LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE THE PUBLIC IN VOLCANIC HAZARDS

The famous movie quote says it all, "what we have here is a failure to communicate." It is a lesson that is identified over and over again, and is not necessarily learned. This is especially true when it comes to communicating to and engaging the public in all aspects of volcanic hazards. What are the risks? What can be done to prepare? What is the public's role in response? How will the public receive alert and warning? How do we recover after an event? The popularity of social media, also known as Web 2.0, has brought forth new opportunities and new ways to communicate with the public. Public safety agencies have implemented a number of systems and tools, but are slow to embrace blogs, wikis, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (just to name a few). Social media utilizes a decentralized network approach to sharing information that does not always translate well into a command-and-control world. The biggest obstacles to implementation are issues of trust -- trust in the users, trust in the information and trust of the technology. Collectively the public safety and science communities need to work through these issues embrace these social media tools that are already widely used. They are not a replacement of, but a compliment to all of the great work that is currently being done to engage the public.