# Coproduction as an Approach to Technology-Mediated Citizen Participation in Emergency Management
## 2 Conceptual Foundations: From Community-Based EM to Coproduction  
EM is a process composed by four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Mitigation encompasses all the activities to be done when a risk has been detected; preparedness is related with developing response plans and training activities; the response phase deals with providing aid and assistance to minimize damages; and, finally recovery is concerned with supporting the early phases of returning to normal life [15]. Information and communication technologies can support an active role of citizens in each of these phases by treating them as intelligent agents in the pursuit of achieving resilient communities able to recover and function normally in the aftermath of disasters. For instance, citizens can track alerts and the evolution of hazards, coordinate and collaborate in the local response, support community preparation for specific hazards, or provide information and knowledge on how to recover from a disaster [7]. They can act as intelligent sensors that provide valuable feedback on the situation since they are familiar with the area and they are increasingly equipped with technologies like smartphones that empower them to capture information [9; 10]. Mechanisms, such as social networks, blogs, or micro-blogging, are forms of viral communication that have already given a voice to citizens in major disasters [5; 6; 21]. However, as pinpointed by [PERSON] in his work on the limitations of digital social networks as democratizing tools, \"_when everybody can speak, the central point of failure becomes the capacity to be heard_\" [22]. In fact, EMAs are aware of the important role social networks play in their communication with citizens but also of the limitations to properly manage this huge amount of data [23]. In any case, conceiving technological tools only as communication channels, whether unidirectional (that is organizations informing citizens and citizen journalism) or bidirectional (that is citizens contacting organizations and getting feedback from them), is a very limited interpretation of citizen participation. EM is not only about communication, it is about collaboration; it is about information and knowledge sharing and integration, and about coordinated decision-making and action [16]. The Web 2.0 is not only about communicating in a viral way but it is also about enabling collaboration [1; 3; 22]. Citizens can engage in more activities by means of local community response grids [8] or using social computing applications. For example, very simple social tools like Google Spreadsheets or Forms offered a quick, cheap and accessible mechanism to coordinate the two thousand people who volunteered to help 60 min after the Boston Marathon bombing [24]. Indeed FEMA defines emergency managements as \"_the managerial function charged with creating a framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters_\" [25]. This definition shifts the goal of EMAs from mere incident responders to recognize their responsibility on supporting the creation of resilient communities that are defined as groups of people that have developed a set of capacities as a group, not only as individuals, to recover effectively from disasters [26]. Such capacities are what is usually called in the literature social capital, defined as the resources that are available to individuals through their social networks. It has been empirically demonstrated that communities with strongersocial capital recover better from disasters than communities with looser social ties and, in turn, they become more resilient [27; 28]. Research on the role of the communities' social capital in EM advocates to move towards a community-level EM [17] assuming that _\"emergency management capacity is built from the ground up\"_[16].