu-
ral disasters and terrorist threats.
Resilience is the ability to better anticipate,
withstand, respond, adapt to and recover
from major disruptions and dislocations. It
is the communities, the companies and the
countries that are most resilient that will best
be prepared for systemic shocks. These re-
silient communities will thrive in the 21
st

Century, because people will invest and live
in places that can manage risk well and
maintain continuity of services. They will
leave those that do not meet the challenge
that comes with mitigating risk and building
resilience. Thinking of resilience as both a
competitiveness and security issue is a way
to broaden the base for citizen engagement.
Resilient communities and a resilient Amer-
ica would best be characterized as being
prepared for and able to withstand, and nim-
bly recover from setbacks, while maintain-
ing the ability to learn, adapt and move for-
ward. While it is a straight forward concept
to understand, it will require determined
leadership at the local, state, and national
levels to actively enlist the American people
to take greater ownership of their personal
and community security. For too long, pub-
lic safety and security have been seen as in-
herently governmental functions that should
be left to the professionals. However, meet-
ing the challenges posed by asymmetric
threats will mean using a much more collab-
orative, inclusive and de-centralized process,
which includes individuals, civil society and
government at many levels. The capabilities
and values of social media seem perfectly
suited for this challenge.
To ensure that efforts to build resilient
communities become sustainable, it will be
necessary to go beyond pointing out the se-
curity and competitiveness advantages
alone. It will be necessary to move from the
message of resilience to building a move-
ment that will empower individuals and
communities across the United States to
connect with their neighbors, community
organizations and governments. Social me-
dia holds tremendous promise for better
connecting and supporting Americans in
building more resilient communities.







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III. Understanding the Values of a
Networked World

To be able to tap into the power of social
networking for the purposes of building re-
silient communities it is essential to under-
stand the opportunities associated with our
increasingly networked world. At the dawn
of the 9/11 Decade, there was no Facebook,
no Twitter, no real way for individuals to
link up into virtual communities across great
distances that could provide support in a
time of crisis, react in real time and mobilize
for action. In the minutes when it became
clear that war had come to Americas
shores, cell phone networks crashed because
millions of us instinctively reached out to
friends, neighbors and loved ones in a time
of crisis. The social media revolution that
has swept the world now places in the hands
of most Americans the ability to make those
connections in times of crisis, to mobilize
for action and to respond and recover in a
way that can save lives and rebuild commu-
nities.
The scope and scale of the social networking
revolution are unprecedented when consid-
ering the explosion of venues through which
people receive information and connect with
one another. Social media gives individuals
the unprecedented ability to broadcast and
exchange views with one another. Facebook
started in 2004 and today almost half of the
American people are using that social media
tool. Over 100 million Americans watch
YouTube and tens of millions share split
second impressions and information globally
via Twitter. Social media is here to stay and
its relevance on daily life is growing by the
day.
When it comes to widely and instantaneous-
ly disseminating information, increasingly
social media is cutting out the middlemen of
the traditional news networks and public in-
formation officers of governmental agen-
cies. Long gone are the days of Walter
Cronkite and the three networks being arbi-
ters of what news is deemed important
enough for public review. Today, individu-
als are increasingly creating their own ways
of gaining information from a fragmented
media marketplace. They are building their
own social media communities based on
common affiliation. As a result, it is now a
virtual impossibility to command the atten-
tion of the American public at any one time
on any one issue. Social media holds the
key to both being able to deliver a message
and build communities for taking common
action. The opportunity with social media is
for a more decentralized, democratized en-
gagement in supporting collective action.
For example: people can identify safety
needs and risks in their community and then
take actions on their own or form groups to
respond to the challenge of building more
resilient communities.
Certain values are emerging from these first
days of the social media revolution as being
particularly prized and essential for those
who wish to effectively use social media to
build communities with a purpose. June
Cohen of TED says that there are three ways
in which our expectations as citizens and
individuals have changed due to the ubiquity
of social media. When an individual is in-
teracting with an organization, there is a new
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expectation of transparency, responsiveness
and participation.
When engaging with an institution, citizens
want to know its mission, and for it to be
open on questions regarding its operations.
Due to the new patterns of communication
in social media, there is an expectation of
responsiveness and an expectation that indi-
viduals should be afforded the opportunity
to participate in the actions and decisions of
groups.
These values of transparency, responsive-
ness and participation are the hallmarks of
what is a new social compact between those
engaged with one another in social network-
ing through the tools of social media. Any
effort to engage citizens using the tools of
social media will have to incorporate these
values in its operation at every level. When
thinking of using social media to build resil-
ient communities, embracing these values
will be essential to getting the kind of citizen
engagement and commitment that will be
necessary for successful efforts with broad
appeal. Traditional public safety and emer-
gency management agencies will need to
practice these values in their interactions if
they hope to enlist support from individuals
and communities.
Social media has hastened the need for or-
ganizations that are hoping to engage the
public to move from a hierarchical, top-
down structure to that of a network. Rather
than wait for official organizations to re-
spond to the social media revolution, indi-
viduals at home and across the world have
taken the initiative to use the tools of social
media to respond, recover and adapt in times
of crisis. There are many recent instances of
how the power of social media is being har-
nessed during major disasters. These ex-
amples can illustrate how social media tools
can build more resilient communities in the
21
st
Century.














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IV. Connecting Citizens in Times
of Crisis

As citizens became more accustomed to us-
ing social media to build their own networks
for friendship and business and community
action, it has become more natural for many
to turn to these tools in times of crisis. In
just the past two years, average citizens have
made clear that they will not passively
standby for official agencies to take action
or come to their relief in times of crisis. In-
stead, people are using the tools of social
media to stay informed, react, respond, re-
cover and adapt when disasters strike their
communities. From the Gulf Coast to Japan,
from the crowded neighborhoods of Port-au-
Prince to the quiet streets of Joplin, Mis-
souri, people are embracing social media in
novel ways in times of crisis.

The Haitian Earthquake
In the early hours of January 12, 2010, Haiti
was rocked by an earthquake that leveled
whole sections of its impoverished capital of
Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands were
killed or injured and much of its traditional
communications infrastructure was disrupt-
ed. With official lines of communication
down, user-generated content played an im-
portant role in spreading news about the
Haitian earthquake. Social media helped to
make up for the lack of information from the
affected area and was able to convey the
scale of the catastrophe and describe what
relief was most needed.
Twitter emerged as the fastest, most time
sensitive vehicle through which to report on
the catastrophe. Photos taken on mobile
phones by journalists, relief workers and
victims helped to provide a glimpse into the
devastation and Twitter users shared those
pictures through Twitpic, resulting in tens of
thousands of views and countless retweets.
Facebook was full of shared details and
comments on the disaster, spread by French,
Creole and English speaking Caribbean res-
idents.
9
Within hours of the earthquake, a
Facebook group called Earthquake Haiti
had already added over 14,000 members.
10

The group was used for people to show sup-
port and trade information, and some users
posted critical information including pleas
for assistance from injured Haitians.
Regional bloggers soon followed with more
detailed posts, the most compelling coming
from within the island. In years gone by, if
a disaster was in a far away land and unseen,
the public awareness necessary for massive
relief mobilization from the outside world
might not have materialized. In the instance
of the Haitian earthquake, the global com-
munity was transfixed by the stories and im-
ages being sent via social media from the
shattered island to the outside world.
On the ground in Haiti, technology called
Ushahidi was utilized extensively in the
wake of the initial earthquake. The Ushahi-
di program allowed those in Haiti, which
included citizens, relief workers and mem-
bers of the international community, to use
their mobile phones and the web to report on
weakened infrastructure, lack of food and
water, and missing persons. Ushahidi made
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an agreement with local mobile phone oper-
ator Digicel and created a short code to
which people could send their messages.
Situation rooms were set up in Boston,
Washington and Geneva to help provide 24-
hour coverage of received messages.
11
In
the immediate aftermath of the earthquake,
more than 10,000 Haitians volunteered to
translate received messages from Creole to
English, while other volunteers worked to
verify the information and integrate it into
the map.

In the midst of the disaster, millions were
disconnected from one another; hundreds of
thousands unaccounted for and waves of
fear flowed from the uncertain status of fam-
ily, friends and loved ones. Such uncertain-
ty led, in a practical sense, to misallocation
of precious resources. In response to the
Haitian earthquake, Google developers cre-
ated Googles Person Finder which provided
a registry and message board for survivors,
family and loved ones affected by disaster to
post and search for information about each
others status and whereabouts.

The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
Just one year after the earthquake in impov-
erished Haiti, a massive earthquake and a
tsunami struck one of the most advanced
nations in the world. The Tohoku earth-
quake, with an epicenter off Japans north-
eastern coast, shook the island of Honshu
with a magnitude 9.0 quake and triggered a
tsunami wave that was reported to have
reached a height of twenty feet which trav-
elled up to six miles inland.
12

As a result of the quake and tsunami, over
fifteen thousand people were killed and
thousands more injured and missing. At
least 125,000 buildings and critical infra-
structure sites were damaged or destroyed.
13

To add to the difficulties in responding to
such an extensive disaster, the Fukushima
Daini Nuclear Power Plant faced multiple
meltdowns accompanied by high radiation

Ushahidi, meaning testimony or witness in
Swahili is a nonprofit company that develops free
and open source software for information collec-
tion, visualization and interactive mapping. The
organizations software programs utilize the con-
cept of crowd sourcing, allowing local observers
to report an incident using mobile devices or the
Internet, while simultaneously having the report
appear on a map based view for others to see.
Ushahidi was initially created by an ad hoc group
of volunteers to map reports of violence in the
aftermath of the 2007 Kenyan elections. The or-
ganizations software has since been used to track
anti-immigrant violence in South Africa and pro-
vide humanitarian relief following earthquakes in
Chile and New Zealand. The technology is cur-
rently available to monitor incidents during
anydisaster or emergency.!

Google Person Finder is an open source web
application that provides a registry and message
board for survivors, family, and loved ones af-
fected by a natural disaster to post and search for
information about each other's status and wherea-
bouts. Googles Person Finder application was
created by volunteer Google engineers in re-
sponse to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Googles
application combines missing-persons infor-
mation that is often stored in separate databases
by multiple government organizations, to create a
single hub for all of the information. People
Finder was up and running roughly an hour after
the earthquake in Japan in March 2011.
!
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$%&&'()*&+!,-'.*(/! 90!
level leaks released into an already dis-
tressed area, thus further complicating relief
efforts and causing widespread public uncer-
tainty and distress.
14
With so many wide-
spread issues demanding immediate atten-
tion, social media provided the public with
the capability to monitor the effects of the
disaster, to determine the status of missing
loved ones and to coordinate and mobilize
disaster relief to the region.
In the wake of the disaster, telephone lines
were down and cell phone networks were
damaged and overwhelmed. In some areas,
only Internet access remained. In the first
hour of the disaster over one thousand
tweets were coming out of Tokyo each mi-
nute. A few hours later, hashtags (symbol-
ized by the # symbol and followed by a
keyword, ex. #japantsunami, make it easier
to search for key terms) were being tweeted
thousands of times per second. TEPCO, the
company operating the Fukushima power
plant, created a Twitter account to keep the
public informed. This Twitter account
gained 190,000 followers in less than a day
as individuals throughout the world began to
monitor the deteriorating condition of the
nuclear power plant.
15

Twitter proved to be an especially useful
means of communication in terms of reach,
immediacy and connectivity, with one in ten
Japanese citizens using Twitter prior to the
earthquake. Over the course of the disaster,
as more information was increasingly shared
using Twitter, many more citizens began
monitoring the website for disaster news.
Additionally, Twitter set up a dedicated
page advising users how to use hashtags to
request aid in the aftermath of the earth-
quake.
16

Building on the experience from its use in
the aftermath of the 2010 earthquakes in
Haiti and New Zealand, Googles Person
Finder provided a registry and message
board for survivors, family, loved ones and
rescuers to post and search for information
about each others status and whereabouts.
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo encouraged
Americans living in Japan to register on the
site to simplify the communication process
with family and friends in the United States.
This database now contains 306,000 names.
The site also posted important resource in-
formation, maps and other related infor-
mation.
17
In reaction to the success of
Googles efforts, YouTube launched a Miss-
ing Person Finder channel featuring video
messages from various shelters and those
affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
18

Social media also provided creative outlets
for people across the globe to provide im-
mediate support while the shock of the dis-
aster was still present. For thousands of
people relief assistance took shape in the
form of donations. Ten dollars could be do-
nated by an individual through the Red
Cross simply through text messaging.
19
So-
cial media sites with game applications
prompted players with instructions on how
to donate.
20
Within the first four days of set-
ting up their donation system, the American
Red Cross raised $19 million for disaster
relief in Japan.
21
Uses of social media tools
continued to evolve in helping to encourage
global awareness and response in times of
catastrophic disaster.
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The Joplin Tornado
On May 22, 2011 a tornado ripped through
the heart of the quiet town of Joplin, Mis-
souri, destroying whole city blocks, ripping
out telephone lines and killing scores of
people in that small community. With the
disaster physically overwhelming the re-
maining phone lines and with transportation
disrupted, social media became a primary
method of contact for survivors. Building
upon the lessons learned and tools utilized in
the Haiti and Japan disasters, those in Joplin
with access to social media quickly began to
utilize its power for information and connec-
tivity.
Twitpic was used to upload pictures of the
disaster to Twitter and other services. Oth-
ers uploaded videos of the tornado and re-
sulting devastation to YouTube. Flickr be-
came a popular site for sharing pictures tak-
en on the ground post tornado and family
members and friends checked in on the well
being of their loved ones by monitoring the
update status of their Facebook pages.
For those who were not able to find their
loved ones immediately, the American Red
Cross set up a Safe and Well website.
22

First utilized in response to Hurricane Katri-
na in 2005, the Red Cross website enables
people in affected areas to register them-
selves as safe, providing family members
the ability to search through the registry for
the status of loved ones. This information
was also widely circulated through social
media sites, therefore maximizing the
chances of connecting with those missing in
the aftermath of the disaster. One Facebook
page, Joplin Tornado Citizen Checks was
created less than 24 hours after the storm to
assist in the location of missing persons.
23

The page allowed individuals to post identi-
fying information about missing persons and
included an updated list of hospitals that had
taken patients from the evacuated St. Johns
Hospital and those injured in the tornado.
As in the disaster situation in Haiti and Ja-
pan, a crowd sourced map using the Ushahi-
di platform was created to visualize the tor-
nados destructive path. It was also used to
assist in the location of aid stations, recovery
effort locations and upcoming events.

Deepwater Horizon: Gulf Coast Disaster
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon
drilling rig on April 20, 2010 and the subse-
quent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, led to
massive environmental degradation and
widespread regional disruption of economic
activity that lead to the consequent loss of
jobs for thousands of workers and their fam-
ilies in the American Gulf Coast region that
was just beginning to recover from Hurri-
cane Katrina. It is estimated that the spill
released nearly five million barrels of oil
over the course of three months; becoming
the largest accidental marine oil spill in the
history of the petroleum industry.
24

Citizens calling themselves the Louisiana
Bucket Brigade created the Oil Spill Crisis
Map. The Oil Spill Crisis Map used the
Ushahidi mapping program and allowed lo-
cal observers to report the effects of the dis-
aster using mobile devices or the Internet,
while simultaneously having the aggregate
reports appear on a single map based view
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$%&&'()*&+!,-'.*(/! 97!
for all to see. This shared information pro-
vided as close to a real time map of the crisis
as was possible for the benefit of officials,
those fighting the spill, businesses on the
coast preparing for impact, and the general
public.
As media coverage surrounding the unfold-
ing disaster intensified, the public flocked to
social media sites to learn more about the
emerging details of the crisis as well as vent
their frustrations with the lack of intensity in
the response from BP and the government.
The lack of initial social media engagement
with the public by BP is an object lesson in
how an organization can fall hopelessly be-
hind the curve when dealing with the public
in a time of crisis. Prior to the disaster BP
had no dedicated social media staff. By the
height of the incident, BP had as many as
fifty people working to counter inaccurate
information being posted on Facebook and
Twitter.
25
BP was forced to quickly upgrade
their social media campaign and set up a
Twitter account and YouTube channel that
included detailed technical briefings to assist
the public in understanding the problems the
company was facing.
A collaborative multi-media website Gulf of
Mexico-Deepwater Horizon Incident was
also launched. The site is maintained by BP,
Transocean, the United States Coast Guard,
the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Ad-
ministration, the U.S. Department of Home-
land Security and the U.S. Department of
Interior. The website features slideshows,
news items, links to a Twitter account, its
YouTube Channel and Facebook page.

San Bruno Pipeline Explosion
On the evening of September 9
th
, 2010, a gas
pipeline exploded in the San Francisco sub-
urb of San Bruno, California. The blast
killed eight people, injured sixty and de-
stroyed over forty homes. The explosion
was so loud that many on the ground be-
lieved a major earthquake had occurred or
that a plane had crashed. These misimpres-
sions were corrected quickly with the use of
social media.
26
In the San Bruno disaster;
social media provided critical aid to re-
sponders struggling to assess the damage
and information to a community desperate
for answers.
Photos taken onsite and shared via social
media tools played a major role in the re-
sponse and recovery of this explosion.
Blogs continuously updated pictures taken
by neighbors and news agencies to convey
the seriousness of the situation.
27
The
Google Earth program was used for apply-
ing aerial shots to produce shocking before
and after pictures which were used to gain a
clearer picture of the disaster scene.
28
Per-
haps most important was the geospatial
mapping of photos and other relevant data to
interactive Google Maps. While emergency
responders used these maps to track the
spread of the fire, the community used the
maps to monitor the proximity of the fire to
their property, as well as to find safe shelter
away from potentially hazardous areas. The
edited maps, with tags noting houses with
fatalities removed, were also distributed to
news organizations to keep the public in-
formed.
29

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$'&)'.!1%.!2/)*%&/3!4%3*(5! 9#!
Other social media sites proved useful over
the course of the incident. Craig Fugate,
Administrator of FEMA, used Twitter to
monitor the situation while he waited for
official updates. This helped him determine
that the incident was, fortunately, local-
ized.
30
A journalist on the East Coast heard
about the explosion on Twitter, used
Googles Maps program to view the blast
site, and determined that his sister-in-laws
home was outside the blast radius, all before
he was actually able to get in contact with
her.
31
The National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) used Twitter and YouTube to
inform the public of relevant press briefings;
to allow the chairman to speak to the com-
munity directly; and to forward along im-
portant information to the public in real
time.
32
PG&E, the company responsible for
the pipeline, utilized Twitter to announce
their establishment of a $100 million victim
relief fund.
33






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V. Raising Awareness

The Message of Resilience
While social media can encourage citizens
to embrace resilience as a civic value, gov-
ernment officials and bureaucracies at all
levels of government must make clear that
they are receptive and supportive of individ-
uals playing a greater role in preparing for
and managing risk. Relegating citizens to
the role of passive bystanders is both coun-
terproductive and reckless.
There is much work to be done. While there
is ample evidence that the desire to help is
strong after disasters happen, the record of
individual preparedness in advance of an
event is sobering. In World War II some
40% of the American people took part in
Red Cross first aid and emergency prepar-
edness training. Today, that figure of partic-
ipation is less than one percent.
To further the message of resilience, Wash-
ington must abandon its longstanding top-
down public information campaigns. This
Task Force engaged in wide-ranging discus-
sion with leaders in emergency manage-
ment, the media, public opinion research,
advertising, business, government and
community groups. One point of over-
whelming consensus was agreement on the
need for outreach to a wide cross-section of
the American society. Four areas should be
emphasized in pursuing this goal:
How can we effectively communicate the
message of resilience to the American
People?
1. Resilience as a Social Norm

Building more resilient communities and a
more secure America can only take place if
the vast majority of individuals commit
themselves to taking the actions necessary to
help themselves and others in a time of cri-
sis. Pursuing this cultural shift at a time of
national economic distress may seem diffi-
cult. However, it is precisely because so
many Americans are facing so much uncer-
tainty that they are likely to be receptive to
the case for resilience.

Through a combination of public awareness
campaigns, corporate support and limited
governmental action, long held habits have
been shown to change as new social norms
have come into acceptance. For example:
individual attitudes toward littering, smok-
ing, recycling, the use of baby car seats and
attitudes toward different groups in society
have altered dramatically and for the better,
often in the span of a decade or less.

A primary goal of those working on building
a more resilient America should be to devel-
op strategies and support actions that make
resilience a social norm. It should become
an accepted and widespread social norm that
it is fundamental to be prepared and ready to
offer assistance to those who cannot help
themselves in the first few days of a crisis.
Ideally, a negative connotation would be
attached to anyone not prepared for a crisis
since their lack of preparedness might cause
harm to others.

Creating resilience as a social norm should
therefore be central to any efforts at the
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$'&)'.!1%.!2/)*%&/3!4%3*(5! :"!
community and national level to build sus-
tainable levels of resilience in American so-
ciety. Social media can play a central role in
disseminating and reinforcing these messag-
es.

2. Risk Literacy

In just the span of one generation, individu-
als have gone from two or three trusted and
consistent sources of information on any one
topic, to hundreds if not thousands. From
cable TV to innumerable Internet sites and
shared e-mails, information is provided daily
on a myriad of topics, including potential
risks. A danger with being connected with-
out having a deeper education on a topic is
the phenomenon of social amplification.
For example: if images of a freak lightning
strike are featured over and over in the me-
dia, it is likely that people will begin to be-
lieve that their chances of being struck by
lightning are quite high. The consequences
of receiving information without education
can be overreaction, misallocation of re-
sources relative to risk or even inaction born
of a feeling of being overwhelmed and not
being provided the tools to respond.

Any campaign to further resilience as a val-
ue will require providing detailed and accu-
rate information to individuals so that they
are informed and empowered to take indi-
vidual and collective action in the face of
risk. Risk literacy can help individuals and
communities calibrate their responses to risk
in a measured and intelligent manner, best
using the time and talents of citizens in a
sustainable way. Social media can play an
important role in promoting risk literary.
Integrating risk literacy into existing class-
room curriculum should be a high priority
for any community wishing to promote resil-
ience.


3. Trusted Networks

The proliferation of media and information
sources in 21
st
Century America, coupled
with the diversity of our population, political
polarization and loss of faith in governmen-
tal institutions, has made it nearly impossi-
ble to disseminate messages by public offi-
cials which are accepted and serve as moti-
vators for action. When thinking about how
to best engage the American people on ac-
cepting and acting on the idea of becoming
more resilient, a much more nuanced, crea-
tive and complex approach must be under-
taken.

Social media provides an ideal way to over-
come these obstacles, for the rise of social
media has clearly demonstrated that individ-
uals gravitate to trusted networks to receive
information, take advice and undertake so-
cial action. The narrowcasting and self-
selection that are possible through social
media are likely to be the most effective
ways to promote social change in American
society for years to come. Reaching out to
find community leaders who may not have
official titles but have the respect of fellow
citizens is a most effective way to access
these trusted networks of information that
are able to cut through the haze of modern
media. Who is telling the story, delivering a
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$%&&'()*&+!,-'.*(/! :9!
message or issuing a call to action is im-
portant.

4. Alignment of Messages

The diversity of trusted networks and com-
munity leaders able to influence opinion,
change behaviors and activate social action
is large in any community. There will need
to be different messages for different net-
works. While tempting to believe that a sin-
gle phrase or a cleverly designed public rela-
tions campaign can spark the national
movement necessary to build resilience into
a social norm, the reality is more challeng-
ing.

There should be an alignment of messages
and information going out over trusted net-
works, but not the same message. Groups
working to promote resilience will need to
work with community leaders to customize
messages for trusted networks linked by so-
cial media. What may be lost in having uni-
ty in the messaging can be compensated for
by aligning messages to be getting different
populations to the same place by different
paths. For example: appeals to invoke the
selfless spirit that prevailed in America dur-
ing the Second World War may help engage
senior citizens, while young environmental-
ist activists may be most interested in build-
ing resilient communities that can stave off
or mitigate environmental disasters.

While a multiplicity of networks and mes-
saging strategies will be necessary to pro-
mote resilience as a social norm and cause
individuals to take action, fortunately social
media provides the ready-made avenues
through which this can occur. While Amer-
icans in their interests and backgrounds are
diverse, the means to reach them exist via
social media.












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VI. Taking Action

After discussing the question How can we
effectively communicate the message of re-
silience to the American public? we under-
stood the centrality of social media as the
most important answer to that question. The
Task Force then moved to developing an-
swers to the question:
How can we use social media tools to
empower people to act on the message of
resilience and take a more active role in
preparedness, response and recovery?
The enduring answers to this question will
be provided by the American people them-
selves, using social media in the cause of
resilience. However, the Task Force did
develop some ideas to strengthen the emerg-
ing networks of those using social media to
further the cause of building a more resilient
America.

1. National Campaign for a Resilient
America
It is true that social media has helped ideas
spread and movements build with lightning
speed, unleashing change that can change
policies, behaviors and even governments.
It is also true that there is always a need for
a group of people committed to a cause, fo-
cused on its mission and dedicated daily to
its implementation that is required to create
and sustain such movements. Social media,
with its embrace of the values of transparen-
cy, responsiveness and participation, and de-
centralized structure, is ideally suited to fa-
cilitate the development of a national
movement to build more resilient communi-
ties across the United States and beyond.
Yet a committed individuals and organiza-
tions, with a primary focus on fostering this
movement, will be needed to raise the pro-
file and relevance of the resilience issue in a
world in which many issues and ideas com-
pete for the attention of the American peo-
ple.
An example of how a national resilience
campaign can get its start can be found in
the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Summit: Re-
membrance, Renewal, Resilience. For the
better part of a year, three non-profit organi-
zations, the Center for National Policy,
Voices of September 11
th
and the Communi-
ty and Regional Resilience Institute (CAR-
RI), focused on hosting an event to highlight
the role of resilience and its relevance in
American life in the 9/11 Decade.
As part of the Summit, these organizations
commissioned several short-form documen-
taries to tell stories of resilience, and with
the goal of sharing these stories with the
American people, have built a social media
platform Road2Resilience.org. In less than
one month following the 9/11 Tenth Anni-
versary Summit, Boatlift (one of the fea-
tured documentaries commissioned by the
organizers of the Summit and featured on
Road2Resilience.org) had over 2.5 million
views on YouTube.
The desire on the part of the public to build
a more resilient America is clear. The
commitment of groups and individuals to
build a national campaign for a more resili-
ent America is already being demonstrated,
!
$%&&'()*&+!,-'.*(/! :;!
and the tools of social media are the best
way to build such a movement. Resources
will be needed to scale up these efforts and
build a sustainable movement.

2. Social Media Summit
One of the overarching values shared by
those in the creative world of social media is
that of empowerment of the individual. The
innovations brought to the marketplace by
those in the social media industry have
brought about a revolution in communica-
tions that is transforming the world. Those
who seek to promote resilience in American
life must also count on empowering citizens
to be better prepared to respond, recover and
adapt in times of crisis. They will need the
tools of social media to bring about a more
resilient America, and they will need full
partnership with the social media industry.
The full time job of those in social media is
not to think about building more resilient
communities, and those in emergency man-
agement are not always preoccupied with
keeping current with the products and trends
in social media. By having leaders in the
social media industry meet on a regular ba-
sis with those in emergency management,
there is the possibility of needs finding solu-
tions. Having the leaders of Google, Face-
book, Twitter come together to focus on the
issue of resilience on an annual basis would
do much to focus attention and produce
practical benefits. In what is a very compet-
itive industry, having thought leaders come
together to offer practical solutions for po-
tentially life threatening situations and work
in concert on strengthening the broader
community can have only upsides for all
involved.

3. New Emergency Broadcast System
Born in the Golden Age of television and
the early days of the Cold War, the piercing
ring of the Emergency Broadcast System
became familiar to generations of Ameri-
cans who were told to stay tuned for fur-
ther information on whatever disaster might
be coming their way. The Emergency
Broadcast System was thus the embodiment
the way in which Americas professional
protector class chose to interact with the
American people in years gone by.
At any one time in todays America, more
people are engaged with social media then
they are watching the evening television
network news. Already more than one in six
Americans affected have used social media
to get information about an emergency.
34

The Department of Homeland Security
should work with the National Association
of Broadcasters, social media companies and
local and state emergency management offi-
cials to update the Emergency Broadcast
System in ways that better engage the citi-
zenry in response and recovery efforts.

4. Family Re-unification

Social media has been increasingly used to
aid citizens trying to find loved ones in a
disaster situation. Gathering, centralizing
and updating this information helps ease
anxiety in a trying time but just as im-
portantly can prevent the misallocation of
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$'&)'.!1%.!2/)*%&/3!4%3*(5! :<!
resources used in searches that occur for
those whose status has already been deter-
mined. Since the attacks of September 11
th

social media has been used extensively to
aid in family reunification efforts. Accord-
ing to a recent survey, 45% of Americans
sampled said that they would rely on social
media to let loved ones know they are safe
in a disaster situation.
35


Privacy laws often prevent government from
releasing information on the status of indi-
viduals in a disaster zone, however the effi-
cacy of maintaining a centralized point of
information seems clear for purposes of in-
forming loved ones and aiding rescue deci-
sions by emergency responders. Systematic
efforts should be made by federal emergen-
cy management officials to work with social
media firms in developing a capacity for
families and emergency responders to access
a unified list of information about the status
of individuals in a disaster zone.

5. Social Media Emergency Operations
Centers
Every state and many localities across the
nation maintain Emergency Management
Operations Centers, which are activated in
times of crisis, and often maintained in an-
ticipation of incidents. The purpose of these
centers is to monitor developments in a cri-
sis situation, coordinate efforts of official
agencies and deliver periodic messages to
the public in the form of either warnings or
updates.

All emergency management agencies and
Operations Centers should be staffed with
personnel who can monitor social media at
all times for the purposes of gaining rapid
on-site updates which enhance situational
awareness and to better engage the public on
response and recovery efforts. Examples
abound of how citizens posting on Facebook
and broadcasting on Twitter have been able
to provide real time information, pictures,
and updates that can aid in response and re-
covery operations. But some Emergency
Operations Centers lack high bandwidth In-
ternet, technical and collaborative skills and
have stringent security policies blocking
their workforce from using social media for
operational purposes.
36


There is great potential for emergency man-
agement officials to better engage the public
before during and after a crisis using social
media. By making policy changes, upgrad-
ing equipment and dedicating staff for this
purpose, either paid or volunteer, on a full
time basis, citizens will be meaningfully
connected to emergency management offi-
cials and officials will gain greater situation-
al awareness and be aided in their opera-
tions.


6. Critical Networks Notification

In times of crisis and in a void of infor-
mation, confusion often reigns. In a time of
crisis, however, a first order of business is to
maintain the continuity of systems essential
for response, and recovery. For example: in
the immediate aftermath of an earthquake, it
is necessary for the thousands of employees
of a vital port to know the status of their op-
erations and what they should do next. Dur-
!
$%&&'()*&+!,-'.*(/! :0!
ing an act of terrorism in a downtown area,
it is important for employees of hospitals,
airports and mass transit systems to know if
and when they should report to work and
how they should best get there.

Social media, especially in the form of Twit-
ter and SMS updates can provide this essen-
tial information and provide a two way
channel of communication that can cut
through the confusion and clutter of misin-
formation during a crisis. Engaging and in-
forming personnel in critical networks in
this way can help restore and maintain con-
tinuity of function critical to response and
speedy recovery efforts. The result would
be to strengthen resilience across vital sec-
tors.




!
$'&)'.!1%.!2/)*%&/3!4%3*(5! :6!
VII. Conclusion

Over the course of this year the Task Force
for a Resilient America has worked to an-
swer the question, How can we effectively
communicate the message of resilience to
the American people? In the course of our
work it became clear that supporting the
spread of the core values of resilience such
as citizen engagement and participation
could best be accomplished through the use
of social media, which thrives on these val-
ues.
The Task Force then turned to examining
the question How can we use social media
tools to empower people to act on the mes-
sage of resilience and take an active role in
preparedness, response and recovery? Our
recommendations provide some operational
suggestions such as an updated Emergency
Broadcast System, maintaining Social Me-
dia Emergency Operations Centers, and
Critical Network Notifications that can be
quickly accomplished if resources are ap-
plied and political will exists. However, to
foster the resurgence of the spirit of resili-
ence that we believe necessary to build a
safer and more vital nation, community
leaders, government officials and media en-
trepreneurs must build alliances to provide
the structure and foster the focus and com-
mitment required to renew a nation. Our
recommendations for launching a national
resilience movement that includes a social
media summit are, we believe, first steps
that can help unleash a virtuous cycle of ac-
tions that will empower citizens and
strengthen America for decades to come.













!
!
Task Force for a Resilient America Members


Carole Artigiani, Global Kids Inc.

Omid Ashtari, Twitter

Scott Bates, Center for National Policy

Luke Beckman, National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue

Tom Blim, Group SJR

Jenna Briand, TakePart

Peter Boynton, Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security

Harold Brooks, American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter

Sean Burke, Center for National Policy

Elise Carlson Lewis, Center for National Policy

Rear Admiral Joseph Castillo, United States Coast Guard

Allison L. C. de Cerreo, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey

June Cohen, TED

Ann K. Farrar, Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI)

Mary Fetchet, Voices of September 11th

Stephen Flynn, Center for National Policy

John Franklin, Abernathy MacGregor

Eric Frost, San Diego State University

Chris Gebhardt, TakePart

Daniel Glassman, Center for National Policy

Scott Graham, Greater New York American Red Cross

Chief Mike Grossman, LA Sheriffs Department

Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, Monument Policy Group

Lyndsay C. Howard, Pangaeia Group

Richard John, University of Southern California

Alex Jutkowitz, Group SJR

General Ronald Keys, Bipartisan Policy Center

Rachel Kleinfeld, Truman National Security Project

Josh Koster, Chong + Koster

Chris Lapetina, FOCUS Consulting

Mark Latonero, University of Southern California

Jay Lavender, NSPYR

Meredith Lavender, writer/producer
!
!



Andrew Lavigne, Center for National Policy

Amy Levner, AARP

Anil Mammen, Mammen Group

Leonard Marcus, Harvard School of Public Health

Gloria Mark, University of California, Irvine

Scott McCallum, Aidmatrix

Bear McConnell, NORAD-NORTHCOM

Michelle Menchin, IBM

Betsy Morgan, The Blaze

Dickie Morris, just a little ditty / NSPYR

Rear Admiral Peter Neffenger, United States Coast Guard

Carter Page, Center for National Policy / Global Energy Capital

Al Puchala, Signal Equity Partners

Mark Putnam, Putnam Partners

William Raisch, New York University

Celina Realuyo, National Defense University

Jim Reeder, Fox Cable Networks

Jordan Robinson, Threshhold Group

Chuck Rocha, Solidarity Strategies

Adam Rose, University of Southern California

Heather Rosoff, University of Southern California

Stephanie Schipper, TakePart

Jennifer Scott, Ogilvy

Rachelle Spero, Brunswick Group

Al Terriego, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey

Trent Thompson, NORAD-NORTHCOM

Marcie Ulin, writer/producer

Kevin Walsh, writer/producer

Simon Wilkie, University of Southern California

Ernest James Wilson III, University of Southern California

Philip de Vellis, Putnam Partners

Michael Ventura, Sub Rosa

Daya Wolterstorff, TakePart

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!
Acknowledgements


Research Support provided by Andrew Lavigne, Research Associate, Center for National Policy,
and Laura Buchanan, Intern, Center for National Policy.

Editorial Support provided by Daniel Glassman, Research Associate, Center for National Policy.

Design Support provided by Willis Bretz, New Media Specialist, Center for National Policy.

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References

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1
http://images.friendster.com/images/Friendster_At_A_Glance_September_2008.pdf
2
ODell, Jolie. The History of Social Media [Infographic]. Mashable.com. January 24, 2011.
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Shiels, Maggie. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey Rejoins Company. BBC News, Silicon Valley. 28 March 2011.
4
Schroeder, Stan. Google+ About to Hit 10 Million Users. Mashable.com. 12 July 2011.
5
Webster, Tom. The Social Habit 2011. Edison Research. 29 May 2011.
6
Ibid.
7
Quinn, Ben. Social Network Users Have Twice As Many Friends Online as in Real Life. The Guardian. 8 May
2011.
8
American Red Cross. White Paper: The Case for Integrating Crisis Response With Social Media. Emergency So-
cial Data Summit. 30 July 2010.
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http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/01/13/haiti-earthquake/
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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=search&gid=252988675717
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How Does Haiti Communicate After the Earthquake? BBC News. 20 January 2010.
12
Tsunami Information (Estimated Tsunami Arrival Time and Height). Japan Meteorological Agency. 11 March
2011.
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Damage Situation and Police Countermeasures associated with 2011 Tohoku district - off the Pacific Ocean
Earthquake. National Police Agency of Japan. 15 August 2011.
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CNN Wire Staff. Japan: 3 Nuclear Reactors Melted Down. KTVZ.com. 6 June 2011.
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Banks, Emily. Japanese Power Company Creates Twitter Account for Nuclear Plant Updates. Mashable. 18
March 2011.
16
Japan Earthquake: Tsunami Hits North-East. BBC News. 11 March 2011.
17
Schroeder, Stan. Google Responds to the Japan Earthquake With and Online Crisis Center. Mashable. 11
March 2011.
18
Warren, Christina. YouTube Launches Channel to Help Japan Quake Victims Communicate. Mashable. 18
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Japan Tweets Its Way Out of Disaster. The Wrap. 14 March 2011.
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Green, Spencer. Japan, and the Critical Three Ways Social Media Plays During a Crisis. PR Newswire. 31
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Dickler, Jessica. Earthquake aid totals $25 million far less than Haiti. CNN Money. 15 March 2011.
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https://safeandwell.communityos.org/cms/index.php
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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joplin-Tornado-Citizen-Checks-neighbors-helping-neighbors/173486139376210
24
BP leak the world's worst accidental oil spill". Telegraph. 3 August 2010
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Earl, Steve. Deepwater Horizon: Inside the Vicious Media War. An interview with BP chief executive Tony
Hayward. Speedcommunications.com. 16 June 2011.
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Daley, Haven; Marshall, John S.; & Thanawala, Sudhin. Federal regulators say California gas pipeline in deadly
blast was ranked high risk. Associated Press. 11 September 2010.
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Rose, Adam J. San Bruno Explosion: Photos Of The Fires Aftermath Paint A Bigger Picture. Huffington Post.
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Franzen, Carl. Before-and-After Views of San Bruno Blast. AolNews. 13 September 2010.
29
San Bruno Fire Technical Debrief. Carnegie Mellon University Disaster Management Initiative. 5 November
2010.
30
Spellman, Jim. Heading off disaster, one tweet at a time. CNN. com. 22 September 2010.
31
Amarante, Joe. Just the facts, maam: Why Twitter rules the roost. New Haven Register. 1 May 2011.
32
Wilson, Benet. Safety Board Embraces Social Media With Twitter, YouTube Accounts. Aviation Daily. 14
February 2011.
33
Paine, Katie. Target Is Anything But On, While Post-Explosion, PG&E Does Its Best. PR News. 20 September
2010.
34
Menn, Joseph and Tim Bradshaw. Smartphone Tweets Drive Twitter Surge. Financial Times. 1 June 2011.
35
Labbe-DeBose, Theola. 911 Systems Slow to Make Shift to Text Messaging. Washington Post. 23 April 2011.
36
Smith, Aaron. Government Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project. 27 April 2010.




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