Monitoring & Responding to Information Ecosystem Incidents: A Conceptual Framework Understanding Information Ecosystem Risk and Leveraging Academic Expertise for Information Incident Response

Abstract

Our digital information ecosystem shapes the flow of information, the spread of disinformation, the power of adversarial actors, truth, trust, and democracy itself. Characteristics of this ecosystem impact crisis prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response; yet, research on the intersection between digital information ecosystems and crisis and emergency management is scarce. The capacity to deliver and respond to incidents in the information ecosystem is crucial in combating emerging digital threats, such as foreign influence, misuse of generative AI, and online extremism. This paper addresses these challenges by defining the digital information ecosystem and information incidents as they relate to crisis and emergency management and provides an interdisciplinary information incident response framework that integrates conceptual academic research with practitioner perspectives for improved crisis response.