Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

This article examines the application of a structural innovation known as Incident Command Systems (ICS) in different crises. The ICS seeks to coordinate multiple response organizations under a temporary hierarchical structure. The ICS is of practical interest because it has become the dominant mechanism by which crisis response is organized in the United States. It is of theoretical interest because it provides insights into how a highly centralized mode of network governance operates. Despite the hierarchical characteristics of the ICS, the network properties of crisis response fundamentally affects its operations, in terms of the coordination difficulties that multiple members bring, the ways in which authority is shared and contested between members, and the importance of trust in supplementing formal modes of control.

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The Network Governance of Crisis Response: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems

This article examines the application of a structural innovation known as Incident Command Systems (ICS) in different crises. The ICS seeks to coordinate multiple response organizations under a temporary hierarchical structure. The ICS is of practical interest because it has become the dominant mechanism by which crisis response is organized in the United States. It is of theoretical interest because it provides insights into how a highly centralized mode of network governanceoperates.Despite thehierarchical characteristics of the ICS, thenetworkpropertiesof crisis response fundamentally affects its operations, in terms of the coordination difficulties that multiple members bring, the ways in which authority is shared and contested between members, and the importance of trust in supplementing formal modes of control.

/pdf/the-network-governance-of-crisis-response-case-studies-of-3epmxd7pq4.pdf

Eyewitness photography is increasingly playing a more significant role in disaster response and recovery efforts This research elaborates on the ways in which members of the public participate during times of disaster by closely examining the evolving role of a prominent photo-sharing website, Flickr, in events that have occurred since its launch in February 2004 We discuss features of Flickr’s emerging evolutionary growth as a community forum for disaster-related grassroots activity based on the findings from our qualitative study of 29 groups across six disasters over Flickr’s nearly three-year lifespan Our findings discuss efforts toward the development of norms that attempt to guide the nature of social practice around photographic content during disaster response and recovery efforts

In search of the bigger picture: The emergent role of on-line photo sharing in times of disaster

Abstract This work examines how the introduction of social media has affected the role of the Public Information Officer (PIO)—the public relations component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Through analysis of 25 PIO interviews, we examine the work practice of PIOs and find that social media expand not only the scope and type of PIO work activity, but also the “information pathways” that exist between PIOs, the media, and members of the public. We model these changes and examine how the presence of social media challenges previous conceptualizations of PIO work. Lastly, we present a view of how PIO work could be better imagined for the future of emergency management organizations.

The Evolving Role of the Public Information Officer: An Examination of Social Media in Emergency Management

In this article, the authors comment on the incident command system (ICS) as a management tool for structuring the activity of disaster response agencies at the site of disasters in the United States. The authors drawn their analysis from the use of ICS in nine different disasters in which the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) task forces participated. The authors focus on the importance of context as a largely un-examined precondition to effective ICS. In other words, the system is more or less effective depending on specific characteristics of the incident and the organizations in which it is used. ICS works best when those using it are part of a community, when the demands being responded to are routine to them, and when the sense of emergency on a social and cultural level is at a minimum, i.e., prior to panic situations. The authors conclude that the current efforts in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to use ICS as a comprehensive principle of disaster management probably will not succeed as intended.

Dick A Buck

Papers

A Critical Evaluation of the Incident Command System and NIMS