Social media as a tool supporter in disaster management: Comparative analysis between Türkiye and Iraq

Public information and early warning are key components of social disaster prevention because they can complement planning, and multi-disciplinary coordination and minimize losses. Social media has increasingly become an important communication channel for users to disseminate useful public and emergency information in these incidents. Communications, including web-based services, between governments, communities, and people involved in the management of disasters are mandatory for the purposes of early warning, rescue services, and recovery. Purpose of this article is exploring how people may use or had used the social media applications during the disaster and provide the advantages of social media in disaster management all over the world but specifically for citizens of Türkiye and Iraq. To get the response of the users, a Google form based survey questionnaire was distributed to the users through the internet. Two hundred and eleven persons, from both genders responded, ages ranged from 17 years to above 45, from different educational levels, inhabiting Türkiye (n = 105, 49.8%), Iraq (n = 88, 41.7%), and other countries (n = 18, 8.5%). The study shows that depending on the culture, social media usage behaviors change for disaster situations. During the disaster, Iraqi citizens preferred to use the Facebook application, meanwhile Türkish citizens prefer to use WhatsApp application to communicate. Both, governments and private sector, are invited to establish and continuously update the infrastructure and facilities of an effective social media communication system, plans should be made to encourage all sectors of society to learn how to use social media in the event of a disaster.