Digital Volunteers and Disaster Management: Experiences from the Great East Japan Earthquake

Abstract

Digital volunteers in this study refer to those volunteers who apply Information technology, in whole or in part, as a tool to access volunteer information and to participate in volunteer activities, in whole or in part, through online platforms. Although digital volunteers have newly emerged, they play an important role and have gained more attention nowadays due to the evolution of information technology (IT) that provides fast and easy access to information. This new technology and the expansion of social media encourage people from several places in the world to take part digitally and voluntarily by applying their digital skills in helping victims from disasters and emergency crises without travelling to the site of the disaster. This article aims to study the change of voluntary patterns during disasters by using the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 as a case study. It also analyzes the challenges of the new patterns of voluntary activities and motivates the awareness of Thai governmental authorities in preparation for the constructive participation of digital volunteers when a disaster occurs. Based on documentary research, this study found that although the roles of digital volunteers are becoming more common and popular nowadays through various online activities on social media, an absence of a fact-checking system in order to obtain accurate, reliable, and up-to-date information and a lack of integrated institutional and organizational structure are sometimes hindered volunteer operations and the effectiveness of digital volunteers’ participation.