In regards to disaster response, there is some belief that when digital volunteering during a crisis goes up physical volunteering will go down. Though that could be seen to change as officials and responders use social media in order to get the word out about plans for on the ground volunteering. 

Effect of Digital Volunteering on Physical Volunteering 

Digital volunteers can do a wide variety of tasks related to the use of collective intelligence in crises. Crowdsourcing is the main task that volunteers do. Crowdsourcing allows the big tasks to be broken down into smaller more manageable tasks. An example would be searching photos for plane debris which happed during the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370

Digital Volunteering and Crowdsourcing

Digital Volunteers are those who use the internet in order to help communities during a crisis. While online activism doesn't always spur political attention or change during a crisis those that are heavily involved in online activism are able to impact the online attention the crisis receives. 

Albion College

Collective Intelligence in the modern age is having a big impact on how crises are seen and dealt with. Scholars are interested in how social media plays a role in the creation of collective intelligence during a crisis.  

Using Collective Intelligence in Crises

Büscher, M., Liegl, M., & Thomas, V. (2014). Collective Intelligence in Crises. In J.  Stewart (Ed.), Social Collective Intelligence: Combining The Powers of Humans and Machines (pp. 243–265). Springer International Publishing. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08681-1__12

Collective Intelligence in Crises

1. The Haiti Earthquake
2. Flooding in Alberta, Canada
3. The Boston Marathon Bombing


Examples of Collective Intelligence used in Crises

Scholars debate whether collective intelligence is best with orchestration or complete self-organization of the individuals or digital volunteers. Though there is a forming consensus that a mix of orchestration and self-organization might be best. There could be few individuals or groups as "puppetmasters" in which they help design and instruct the digital volunteers on how they should participate. Though after that considering the spread of social media the digital volunteers would have a great deal of freedom in which tasks they participate in. 

Orchestration or Self-organized Collective Intelligence 

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others allow individuals to spread and organize information. The information or data can be pictures, locations, and ground-level facts. Aspects of social media like Hashtags allow individuals to group information into searchable categories. Facebook groups also allow for a way of organizing information. This information can then be spread to those in the affect population, officials, emergency responders, and world wide. 

How Collective Intelligence is used in Crises through Social Media

Digital Volunteers In a Crisis

While collective intelligence can be helpful it can also be harmful in a crisis. 

1. Reliability of information and who controls it
2. Communication and connection to officials

Issues with using Collective Intelligence During a Crisis

Collective Intelligence allows for a greater understanding of the problem and a way of gaining more data. The digital volunteers and the information they have garnered is a way of helping older agencies meet the needs of the community more effectively and faster than before. With budget cuts and outdated plans of action the digital volunteers are able to provide a more modern take about how best to solve the crisis.

Effects of Using Collective Intelligence during a Crisis

Collective Intelligence is believed to be best used in crises that involved crowdsourcing activities like analyzing data and building digital maps. Crises that involve man hunts can cause the collective to go off mission and attempt to be digital vigilantes.

Best Crisis to use Collective Intelligence

With the new wave of digital volunteering and the use of social media established agencies are in the process of trying to figure out their new roles and way of interacting during a crisis. 

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