From Big to Little Data for Natural Disaster Recovery: How Online and On-the-ground Activities are Connected? Page: 154

                                
I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY

important roles in the integration of online and on-the-
ground disaster recovery efforts. Local governments and
disaster management organizations should be prepared to
incorporate social media data in their formal disaster
recovery  processes. This incorporation  requires the
integration of big data analysis methods with social science
theories and methods.
I. INTRODUCTION
Scholars have widely discussed the importance of bottom-up
processes in disaster recovery (See Burby, Deyle, Godschalk, and
Olshansky 2000, 100 , 101; Chandrasekhar, 2012, 627; Knaap, Matier,
and Olshansky 1998, 339, 340). These processes focus on the
participation of local communities and stakeholders in helping local
governments with recovery processes or initiating or facilitating
grassroots and self-organized activities.
Although citizens are still active in traditional local groups and
organizations (e.g., neighborhood groups, recovery committees, etc.)
regarding disaster recovery activities, they are also increasingly
participating in social networking sites and online forums. Examples
of these forums include Facebook groups that were created after
Hurricane Sandy for disaster response and recovery purposes. Several
studies have examined the usability of social media in disaster
management through exploring its utility in mediating social
interaction and information sharing at or after the disaster time. A few
studies have also explored the role of organizations in employing
social media for disaster management. Still, our understandings of the
background of online volunteers in social media groups and the
relationship between their online and on-the-ground volunteer
activities in disaster recovery are limited. Disaster management
organizations and local governments fall short in understanding the
dynamics of online social networks. This is partially due to their
organizational insufficiency in handling big data generated through
online social networks (Brynjolfsson 2012; Sagiroglu and Sinanc 2013;
Townsend 2013). The network data can explain the interaction of the
members in these groups. This data is not only valuable for local
governments and disaster recovery groups to learn about citizens'
interests and ideas, but also to explore the dynamics of these groups
and identify potential stakeholders and volunteers as human
resources in recovery processes (Paton and Flin 1999). Interpretation
of this data requires understanding the social context of the disaster
recovery process, including the involved stakeholders, through the

[Vol. 11:1

154