An Exploration of Physical-Virtual Convergence Behaviors in Crisis Situations

Convergence behavior - a spontaneous and massive movement of people, information and assets toward the disaster-struck area - was first studied by a seminal work of Fritz and Matthewson. Since then, sociologists and psychologists have attempted to find ways to control this behavior, as it was perceived to be detrimental to rescue activities. In cyberspace, this convergence behavior has evolved to play even a more central role. As a first step toward theory development, we explore the interaction properties between online and physical behaviors: local vs. global, complementarity vs. substitutability, formality vs. informality, legitimacy vs. illegality, planning vs. spontaneity and centralized vs. decentralized. We argue that future policies need to take into consideration the interplay of convergence behaviors that concurrently occur in both physical and virtual worlds.