ABSTRACT
Chapter Objectives ◾ To evaluate the characteristics of the open government movement ◾ To consider the impact of “gami„cation” on the use of Web 2.0 systems for
emergency and disaster management activities ◾ To evaluate potential social media and Web 2.0 solutions to functional and
accessible needs challenges ◾ To identify social media and Web 2.0 improvements to emergency manage-
ment operational eœciency ◾ To identify the potential utilization of collaborative and contributory systems
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DISASTER FOCUS-JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI (2011)
On Friday, March 11, 2011, an undersea earthquake occurred oš the coast of Japan that registered a magnitude 9.0 (Mw). e so-called 2011 Tōhoku earthquake or Great East Japan earthquake was the most powerful earthquake known to have hit Japan and one of the „ve most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the world. (See Figure 14.1.) e earthquake triggered a destructive tsunami with waves up to 120 feet high that traveled in some cases up to six miles inland. ere were more than 900 aftershocks, with approximately 60 registering over magnitude 6.0 Mw and 3 over 7.0 Mw. e Japanese National Police Agency con„rmed more than 15,000 deaths, 5,000 additional injuries, and 125,000 buildings damaged across 18 prefectures (local jurisdictions). Approximately 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water immediately after the incident. Additionally, the earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused a number of nuclear accidents, including the meltdown of three reactors in the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plan complex. Speci„cally, the nuclear reactors in question sušered explosions due to hydrogen gas that built up after internal cooling system failures. Residents within a 10-kilometer radius of the nuclear power plant were evacuated. Local emergency management and government oœcials estimated that the disaster costs were more than US$300 billion. Additionally, geologists con„rmed that the earthquake moved Honshu (Japan’s main island) 8 feet east and shifted the Earth on its axis by 4-10 inches.1 is disaster was catastrophic and far beyond the scope experienced by Japan or any other country in the world. Consequently, the use and utilization of social media was also unmatched by other previous disasters or emergencies. For instance, there were approximately 1,200 tweets per minute immediately after the disaster, which is an astronomical rate of information exchange and strongly indicates both the intense distribution of information in and out of Japan for various reasons.2 A similar level of activity was found on Facebook, where there were 4.5 million status updates from 3.8 million users across the world on March 11 that mentioned keywords such as “Japan” or “earthquake.”5 A Ushahidi Crowdmap was also created for the event that accepted more than 3,000 postings.3 Additionally, a partnership between Facebook, Save the Children, and the online social gaming company Zynga allowed users to donate money to disaster relief and recovery through the purchase of virtual goods on Zynga games (e.g., FarmVille). e impact of social media and Web 2.0 technologies on this event was so great that the U.S. embassy in Tokyo sent a letter to Americans in Japan stating, “We encourage you to continue to be in contact with your loved one(s) using SMS texting and other social media (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) that your loved
Open Government and Gamification e cloud has long been a representative word, phrase, or context to describe something that is out of reach and unattainable to the perceiver. For instance, if a local high school baseball pitcher dreams of playing baseball as a professional but can’t throw strikes during a game, he might be told to get his “head out of the clouds.” e detractors might tell the pitcher that his dream is unachievable because he lacks the skills, resources, ability, resourcefulness, and so forth to accomplish the required task. In most cases, people who dream “in the clouds” eventually give up on those dreams and heed the recommendations of others that they have heard repetitiously over an extended period of time.
