Big Data, Surveillance and Crisis Management

This edited volume aims at exploring the interplay of theory and research on big data, crisis management and surveillance. In this context, crisis management is considered as an "umbrella term" which covers a number of crisis (i.e. from pandemics to earthquakes) and a number of ways of managing and/or dealing with crisis. While academic literature on these three topics is rich, the interplay among these domains is rarely addressed. This book is focused on the surveillance aspect of crisis management through an all-encompassing approach which tackles both key theoretical concepts (e.g. big data and surveillance) and empirical case-studies. In particular, it is organized around 3 main sections: 1. Social media and surveillance 2. Health surveillance and crisis management and 3. Case studies on disasters, crisis and big data. This structure allows to explore in-depth the advantages and disadvantages of big data analytics in different disaster management contexts. In the first section, the authors explore opportunities and risks of the use of social media in crisis management. The second section revolves around the application of big data technologies in public health, while the third looks at case studies from Europe, the UK and New Zealand.

Kees Boersma is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the VU University Amsterdam, Department of Organization Sciences.

Chiara Fonio (PhD in Sociology and Methodology of the Social Research) is researcher in Sociology at the Catholic University of Milan.

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