The internet penetration rate in Taiwan has grown threefold over the last ten years, from the low of 17.4% in 1999 to a high of 74% in 2009. People have become more and more reliant on the internet. Reinforced by the still quite recent information technology such as Web2.0, internet communities have witnessed a highly rampant and diversified development. All sorts of blogs, web service systems and micro blogging systems have also developed to take over the dominant roles of traditional print and screen media. So far, no matter whether governments as a whole or politicians as individuals have all come to rely heavily upon these burgeoning web media for communication.
Even more, communications through cyberspace possesses special features such as speediness, prompt streaming, horizontal-ness, and etc. At times of major disasters when traditional media fail to meet the urgent information need by the general populace, web uses tend to develop information anxieties. In turn, web users also tend to turn to all sorts of web communication systems for gathering and broadcasting information that bear significant weights for decision-making and implementation by the government. Tapping the experience of joint efforts in dealing with information management by the National Disaster Reduction Center and the Association of Digital Culture, Taiwan (a NGO) during typhoon Morakot this August, this proposal aims at the following goals. Firstly, conducting the manpower training and the buildup of web platforms specially designated for disaster mitigation information management. Secondly, searching for better, more stable, and more effective modes of joint efforts between different types of professional NGOs and government organizations, based on our in-depth research on issues of organization and legal mandates that are related to open government and joint efforts by GOs and NGOs.
The outputs out of this research project include the following items:
1.A research report on the organizational and statutory requirements related to the proposed NGO for disaster mitigation information management.
2.A research report on the information framework purported to integrate information resources carried by disaster reduction web sites of all related ministries.
3.The development of a mass media strategy for the social media specially designated for timely information required of disaster mitigation.
4.The development of a SOP for the social media specially designated for timely information required of isaster mitigation.
R&D Center
Report
