162 Int. J. Innovation and Learning, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Flood 2.0: Facebook use and reactions during the
2011/2012 flood in Thailand
Panom Gunawong* and
Phatchayathit Jankananon
Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration,
Department of Public Administration,
Chiang Mai University,
Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
Email: panom.gunawong@cmu.ac.th
Email: phatchayathit.j@hotmail.com
*Corresponding author
Abstract: This paper explored the use and reactions of Thaiflood Facebook
during the major 2011/2012 flood in Thailand. The Facebook page was used
mostly for providing situation update data. This type of message drew more
reactions (‘Like’, ‘Comment’, and ‘Share’) than those from other types such as
flood response and opinion sharing. Interestingly, it was also seen that requests
were made by Facebook users. These findings are of crucial importance to the
organisations concerned with disaster management, as these insights will help
them to improve provision of useful information for people affected by floods
and also address their needs effectively.
Keywords: Facebook; flood; disaster management innovation; disaster
response learning; Thailand.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Gunawong, P. and
Jankananon, P. (2015) ‘Flood 2.0: Facebook use and reactions during the
2011/2012 flood in Thailand’, Int. J. Innovation and Learning, Vol. 17, No. 2,
pp.162–173.
Biographical notes: Panom Gunawong is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Political
Science and Public Administration at Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai,
Thailand. He received his PhD in Development Policy and Management from
the University of Manchester, UK. His core areas of focus are e-governance,
e-government, ICT4D and failure analysis.
Phatchayathit Jankananon is a student in the Faculty of Political Science and
Public Administration at Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand. She is
interested in the utilisation of ICT in disaster management and public services.
This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Social
network reactions to a flood situation’ presented at International Conference on
Technology Innovation and Industrial Management, Phuket, Thailand,
29–31 May 2013.