Social media, crisis and resilience
Track 23
Track chairs
Zeeshan Ahmed Bhatti
University of Portsmouth
Tahir Abbas Syed
The University of Manchester
Marzena Nieroda
University College London
Track description
Social media platforms have become central to how individuals, communities, organisations, and societies communicate, coordinate, and respond during times of disruption. From natural disasters and public health emergencies to political unrest, humanitarian crises, climate-related emergencies, and organisational disruption, social media increasingly shapes how information is shared, support networks are formed, resources are mobilised, and communities recover. As digitally mediated interaction becomes embedded in everyday life, understanding the role of social media in enabling crisis response and resilience has become an important Information Systems research area.
This track focuses on social media, crisis, and resilience. It examines how digitally connected communities use social media to anticipate, respond to, adapt to, and recover from disruptive events. The track welcomes research on crisis communication, public sensemaking, community coordination, mutual aid, digital support networks, civic engagement, and post-crisis recovery. At the same time, it recognises that social media environments can create significant challenges, including misinformation, disinformation, rumours, fragmented public discourse, unequal participation, algorithmically shaped visibility, and the marginalisation of vulnerable communities.
One of the key concerns of the track is the role of artificial intelligence in crisis-related communication. AI increasingly shapes how crisis information is produced, recommended, moderated, verified, amplified, and consumed. Generative AI, chatbots, automated agents, recommender systems, and social media analytics can support early warning, situational awareness, and community coordination. However, these technologies also raise important questions about trust, authenticity, accountability, misinformation, and whose voices are amplified or marginalised during crises. The track therefore welcomes research examining AI as part of the evolving social media ecosystem shaping crisis response and resilience.
The proposed track builds on the strong engagement with the Resilient Digital Communities: Social Media and Collective Action minitrack at HICSS, which has consistently attracted high-quality submissions and fostered an active scholarly community. ECIS offers an opportunity to broaden this conversation by engaging a wider Information Systems audience and encouraging research that connects social media, AI, crisis response, and resilience across organisational, societal, and policy contexts.
The relevance and timeliness of this topic are evident in a world characterised by recurring crises, geopolitical uncertainty, climate disruption, rapid technological change, and increasing dependence on digital communication platforms. Social media now plays a critical role in crisis communication, public sensemaking, community coordination, and mobilisation. At the same time, AI-mediated communication, platform governance, algorithmic amplification, and digital inequalities raise important questions about trust, inclusion, resilience, and responsible digital communication.
This track aligns strongly with the ECIS 2027 conference theme, Bridging Digital Borders. Social media can bridge geographical, cultural, organisational, and institutional boundaries by enabling collaboration, participation, and support across borders during crises. Yet these platforms can also reinforce divisions through algorithmic curation, language barriers, platform rules, and unequal access. By examining how social media shapes crisis response and resilience, this track contributes to understanding both the opportunities and tensions associated with digitally mediated connectivity.
Based on prior experience with HICSS and growing scholarly interest in social media, AI-mediated communication, crisis response, and resilience, we anticipate attracting 20–30 high-quality submissions, creating a competitive ECIS track.
Topics of interest
- Social media use in crisis response and emergency coordination
- Crisis communication, public sensemaking, and real-time information sharing through social media
- Community resilience and adaptation in digitally mediated crises
- Social media in disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and long-term resilience
- Digital volunteerism, mutual aid, and crowdsourced crisis response
- Misinformation, disinformation, rumours, and trust in crisis contexts
- AI and generative AI in crisis communication and digital resilience
- Human–AI collaboration in crisis-related information sharing and decision-making
- Algorithmic amplification, recommender systems, and visibility of crisis-related content
- Chatbots, automated agents, and intelligent systems for crisis response and community support
- Synthetic media, deepfakes, and authenticity challenges during crises
- Platform dynamics, content moderation, and online community participation during crises
- Inclusion, exclusion, and inequalities in digital crisis participation
- Cross-border digital communities, transnational crisis communication, and digital solidarity
Associate editors
Fulya Acikgoz
University of Sussex, UK
Jas Karla
University of Manchester, UK
Hina Yasin
University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Iman Taani
University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Muhammad Shakaib Akram
University of Essex, United Kingdom
Rohail Ashraf
Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Sarah Clifft
ESDES, Catholic University of Lyon, France
Shayan Shaikh
Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK
Fahad Mehmood
EM Normandie, France
Richard Huaman Ramirez
KEDGE Business School, France
Sarah Basahel
King Abdul Aziz University, Saudi Arabia
Zainab Riaz
Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates
Omar Itani
Lebanese American University, Lebanon
Ceray Aldemir
Mugla Sitki Kocman Universitesi, Turkey
Omon Fagbamigbe
University of Portsmouth, UK
Aamir Amin
University of Portsmouth, UK
Muhammad Asif Khan
University of Northumbria, UK
