Examining the Factors that Influence the Use of Social Media for Disaster Management by Coastal Community People of Bangladesh

Aims: To examine how and why did the coastal community people (agriculture, aquaculture and livestock farmers) adopted social media for their disaster management efforts employing Technology Acceptance Model.

Place and Duration of Study: Batiaghata upazila under Khulna district and Bagerhat Sadar, Chitalmari and Fakirhat upazila of Bagerhat district. Data was collected in February 2023.

Methodology: Considering 95% confidence level and 10% Margin of Error 96 sample was estimated for the study. However, for addressing non response we collected data from 25 more respondents, thus all together we collected data from 121 samples. The people who use social media, available during interview and voluntarily agreed to provide data were selected purposively as sample. The study was a quantitative research project that used independent t-tests and descriptive statistics to analyze the information gathered. Data was Analyzed using SPSS.

Results: The study found 94% community people either strongly agreed or agreed that they use social media for gathering disaster information while 96% respondents strongly agreed or agreed to share disaster information with their friends and families. The outcome of the study established the fact that a significant difference exists between coastal community people whose social media site usage was influenced by their perceived usefulness and those whose social media site usage was influenced by their perceived ease of use (p<0.05).

Conclusion: In coastal Bangladesh social media users gather disaster management information from the media and also share this in their friends and families. There is a high perception of perceive usefulness and ease of use of social media among coastal community people in Bangladesh, particularly Bagerhat and Khulna districts. Therefore, government and non-government organizations need to emphasize on social media as part of enhancing community knowledge and improving practice of disaster management.