Cross-Media Communication During Disasters Development of a Generic Data- and Process Model Gerhard Backfried 1,2 Gerald Quirchmayr 2 1 SAIL LABS Technology, Vienna, Austria gerhard.backfried@sail-technology.com 2 University of Vienna, Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia Information Systems Re- search Group, Vienna, Austria gerald.quirchmayr@univie.ac.at Abstract. This paper presents an approach to classify the entities involved in cross-media communication during disasters in a generic way. Accounting for the interdisciplinary nature of the field, some foundations regarding the termi- nology involved are laid out. Based on an established communication model and this terminology, a faceted classification scheme is presented, linking tech- nologies with different platforms and actors. The framework covers traditional and social media and allows for rapid positioning of media platforms as well as the identification of gaps or requirements regarding the technologies involved. Keywords: Information systems, multimedia, disaster communication, data modelling 1 INTRODUCTION Traditional media have a long history of providing information about crises and disasters. Even today, depending on a variety of social, economic and geographic factors, they may still be the primary source of information for a substantial part of the population [23, 25]. Ever since their inception, social media (SM) have been gain- ing tremendous popularity and have also been used to document crises and disasters. The increase of activity and the diversity of platforms has been facilitated by the rapid growth of portable devices and accompanied by the development and implementation of strategies on how to best combine such technological advances with crisis- management [7]. As a consequence, the media coverage and reporting of disasters and crises nowadays typically involves a variety of actors gathering, disseminating and mashing up information on and from a variety of sources, channels and platforms. In many instances documents on different platforms and channels are linked and mashed-up in real-time. Even though frequently the use of SM has been emphasized 1 , we believe that it is the combination and integration of traditional and social media – 1 without a doubt they play a very important role and will continue to do so in the future