Article

Blog Functions as Risk and Crisis Communication During Hurricane Katrina

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  • Twig Strategies
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Abstract

Blogs were examined during the 2 weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. city of New Orleans to better understand what risk and crisis communication functions they served. The 4 major functions—communication, political, information, and helping—included both filtering and linking about rescue needs and efforts, missing persons, ways to offer and find assistance, fostering community, and providing information on damage and government response. A thinker function was fulfilled where bloggers expressed opinions, especially on government response. An additional function not previously delineated was identified, which might be termed emotive or therapeutic. In addition, several of the blog functions indicate the role the Internet plays in maintaining a sense of community in times of crisis.

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... First, individuals may employ information functions. For example, individuals shared damage and rescue information on their blogs after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the southeastern United States in 2005 (Macias et al., 2009). In another example, Twitter users distributed facts about an NPO, Autism Speaks (Parsloe & Holton, 2018). ...
... Individuals express their own opinions and feelings on political situations, attempting to make their voices heard and influence the public opinion or organizational performance (Parsloe & Holton, 2018;Small, 2011;Theocharis et al., 2015). They also share personal experiences and stories about rescue, damage, and emergent situations with their social media networks (Caraway, 2016;Macias et al., 2009). These studies together suggest that individuals' posts on NPOs' social media pages are based on two different dynamics (i.e., collective and connective action) and may employ different functions accordingly. ...
... Issue identification, noncommunity functions, and audiences beyond the organizational boundary As indicated above, not all individual posts on organizations' social media pages are designed for community functions. Many individuals take advantage of NPOs' social media pages to spread posts related to the focal issue with varied functions-such as information and action-without a direct relationship with the organization (Macias et al., 2009;Parsloe & Holton, 2018;Theocharis et al., 2015). These participants in connective action create posts based on their concerns about and attention to the focal issue instead of adhering to slogans or an identity related to that particular organization. ...
Article
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Previous research has centered on nonprofit organizations’ (NPOs’) roles in developing relationships with the public and leading collective action. However, individuals may also create posts on NPOs’ social media pages to generate relationships with audiences other than the organization, and to self-mobilize connective action to reach their own goals. Based on content analysis of 576 actual posts and survey responses about them, this study suggests that posters with high organizational identification respond to the focal organizations, while those with high issue identification use the organizational context for their own purposes, disseminating information related to the focal issue to the general population or promoting the issue to their personal networks. This study extends discussions of ramifications of multiple identifications in the social media environment and captures the transformed relationships between organizations and individuals who create posts on NPOs’ social media pages and their new roles in connective action.
... Thus, business communication related to global crises (e.g., natural disasters) is largely unexplored. There are relevant contributions regarding communication crises in social network sites and also on the multiplication of messages during Hurricane Katrina (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2009;Macias, Hilyard, & Freimuth, 2009;Veil & Husted, 2012) and the epidemic H1N1 (Freberg, Palenchar, & Veil, 2013;Lin, Jung, McCloud, & Viswanath, 2014;Lin, Savoia, Agboola, & Viswanath, 2014). Still, little is known about brand positioning strategies during natural disasters and pandemics. ...
... During tense or critical periods of a crisis, public perceptions play a key role in crisis management (Stieglitz, Mirbabaie, & Potthoff, 2018;Veil & Husted, 2012), so they are an important focus of managers' actions. Natural disasters have been important triggers of communication, as it was the case of hurricane Katrina (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2009;Garnett & Kouzmin, 2007;Macias et al., 2009), Japanese tsunami (Acar & Muraki, 2011;Seong Eun Cho, 2013) and the earthquake in Haiti (Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011). Communication crises were also caused by epidemics such as the H1N1 flu (Freberg et al., 2013;Lin, Savoia, et al., 2014), Ebola (Guidry, Jin, Orr, Messner, & Meganck, 2017;Ratzan & Moritsugu, 2014) and Zika (Vafeiadis, Bortree, Buckley, Diddi, & Xiao, 2019;Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017). ...
... During Hurricane Katrina, communication was dynamic and clear. The main strategy of the American government was to act directly on the spot and fight disinformation in a fast and credible way (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2009;Macias et al., 2009) through formal and online media (such as websites and blogs). During the H1N1 pandemic, there was a huge lack of information, as part of the population did not know how to react to the disease (Lin, Savoia, et al., 2014) and the strategy was maingly informative. ...
Chapter
Although the literature on crisis communication is quite vast, business communication related to global crises (e.g., natural disasters) is largely unexplored. This chapter aims to fill this gap and shed light on brand communication strategies during a pandemic. A netnographic study was carried out with the purpose of identifying brand positioning and communication strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and of understanding the engagement of brands' followers during that period. The study included four brands of large Brazilian companies and comprised the analysis of brands' feed on Instagram during the first five weeks of the outbreak in Brazil. Findings enable to identify two distinct profiles: unprepared brands and leading brands. The chapter provides valuable clues for both managers and researchers dealing with crisis communication.
... Thus, business communication related to global crises (e.g., natural disasters) is largely unexplored. There are relevant contributions regarding communication crises in social network sites and also on the multiplication of messages during Hurricane Katrina (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2009;Macias, Hilyard, & Freimuth, 2009;Veil & Husted, 2012) and the epidemic H1N1 (Freberg, Palenchar, & Veil, 2013;Lin, Jung, McCloud, & Viswanath, 2014;Lin, Savoia, Agboola, & Viswanath, 2014). Still, little is known about brand positioning strategies during natural disasters and pandemics. ...
... During tense or critical periods of a crisis, public perceptions play a key role in crisis management (Stieglitz, Mirbabaie, & Potthoff, 2018;Veil & Husted, 2012), so they are an important focus of managers' actions. Natural disasters have been important triggers of communication, as it was the case of hurricane Katrina (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2009;Garnett & Kouzmin, 2007;Macias et al., 2009), Japanese tsunami (Acar & Muraki, 2011;Seong Eun Cho, 2013) and the earthquake in Haiti (Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011). Communication crises were also caused by epidemics such as the H1N1 flu (Freberg et al., 2013;Lin, Savoia, et al., 2014), Ebola (Guidry, Jin, Orr, Messner, & Meganck, 2017;Ratzan & Moritsugu, 2014) and Zika (Vafeiadis, Bortree, Buckley, Diddi, & Xiao, 2019;Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017). ...
... During Hurricane Katrina, communication was dynamic and clear. The main strategy of the American government was to act directly on the spot and fight disinformation in a fast and credible way (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2009;Macias et al., 2009) through formal and online media (such as websites and blogs). During the H1N1 pandemic, there was a huge lack of information, as part of the population did not know how to react to the disease (Lin, Savoia, et al., 2014) and the strategy was maingly informative. ...
Chapter
Although the literature on crisis communication is quite vast, business communication related to global crises (e.g., natural disasters) is largely unexplored. This chapter aims to fill this gap and shed light on brand communication strategies during a pandemic. A netnographic study was carried out with the purpose of identifying brand positioning and communication strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and of understanding the engagement of brands' followers during that period. The study included four brands of large Brazilian companies and comprised the analysis of brands' feed on Instagram during the first five weeks of the outbreak in Brazil. Findings enable to identify two distinct profiles: unprepared brands and leading brands. The chapter provides valuable clues for both managers and researchers dealing with crisis communication.
... While there have been studies suggesting a pessimistic view about the relationship between social media use and compassion (and other related concepts such as empathy or sympathy) (Ku, Lee, & Hong, 2016;Park, Kwon, Baek, & & Han, 2014;Turkle, 2016), extensive evidenceboth systematically collected and anecdotalhas been presented showing that social media increase, not decrease, compassion during specific occasions such as disaster situations and that they function as channels for people to express and share pro-social feelings such as compassion (Macias, Hilyard, & Freimuth, 2009;Neubaum, Rösner, Rosenthal-von der Pütten, & Krämer, 2014). Social media use may activate psychological ties among people, facilitate motivations and opportunities to shares resources, and creates venues for altruistic relationships (Horrigan, Boase, Rainie, & Wellman, 2006), and increase positive and relational emotion such as compassion (Jung, 2015). ...
... Social media use may activate psychological ties among people, facilitate motivations and opportunities to shares resources, and creates venues for altruistic relationships (Horrigan, Boase, Rainie, & Wellman, 2006), and increase positive and relational emotion such as compassion (Jung, 2015). People also use social media to express their sympathetic emotions and social support (Macias et al., 2009;Qu, Huang, Zhang, & Zhang, 2011), especially after tragic events (Chang & Ghim, 2011;Neubaum et al., 2014). These studies suggest that social media function as channels for social sharing of emotion and compassion (Curci & Rimé, 2012;Rime, Mesquita, Boca, & Philippot, 1991). ...
Article
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The purposes of the current study were to examine the effects of social media use on facilitating compassion and civic actions regarding the Sewol Ferry disaster in Korea and mitigating compassion fatigue compared with the uses of traditional media, and to investigate whether the link between compassion (and compassion fatigue) and civic action would be moderated by social media use. With online survey data (n = 717) collected in 2017, we found that (1) social media users experienced less compassion fatigue than other media users for news about the disaster: (2) there was no difference in compassion among the different media use groups; and (3) social media users were more likely to participate in disaster-related civic actions than were network TV users and newspaper users; (4) we did not find a moderation effect of social media use between compassion (and compassion fatigue) and civic actions.
... Some of the earliest instances of social media use during disaster includes the wikis created to collect information on missing people during the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 (Palen & Liu, 2007) and blogs were used for a variety of disaster response purposes during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 (Murthy, 2013) and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Macias et al., 2009). Indeed, research into social media use during disaster, sometimes termed crisis informatics (Hughes & Tapia, 2015), has steadily increased since 2006 (Reuter & Kaufhold, 2018). ...
... A common concern of residents during disasters is the threat of looters or con-artists seeking to capitalize on others' misfortune (Macias et al., 2009), and this disaster was no different. Volunteer rescuers and DKWs alike recounted tales of looters and con-artists operating during the storm. ...
Article
Full-text available
Researchers have established the prominent role digital volunteers play during crises and disasters. From self‐organizing to annotating public data, these volunteers are now a fixture in disaster research. However, we know much less about how these volunteers function, behind the public scene, when using private social media as a disaster unfolds and people need to be rescued. This qualitative study identified the emergent helping roles along with the skillsets and abilities that helped volunteers perform these behind‐the‐scene roles during the Hurricane Harvey flooding in 2017. Using in‐depth interviews along with captured images in private social media, we find these volunteers resembled organizational knowledge workers. We identify nine specific communicating and coordinating actions that these disaster knowledge workers performed. The contributions of these findings centre on implications for disaster response and management.
... Previous studies on the role of online communities in disaster communication have demonstrated that online communities and social media play an important role in creating a sense of community spirit and solidarity among members under uncertain circumstances including natural or human-made disasters (e.g., Acar and Muraki 2011;Hjorth and Kim 2011;Macias et al. 2009;Paton and Irons 2016;Qu et al. 2009). Fenhan not only provides a space for information gathering and sharing, but also serves as a platform for Chinese international students to seek advice and emotional support in this uncertain and frightening time. ...
... Through the online community, they address the health information gap by sharing, producing, and disseminating up-to-date information, and building a community of care and solidarity by comforting and providing emotional support to each other. This study suggests that, in pandemic situations, existing ethnic online communities can be transformed into a space to serve communicative and emotional functions corresponding to other online communities for patients or victims of natural disasters (e.g., Acar and Muraki 2011;Angouri and Sanderson 2016;Baxter 2018;Macias et al. 2009;Qu et al. 2009). ...
Article
As the public health threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic is still evolving globally, many linguistic minorities are struggling to obtain accurate and timely health information about the disease and its prevention and treatment in their native language. This study argues that existing ethnic online communities can play an important role in dealing with such health information disparities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. By analyzing the activities and postings on an online community of Chinese international students in South Korea, this paper illustrates that the community functions as a virtual hub that produces and disseminates up-to-date and essential information about COVID-19 and provides a platform for users to share experiences and emotions accompanying the unprecedented situation. This study points out that the participation of Chinese international students in the online community is voluntary and based on established infrastructure because of the presence of a greater number of Chinese students in South Korea. Thus, it urges the government and local authorities to be more aware of the importance of providing adequate support and guidance to linguistic minorities in such uncertain and frightening times.
... The authors also mentioned that their findings suggested that the beginning stage of an outbreak such as COVID-19 has a potentially harmful psychological effect on affected individuals. A similar finding from another study that uses a content analysis found that individuals tend to express their sorrow and woe on social media (Macias, Hilyard, & Freimuth, 2009). Moreover, consistent with the two studies, Rime (2009) found that individuals are expected to expose and share their emotional responses based on their messages. ...
Article
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The coronavirus (COVID-19) began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in which the pandemic has spread worldwide. Before the outbreak, Malaysia''s government implemented precautionary measures by enforcing the Movement Control Orders (MCO). Social media sites that focus on a photo-based usage are currently a vital part of young people's lives. COVID-19 has enormously affected people's mental health, such as anxiety, fear, hopelessness, and sleep deprivation. Social media became a reliable way of seeking resources, especially for university students during the pandemic. This concept paper builds upon various insights from many researchers on social media within the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researcher first presents background on social media and COVID-19 pandemic. Next, based on prior literature, she provides the logical reasons for using social media during this unprecedented time. Additionally, the researcher discusses the conceptual framework explaining why individuals consume social media during these challenging times, including the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT), given the recent growth of studies on this research question. Finally, the researcher offers discussion and recommendations for future research in this range.
... Pesan informasi pada Twitter menjelaskan bahwa tweet yang diunggah hanya memiliki satu tujuan utama, yaitu memberikan informasi. Dalam pesannya informasi, tidak ada maskud lain yang secara eksplisit ditampilkan, pesan tidak bertujuan untuk mempromosikan sebuah acara, memobilisasi pendukung agar mengambil tindakan tertentu, mendorong hadirnya sebuah dialog, atau membangun interaksi komunitas (Macias et al., 2009). Tweet yang berisikan informasi dapat membantu menghubungkan organisasi terhadap sumber daya yang relevan di masyarakat dan mampu membangun bentuk pesan lain yang lebih kompleks, seperti dialog dan mobilisasi (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). ...
Article
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In view of the increased impact of social media, non-profit organization (NPOs) should review their communication strategies in social media to manage their relation with followers. This papers aims to examine which non profit organizational type of content that enhance high public engagement in Twitter. Using a quantitative content analysis of aniesbubble, tweets during campaign election period with 78 tweets are being classified into three different message function; information-community-action. One-way ANOVA was applied to test the effects of these message function and public engagement on Twitter which is likes and retweet. Findings revealed a significant effects among non profit message function and engagement in Twitter. The findings shows that community message function achieve the highest engagement among the others.
... Likewise, Katz and Rice (2002) proposed that smartphone use was effective during those events because it enabled the immediate transfer of information and helped family and close friends. Other studies focused on natural disasters, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 (Macias, Hilyard, & Freimuth, 2009) and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina (Procopio & Procopio, 2007), during which new media also became highly effective tools in managing the crises, serving authorities, citizens, and small organizations. ...
Article
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Second-screen use has attracted significant scholarly attention over the last decade. Although media usage is important during crises, no study has examined second screening in times of violent conflict, when civilians are directly affected. This study examines the role of second-screen usage in Israeli citizens' lives during the May 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis. It focuses on correlations between users' level of concern, their immediate degree of threat (based on their proximity to the warzone), and their usage of a second, new media screen, in addition to televisions. Results indicate that the higher the threat level users faced, the more frequently they used second screens. Furthermore, the intensity of second screening rose with the degree of threat and their accompanying level of concern and cognitive needs. The findings advance our understanding of media's wartime role from the perspective of civilians under threat, indicating that as technology enables people to remain constantly connected and not limit themselves to a single platform, they are likely to take advantage of a wide range of communication options.
... Crowd-sourced data (e.g., Weyrich et al., 2021), (e.g., Weyrich et al., 2021), and real-time social media data help making decisions (e.g., Thiebes & Winkhardt-Enz, 2022;Zhang et al., 2019). Social media has been monitored during real-life disasters for data-mining (e.g., Huang et al., 2022;Li et al., 2022) or tracing missing persons (e.g., Macias et al., 2009). However, aggregate data might not represent people with limited language skills (Uekusa, 2022), limited access to, or little skill in using, social media (Arora, 2022;Zhang et al., 2019). ...
Article
In this article, we provide an overview of the ways in which disaster managers in eight European countries use social media to mitigate people's vulnerability to hazards. Our document analysis and 95 expert interviews in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Hungary, Finland, Norway, and Estonia revealed six distinct institutional social media practices that may reduce disaster vulnerability: sharing educational guidelines, informing and warning the public, identifying citizens' concerns, identifying missing persons, sharing guidelines during disaster, and organizing volunteers. We discuss how these practices could affect people's ability to access, understand, and react adequately to information about risks and hazards. Our findings can be used to improve guidelines for official crisis communication on social media and demonstrate the value of using social media in disaster risk reduction.
... Studies have examined the use of ICT in the coordination of emergency relief efforts [13], the provision of ICT-enabled administrative services for citizens [14], access to health-related information and emergency services [15], how the use of mobile devices and the internet can help excluded populations integrate into society [16], behaviors related to reaching out to diverse family and friends for emotional support during crises and disasters [17,18], and information sharing [19]. There is growing evidence that ICT is utilized to close communication gaps [20,21]. In particular, the use of social media and its analysis has yielded benefits in the field of disaster management [22][23][24]. ...
Article
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This study aimed to explore how community disaster resilience can be enhanced via the utilization of ICT resources. Three social media applications were selected. Taking the 2021 Zhengzhou 7.20 rainstorm as an example, questionnaire responses were collected and analyzed, and a linear regression model was constructed to explore the impact of the relationships between responses. The findings showed that the use of WeChat, TikTok, and Weibo had positive effects on community disaster resilience. Specifically, the use of social media (WeChat, TikTok, and Weibo) by the general public during this rainstorm disaster was positively related to convenience and trust, creation and dissemination, emotion and communication, cooperation and collective action, and relief and release. We also analyzed the differences in the use of the three social media platforms during the rainstorm disaster and found that the number of people who used TikTok was the highest, but the variable scores for TikTok were not the highest. WeChat had the highest variable scores, and both the number of users and variable scores for Weibo were in the middle.
... Examples of digital volunteerism exist for both natural-and human-induced disasters such as the terrorist attack of 9/11 in New York, hurricane Katrina in the coastal regions of the USA in 2005, and the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in the year 2004. The volunteers utilized digital communication systems and social media platforms to share crucial information about the crisis and remarkably aided search and rescue operations (Macias et al., 2009;Murthy, 2013;Palen & Hughes, 2018;Reuter et al., 2013). ...
Article
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The main purpose of this study was to assess the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of flood-affected communities toward volunteerism. The study focused on a gender perspective to show the level of differences. The study followed a quantitative approach to collect, analyze, and present the data. A total of 410 samples were randomly selected for the study. A structured questionnaire with bivariate and multivariate indicators was used to collect data. Chi-square test, t-test, central tendency analysis, and variance analysis were performed to assess the differences between female and male responses. Results showed that there is a significant difference between female and male community members in terms of knowledge and attitude toward flood volunteerism. Female members were more aware of flood-related impacts (p < 0.05) and were more knowledgeable of the importance of flood volunteers (p < 0.05). On the other hand, male members were more interested to become flood volunteers (p < 0.05) and had skills to share with others (p < 0.001). The study did not find any significant differences in practices related to flood volunteerism between men and women. The study is conducted to show the importance of communities in flood risk management. A community with a higher level of knowledge, attitude, and practice toward flood volunteerism can be a great resource. None of the participants of the study had any training on flood volunteerism which is a major area where policies can be developed. The research indicated some policy-level implications which are implementable and attainable for ensuring a resilient country.
... China's internet population will be around 1.14 billion by 2025 (Thomala, 2021). Social media have not only altered people's communication behaviors but also become a useful tool for public relations (PR) practitioners, especially those in the field of crisis communication (Allagui & Breslow, 2016;MacIas et al., 2009). Ultimately, social media allow organizations to quickly and directly interact with the public (Utz et al., 2013). ...
Article
As social media are used widely by Chinese organizations, this study comprehensively examines how Chinese public relations practitioners cope with social mediated crisis and how culture interacts with social mediated crisis response. An in-depth interview was conducted to collect data from 23 Chinese public relations practitioners who had experience in dealing with crises and issues via social media. The results showed that Chinese public relations practitioners use diverse social media platforms to satisfy the publics’ needs and social media usage preferences. In addition, the results also showed the importance of matching information platform and information sources in response to social-mediated crises. Furthermore, we revealed how the uniqueness of Chinese culture moderated information platforms and information sources, such as face-saving strategies, collaborating with opinion leaders and influencers to shape the publics’ opinions, using no response, apologizing, and self-mockery, and emphasizing the importance of media relations.
... Some descriptive studies were conducted on the use of social media during hurricanes, typhoons, and tornados [43][44][45][46]. Shelton et al. [47] reported Twitter activity at the time of Hurricane Sandy and its digital depiction. ...
Article
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This study aims to examine the role of social media use in reducing household cyclone-induced disaster loss by obtaining warning and preparedness information. Data were collected following the aftermath of cyclone Amphan in affected households of the Koyra sub-district, Khulna district of Bangladesh using random sampling. Data from 150 households using only traditional media and 150 from those using both social and traditional media were collected through semi-structured questionnaires. Using propensity score matching, it was found that households using both social media and traditional media were able to reduce loss by more than 47,494.31 Bangladeshi Taka compared to households using traditional media. Moreover, households using both media received more important timely information than households using only traditional media. This helped them to work more efficiently and timely, such as cutting ripe crops from fields and keeping them in a safe place, taking domestic animals and poultry to the nearest safe places, putting higher fences using necessary material around ponds to prevent fish being washed away, and so on, to reduce cyclone-induce disaster loss. For obtaining information, problems coastal people faced included less internet bandwidth, the absence of a unified Facebook page and a common YouTube channel, and rumors. Possible solutions for these problems, stated by the respondents, were government-managed free internet before cyclones, a single Facebook page and a single YouTube channel for this purpose. Thus, this research shows social media as a good tool for reducing cyclone-induced disaster loss in Bangladesh coastal areas.
... Compared to traditional media, social media have its own advantages and unique characteristics. When traditional media is unavailable, social media can serve as an important information channel in crises and emergencies (Macias et al., 2009) offering alternative views (Zhang et al., 2021). During emergencies, while social media has in the past been utilized by the general public to communicate, it is now becoming adopted by emergency responders, governments, and nongovernmental organizations as an integral tool for disaster management (Simon et al., 2015). ...
Article
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Based on event history analysis, this study examined the survival distribution of the duration of online public opinions related to major health emergencies and its influencing factors. We analyzed the data of such emergencies (N = 125) that took place in China during a period of 10 years (2012–2021). The results of the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that the average duration of online public opinions regarding health emergencies is 43 days, and the median is 19 days, which dispels the myth of the “Seven-day Law of Propagation.” Furthermore, the duration of online public opinions can be divided into three stages: the rapid decline stage (0–50 days), the slowdown stage (51–200 days), and the disappearing stage (after 200 days). In addition, the type of event, and the volume of both social media discussion and traditional media coverage all had significant impacts on the duration. Our findings provide practical implications for the carrying out of targeted and stage-based governance of public opinions.
... Advanced big data tools, such as Hadoop, enable a large amount of social media information to be collected, stored, and processed easily [3,4]. A case study of Hurricane Katrina revealed that social media are more important sources of information during disaster events than any conventional form of media [5]. In a social survey of adults in the United States, majority of the respondents perceived the usefulness of social media when informing their relatives and friends about what is going on during emergencies (American Red Cross 2012). ...
... For example, Torrey et al. (2007) noted that several citizens used online means to coordinate disaster relief, such as clothes, toys, and other items. Other authors have highlighted cases where citizens have used social media to help find missing persons and locate housing for crisis victims (Palen and Liu, 2007;Macias et al., 2009). These early studies demonstrated that through social media, citizens could obtain information, offer help relating to the crisis (Palen and Liu, 2007) and participate in the management of disasters remotely, far from physical emergency sites Heverin and Zach, 2010;Vieweg et al., 2010;Qu et al., 2011). ...
Article
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This article examines “Superbergamo”, a collective which emerged in response to the needs of vulnerable citizens during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bergamo (Italy). The analysis reveals the central role of social media and group chat systems in facilitating the spontaneous creation of the group, and the subsequent development of coordinated voluntary emergency activities that brought aid to thousands of local people. Inspired by Actor-Network theory, the analysis traces of the group's emergence, showing how human and non-human actors—including social media and group chat apps—played a crucial role in shaping the aid practice. In so doing, we contribute to the literature on emergency responses from the public and social media. More significantly, we show how the critical contribution of technology to the development and sustenance of aid practices can be mapped, by providing evidence of how groups, practices and sociomaterial networks are necessarily entangled.
... The effects of the confinement measures were felt by students, who had to access classes and lectures with the help of smartphones because conferences, seminars, workshops and other academic activities were either cancelled or turned into webinars [15]. However, research shows that times of crisis increase social and personal needs to communicate [16], [17]. Students used mobile applications during the pandemic for teaching and work purposes and as a way to communicate with friends and family and for entertainment. ...
Conference Paper
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The Covid-19 pandemic has been a real-time laboratory for a technological future that Anderson, Rainie and Vogels (2021) describe as "tele-everything". Among other mediated practices, online shopping, virtual schooling, teleworking, telehealth, online workout, and even virtual parties were adopted in unprecedented ways to avoid physical contact during the outbreak. The pandemic has pushed people into new socially mediated practices and posed demanding challenges to those who had difficulties dealing with internet addiction or separating work time from leisure. Despite the surge of various studies about Covid-19 tracing apps, there is a lack of studies regarding students' use of mobile apps during the lockdown. Considering the ubiquitous presence of smartphones in the students' lives (Silver et al., 2019), mobile apps have been the proxy for reconfiguring the relationships between students, their families and teachers, studying routines and other social practices. This exploratory study seeks to understand the role of mobile apps in the lives of Portuguese higher education students during the period of social isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The empirical research draws on a quantitative methodology through an online questionnaire applied during the first state of emergency declared by the Portuguese Government in early 2020. A snowball process was used to gather a non-probabilistic sample (N=88), and data were analysed using descriptive statistical analysis. The results indicate that most respondents (77.2%) intensified the use of mobile apps in this period. Nevertheless, there is a considerable perception (59%) that these patterns of use of mobile apps are a waste of time.
... In those types of crises, previous research demonstrated two roles of social media platforms: 1) because of the immediacy of social media, people tend to rely on information from these platforms to understand the situations and get resources. 2) because everyone can engage and participate, social media supports collaborative sense-making and the co-creation of knowledge during the time of crisis [61,64,79,94], such as information sharing and seeking, talking cure and understanding the "why" [43]. Inspired by these previous studies, we sought to understand participants' sense-making experience during their news consumption in COVID-19, and identified several informational needs during the procedure. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people sought information through digital news platforms. To investigate how to design these platforms to support users' needs in a crisis, we conducted a two-week diary study with 22 participants across the United States. Participants' news-consumption experience followed two stages: in the \textbf{seeking} stage, participants increased their general consumption, motivated by three common informational needs -- specifically, to find, understand and verify relevant news pieces. Participants then moved to the \textbf{sustaining} stage, and coping with the news emotionally became as important as their informational needs. We elicited design ideas from participants and used these to distill six themes for creating digital news platforms that provide better informational and emotional support during a crisis. Thus, we contribute, first, a model of users' needs over time with respect to engaging with crisis news, and second, example design concepts for supporting users' needs in each of these stages.
... Social media have naturally become an efficient tool for this task given their ability to rapidly and widely disseminate information and collect audience responses (Austin et al., 2012;Cheng, 2018). Research in crisis communication, regardless of the scopes of their respective cases, have shown that social media platforms such as blogs (Macias et al., 2009), Twitter (Heverin & Zach, 2010), Facebook (Ki & Nekmat, 2014), and YouTube (Walton et al., 2012) can achieve effect crisis communication results with certain strategic choices. ...
Article
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This study examines the effect of messenger nationality on the credibility perception of YouTube sources in the theoretical context of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). An online survey experiment with a quota U.S. voter sample (N = 354) showed that Russian nationality decreases source credibility perception in comparison to U.K. and control conditions, while the latter two showed no differences. Although skepticism in domestic media dampens such an effect, path analyses also showed that such impact can be extended to the effectiveness of an MNC's (i.e., Huawei) global crisis communication efforts in the U.S. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... nd the information circulated through social media platforms during emergencies has the potential to engage with multiple types of public audiences according to SMCC model. It is to be noted that, social media platforms can facilitate organizations to monitor crisis issues, cultivate critical relationships, and create transparency (Jin & Liu, 2010;Macias et. al., 2009). On the other hand, misinformation is being circulated on social media managers and crisis managers may lose control of correct flow of messages under some circumstances. (Liu, B. F. et.al., 2011) The ...
Conference Paper
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The COVID-19 virus had first emerged in China in late 2019 and spread almost all over the world in a short time period. The pandemic affected Spain, Italy, France, and United Kingdom as the worst hit countries in Europe. The major threat derived from the pandemic has shown that not only in Europe but all over the world, an efficient crisis and risk communication has been required. This study aims to explore what kind of role social media plays in disseminating information as a part of crisis and risk communication. In this regard, this study is an attempt to analyze the role of social media in accessing information during crisis times evident in pandemic days. The increasing use of social media is visible in an age of crisis communication. Using the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication (SMCC) model as the theoretical framework, this study argues that in the context of a crisis, multiple "publics" and / or "audiences" exist in the world of social media. The SMCC model emphasizes the role of both the direct and indirect flow of information across social media, as well as between traditional media actors and social media actors. The SMCC model is a useful tool for communication in emergency situations such as the pandemics. Through social media, information exchanged in emergency times has the potential to engage with multiple sorts of audiences.
... Extension of disaster relief to offline space also extends relationships formed online to offline. Possibly due to trust that was developed between people in the group [8], members willingly exchanged contact information to work on initiatives and facilitate aid exchange. Localized offline disaster relief builds weak ties between community members and strengthens community bonding, which is an attribute of resilient communities [1]. ...
... There has been increasing HCI and CSCW research examining how people respond and use ICT systems during crises. A large body of crisis informatics literature studies on natural (physical) and manmade disasters, such as bombings [47], floods [109], and hurricanes [91], focusing on topics such as information seeking and transmission [66], sharing locally-useful information [62] and collectively making sense of the crisis [43]. Studies on these natural crises are often conducted through social media analysis, due to the risk and hazard of these events. ...
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Article at https://jackjamieson.net/publications/ Contact tracing apps have been suggested as a promising approach towards containing viral spread during pandemics, yet their actual use in the COVID-19 pandemic has been low. While researchers have examined reasons for or against installing contact tracing apps, we have less understanding of their ongoing use and how they interact with everyday pressures related to work, communities, and mental well-being. Through a survey of 153 working people in Japan and 15 follow-up interviews, we investigated attitudes toward installing and using Japan’s national contact tracing app, COCOA, and how these related to respondents’ daily lives, work structures, and general attitudes about the pandemic. We found that motivations about installing the app differed from those related to ongoing usage. Specifically, we identified ways that people navigate uncertain norms of behaviour during the pandemic, and how people consider individual risks such as COVID-related stigmas, anxiety, and financial precarity when deciding if and how to use COCOA. In light of these, we discuss the tension between COCOA’s design and desires to protect oneself by selective controlling disclosures. We note that perceived risks are closely tied to respondents’ local contexts, and based on our analysis, we identify ways to address these challenges and tensions through design interventions at multiple scales.
... The development of more innovative communication forms technologies, such as blogs, instant messaging, and Internet chat, has heralded a qualitative change in communication potential (Lovejoy, Saxton, 2012). Studies of newer digital technologies, which could be considered "forerunners" of social media, have found that they have brought significantly larger possibilities for collaboration, interactivity, and communication (Cameron & Webster, 2005;Macias, Hilyard, & Freimuth, 2009;Quan-Haase, Cothrel, and Wellman, 2005). ...
... Penggunaan media sosial oleh pemerintah untuk komunikasi krisis telah beberapa kali menjadi topik riset, baik yang terkait praktik penggunaan media sosial secara umum (Austin et al., 2012;Eriksson & Olsson, 2016;Lin et al., 2016;Macias et al., 2009;Zhu et al., 2017), spesifik terkait dengan krisis kesehatan (Ratzan & Moritsugu, 2014;Roberts & Veil, 2016;Vos & Buckner, 2016), hingga ulasan konseptual (Liu et al., 2016). Namun, Olsson (2014) mengkritisi bahwa mayoritas studi terkait komunikasi krisis berfokus pada aspek mempertahankan dan memperbaiki citra organisasi, namun hanya sedikit literatur yang melihat aspek terkait substansi pesan yang diberikan oleh organisasi. ...
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As the Covid-19 health crisis spreads, the level of uncertainty in the community is getting higher. The government has a responsibility to reduce uncertainty by providing the right message to the affected public. In Indonesia, the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) and the Covid-19 task force (Task Force Covid-19) became two agencies that actively provide information related to Covid-19. This research aims to descriptively explain the message conveyed by both agencies related to Covid-19 through content analysis. The study results found that both the Ministry of Health and the Covid-19 Task Force emphasized messages related to the efforts made by the government to deal with the spread of Covid-19, the development of case numbers, and the recommendation of the adoption of health protocols. However, the two agencies did not give enough portions to the message explaining the current crisis and sympathy to the public. Explanations of the situation can encourage the public to adopt government advice, while expressions of sympathy are needed in crises to provide a sense of security amid uncertainty.
... Crisis informatics researchers have examined technology's role in crises ( e.g., [51,55,63,[73][74][75]83,88,96]), including infectious disease crises (e.g., [42,43,57]). The literature has covered diverse topics, including how people used social media to assess risks and make decisions in a public health crisis [42], how both affected people and the general public use social media to seek 27 and curate local and hyper-local information to self-organize and coordinate efforts (e.g, [55,65,74,75,96]), how social media helps emergency response professionals respond to crises [39,52,80], and how to design online materials and tools to promote the general public's awareness of and preparation for crisis situations [3]. ...
Conference Paper
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2020’s COVID-19 crisis has given rise to ubiquitous emergency remote learning (ERL). Guardians, mostly parents, have had to help their children transition and adapt to this difficult learning context. Previous work on remote learning has explored guardian involvement in pre-planned and well-developed remote learning programs, such as established virtual schools. However, ERL lacks pre-planned procedures, policies, and resources. In this paper, we look at how teachers and guardians collaborated to manage the situation. We present an interview study of guardians and teachers of K-12 students in China and look at their collaboration during the COVID-19 ERL. We report how teachers and guardians collaborated to carry out techno-procedural, surveillance, and material work to make ERL possible for K-12 students. Lastly, we reflect on the challenges our participants faced and discuss design implications not only for remote learning during COVID-19 but also future emergency remote learning situations.
... The ability to reach audiences quickly in the case of emergency is one of the positive outcomes of widespread social media diffusion. During Hurricane Katrina, prior to Twitter, blogs functioned to provide critical information, including linking individuals to resources and providing a therapeutic outlet (Macias et al., 2009). Social media have been beneficial for reducing uncertainty (Rainear et al., 2018), notifying the public about food safety (Nucci et al., 2009), and disseminating health information (Lee & Sundar, 2013;Lwin et al., 2018). ...
Article
Applying content and semantic network analysis research methodologies, this study examined FEMA’s national and regional Twitter account posts during the historic 2017 hurricane season and argues for the expanded use of the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model in researching risk and crisis communication during natural disasters. Messaging content was compared across time between FEMA and its regional counterparts during Harvey, Maria, Irma, and Nate. Results showed FEMA provided information to affected publics and bolstered its work using various Twitter features. Differences were identified in FEMA’s national and regional accounts’ posts. From hashtags to visual elements, FEMA's tweet content changed as the season progressed: more tweets included information about the impact of the storms; more tweets shared factual information from hurricane to hurricane; and the tweets tended to use more hashtags and account tags, which should broaden their audience.
... Charles and Allan 2019; Mortensen 2014), or the collaborative diffusion of information and knowledge (e.g. Macias, Hilyard, and Freimuth 2009;Qu, Wu, and Wang 2009). Indeed, social media have become not only an important source of information in the immediate aftermath of a disaster: they are also capable of providing frameworks of meaning and understanding for those living through the event inasmuch as they have the potential for articulating the impact and nature of the disaster including the concerns of ordinary people occupying initially the "liminal zone" (Fitzgerald and Evans 2018) when facts and details are not yet available and official or semi-official media sources have not begun to define the event (Wu and Montgomery 2020). ...
Article
This study explores how micro-bloggers react to disasters in social media by examining the discursive-semiotic activities activated in Twitter and Weibo in responding to the 2013 West explosion in the US and the 2015 Tianjin explosions in China. By analyzing 1322 Weibo posts and 1387 Twitter posts, the article shows how users of Twitter and Weibo mobilized alternative repertoires of representatives, expressives, directives, commissives and eliciting to make sense of disasters, in ways which in turn evoked a contrasting sense of communities of collective purpose. While the discourse of the 2013 West explosion reflected a strong sense of the creation, sharing and distribution of knowledge, as well as showing support and sympathy to the suffering, the discourse of the 2015 Tianjin explosions, displayed strong critical and oppositional properties that disrupted the official discourse of the accident. This study contributes not only to a better understanding of social media in disaster communication, but also to the methodologies for studying social media data in relation to disasters. KEYWORDS Disaster communication; discourse analysis; Twitter; the 2013 West explosion; the 2015 Tianjin explosions; Weibo If we ask of any form of communication the simple question what is being communicated? the answer is: information from the social system. The exchanges which are being communicated constitute the social system.-Douglas 1971, quoted in Halliday 1978, 79
... La investigación emergente destaca la importancia de las redes sociales porque brindan de manera rápida una información actualizada y sin filtros (Procopio & Procopio, 2007;Tai & Sun, 2007) y apoyo emocional durante crisis (Macias, Hilyard & Freimuth, 2009;Jin, Liu & Austin, 2014). El uso de las redes sociales aumenta durante eventos de crisis (Fraustino, Liu & Jin, 2017), y esta tendencia sigue creciendo exponencialmente (Thompson, Mazer, Payne, Jerome, Kirby & Pfohl, 2017;Reuter & Kaufhold, 2018;Moreno, Fuentes-Lara & Navarro, 2020). ...
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La investigación sobre comunicación en tiempos de epidemias y pandemias constituye un factor trascendental en la prevención, tratamiento y recuperación. El estudio que se presenta analiza el comportamiento de la investigación en comunicación sobre epidemias y pandemias a través de la producción científica registrada en la base de datos Scopus. Se emplean indicadores para evaluar las tendencias generales de publicación a nivel de país, instituciones, autores, revistas y artículos. Se examinan los temas preponderantes y su evolución temporal, así como, la evolución en los grupos y frentes de investigación asociados. Los resultados muestran una tendencia al crecimiento de publicaciones con una mayor concentración en el 2020. El número de publicaciones por países, instituciones, autores y revistas es discreto, por lo que, es un área de conocimientos que requiere mayor investigación científica y colaboración internacional. Se identificaron 5 grandes grupos temáticos, principales focos emergentes de investigación, relacionados con la comunicación de salud durante epidemias, las actitudes sociales hacia la salud, la comunicación durante la influenza A H1N1 y la pandemia COVID-19 y la información epidemiológica en redes sociales. Los puntos críticos de investigación en el campo durante los 30 años registrados en la base de datos Scopus permiten inferir, que la comunicación sobre epidemias y pandemias debe convertirse en foco de la investigación en el área de comunicación de riesgos en un futuro próximo.
... Por outra parte, McLaughlin (2016) indica que depois dos desastres (terremoto, tsunami e acidente nuclear) de março de 2011 no Japão, a narrativa da mídia concentrou-se em transmitir uma imagem favorável dos ativistas religiosos que forneceram ajuda nas regiões afetadas pelos desastres. Outros estudos centraramse no uso da Internet e das novas mídias para a cobertura jornalística durante os desastres (Laituri & Kodrich, 2008;Macias, Hilyard & Freimuth, 2009). ...
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Em 2008, Blumenau sofreu o maior desastre socioambiental da história. Passados dez anos da tragédia, o presente trabalho reúne algumas reflexões sobre a mudança no emprego das tecnologias de comunicação na cobertura de fenômenos semelhantes. O quadro metodológico se constitui, desde uma perspectiva de ordem qualitativa, em uma investigação bibliográfica, adotando um enfoque exploratório e descritivo. A análise centrou-se em descrever como dito processo se desenvolveu na última década, tendo em conta que a mudança dos procedimentos técnicos e políticos para a confrontação de referidos fenômenos coincide com as transformações pelas quais as tecnologias da comunicação passaram. A pesquisa contribuiu para fornecer pistas sobre o papel que jornais, emissoras de rádio e de televisão, redes sociais virtuais e aplicativos móveis exerceram em Blumenau na construção da percepção pública dos riscos, e as implicações de tais enquadramentos para a gestão dos desastres.
... On the one hand, it absorbs users as much as possible and provides an immediate, participatory, continuous, and collaborative mode of interaction for each user (Ding, 2009). On the other hand, it facilitates rapid circulation and exchange of user-generated content over time (Macias et al., 2009). ...
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Virtual community websites are one of the applications that provide a platform for people with common interests to extend their social relations in social media. With the proliferation of food safety incidents in recent years, social media has often been a major channel for public engagement in risk communication because of its social networking and immediate interaction. To understand the users’ needs and satisfaction, this study proposed a model to develop and evaluate the antecedents of continuance intention toward food safety information from social media. Based on the questionnaire collected from 289 Facebook users, this study assessed the integrated model of the expectation-confirmation theory and technology acceptance model with technology readiness as moderator. The results showed that the perceived ease-of-use, usefulness, and confirmation indirectly affected social media continuance usage intention through satisfaction; perceived ease-of-use, usefulness, and satisfaction were the direct determinants that affected the users’ social media continuance intention. Furthermore, positive technology readiness had significant effects on the relationship between the perceived ease-of-use, usefulness, confirmation, satisfaction, and continuance intention toward food safety information. This study contributes some important suggestions and managerial implications for food safety promotion providers, practitioners, and academics in the food industry, and social media environment.
... Reference [33] trained a binary sentiment classifier to examine public levels of concern and worry before and after Hurricane Irene. Reference [34] found that one-third of bloggers expressed discernible emotions when blogging about Hurricane Katrina, including concern, disgust, anger, fear, and hope. ...
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Findings on the effect of social status on corruption perception are mixed. To make sense of the mixed results, three studies were conducted to examine whether meritocracy moderates this effect. In Study 1, we measured all variables using a questionnaire‐based correlational design. In the preregistered Study 2, we adopted an experimental design in which we manipulated social status using a false feedback paradigm and measured corruption perception and meritocracy. In Study 3, we manipulated meritocracy using a scrambled sentence task and measured its effect on the relationship between social status and corruption perception. The results consistently demonstrated that meritocracy could moderate the influence of social status on corruption perception. Specifically, social status was negatively associated with corruption perception when meritocracy was weak, whereas the association was not significant when meritocracy was strong. Our results suggest that meritocracy critically affects acknowledgment of the pervasiveness of social injustice and even deters the disadvantaged from fighting against corruption.
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Introduction: Human life has always been subject to crisis. The important thing in dealing with a crisis is the appropriate response. The emergence of information technology has provided crisis managers with the best possible potential and capacities for crisis management. Today, managers should always be ready to deal with crises. These crises can be economic and financial or natural events such as storms, floods, tsunamis, or disease outbreaks. Managers who have not taken measures in advance to deal with such events will lose more. No one is aware of the crisis in advance. Expert managers have basic plans to deal with such situations. To overcome uneven events, managers should use the experiences of their predecessors to get acquainted with crisis coping strategies. Not all managers can overcome the crisis. However, if the managers in their organization believe in crisis management as an inseparable part of their strategic management responsibility, the probability of confronting a crisis will be significantly reduced. Crisis management activities are performed in three stages before the crisis, during the crisis, and after the crisis. The first step consists of the actions needed to prevent the crisis. This stage is the first step in identifying and diagnosing the crisis and also gathering information to deal with the crisis. The second stage includes the stage of crisis occurrence. In this stage, it is necessary to gather information to diagnose the causes of the crisis. The third stage is the actions that must be taken after the crisis. At this stage, we had to ensure that the crisis has resolved or not. Also, learning from the crisis so that it does not happen again occurs at this stage. The crisis is a test for stability in a system. A crisis is an unusual situation in which a problem or sudden event occurs that is not predictable. Etymologically, the word crisis has been derived from the Greek language. In ancient Greek, the word crisis (κριςις) means "judgment" or "decision". The crisis means that it is necessary to make a decision that has not been made before. In the 21st century, the growth of information technology and the expansion of research has created a significant increase in the understanding of the challenges of crisis management when facing a crisis to reduce victims, and thanks to technology and the use of communication technologies, crisis management has become more realistic. During crisis management, by using correct communication, participation, coordination, and integration in information systems play an important role in crisis control. In a crisis, those affected perceive, process, and act on information differently than in non-crisis times. One of the applications of information technology in crisis management is "crisis
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Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic repercussions exacerbated food insecurity in the United States. Government-led infrastructure was depleted as a result of a dramatic increase in the number of individuals requesting basic necessities and food aid, and grassroots attempts to alleviate the resource shortage increased. The Community Fridge movement was one of these initiatives that combated food insecurity and food waste. It consisted of local community members sharing surplus food with neighbors via a shared refrigerator placed on a sidewalk. We conducted semi-structured interviews with its 17 users to understand how they practice information, human, and social infrastructuring work, as well as how their core values shaped norms for managing refrigerators and surplus food as the commons in local communities. We discuss how the concepts of commoning and infrastructuring may complement one another, which can help design value-embedded interventions to promote infrastructuring practices that build resilience and sustain commoning practices.
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The COVID‐19 pandemic's travel restrictions have created significant difficulties for travellers and online travel agencies (OTAs), such as MakeMyTrip (MMT). This research examines MMT's crisis communication during the pandemic through multivocality, using Twitter data to analyze actors, topics, emotions and interaction patterns. The results show complex relationships among travellers, government, media, airlines and MMT, revealing who assigns blame and who takes it, and displaying dominant emotions like anger, fear, anticipation and trust. Initially, MMT used denial, minimization and scapegoating as crisis response strategies but later switched to corrective action and mortification. The study advances the understanding of crisis communication by considering multivocality and interaction patterns, and its results can help organizations, particularly OTAs, understand the importance of multivocal communication during a crisis and how to respond effectively to customer complaints and concerns.
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Purpose Governments around the world have shown poor capabilities in responding effectively to the COVID-19 health emergency outbreaks. After the declaration of COVID-19 as an international pandemic by the World Health Organization on January 31, 2020, three countries experienced the greatest initial impact in Europe. Sequentially Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) were hit by the highest numbers of contagion and death in the first few months in Europe. The aim of this paper is to assess how information channels and sources influenced the public’s evaluation of the three government’s communication response strategies. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted between March 14 and April 14, 2020, during the first wave of lockdowns and declarations of States of Emergency in the three countries. Findings Findings show particularities for the different countries, but also similarities in response and reactions of the public in the three scenarios. The response strategy of the UK Government was the most untrusted and criticized by citizens. In contrast, the Italian and Spanish Governments, which both chose to respond with the severest restrictions, attracted more support from citizens, especially in Italy, which was the first to close borders and impose lockdowns for the population. Research limitations/implications Despite the national differences in the preference of information channels and sources, overall, an empirical relationship between government communication assessment and media use were found in all the scenarios. Practical implications This empirical study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, findings will add evidence of implications of the Channel Complementary Theory to the field of risk, crisis and emergency communication. The results also provide insights for communication practitioners in the public sector on how forms of information and trust in sources influence the public’s assessment of authorities’ communication. Originality/value Implications for theory and empirical research about communication during a health pandemic are identified and discussed. Highlights Citizens engage at a high level and synchronize their use of multiple media and platforms in all the three national scenarios. Stronger criticism is provided by online media, especially social media and online press in the different national contexts. Results corroborate that factors related to media choice need to be operationalized for risk and crisis communication research. When public health depends on people understanding the actions they need to take, the possibility of disobedience is highly dependent on trust. Compared with Spain and the United Kingdom (UK), trust in government institutions in Italy was stronger and could be explained by the higher use of owned media for information-seeking.
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COVID-19 changed society in terms of employment, food security, and mental health, affecting all segments of the population. Surging demands for a wide range of support could not be met solely by government-led disaster assistance that experienced breakdowns in the initial phase of the pandemic. The nature of the pandemic as a global, long-haul disaster necessitated sustained, diverse, and extensive civic disaster relief to complement government response. In this paper, we explore how civic disaster relief groups carry out online and offline coordination activities to engage different actors and their positive effects on individuals and local communities, drawing on interviews with civic disaster relief organizers and volunteers in the United States. We interpret our findings with the lens of coproduction that can increase the sustainability, diversity, and extent of civic relief efforts. We then suggest design implications for coproducing disaster relief and discuss the importance and benefits of involving stakeholders who are less likely to be engaged in producing relief.
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This study explores the AIDA model (attention, interest, desire, action) for social media promotion and community engagement for small cultural organizations. The internal situation and external environment were first analyzed with the SWOT analysis augmented with PEST analysis. Then, the authors show how the AIDA model can be used in social media marketing to improve public awareness, engagement, and thus participation in the organization's activities. As the global economy is getting linked to the internet and social media, utilizing the AIDA model for small cultural organizations contributes to effective information dissemination and increases interactions in the targeted community. The rise of social media has also triggered smaller organizations to consider how to survive under dynamic changes and fulfill their mission through better community engagement.
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The paper is an examination of the use of social media by public relations practitioners in Plateau State. The study was anchored on media equation theory and uses and gratifications theory. Survey research design was adopted while questionnaire was used as an instrument of data collection. Findings show that the public relations practitioners make use of social media and that the extent to which the respondents have access to social networking sites is to a very great one. More so, the findings show that the public relations practitioners in Plateau State mostly use twitter and facebook for public relations activities. Results show that the practitioners use social media for government relations, media relations, communication of corporate social responsibility activities, customer relationship, branding, creating visibility with partners and investors. The findings, however, show that the extent to which public relations practitioners in Plateau State use social media for the communication of the activities of their organisations is very low. Based on the findings, the paper concludes that public relations practitioners in Plateau State have not given due attention to the use of social media for public practice. The paper, therefore, recommends, among others, that it is important for PR practitioners to handle and deal with new media technologies every day; this is based on the fact that public relations practitioners who embrace new technologies are perceived within organisations as having more power, in that they are willing to be leaders in the industry and use new tools to better reach target publics. Introduction and Conceptual Clarification The aim of public relations is to persuade the publics, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products, or of political decisions. Common activities include speaking at conferences, winning industry awards, working with the press, and employee communication. Public relations, as noted by Asemah, Illah and Edegoh (2013) is a form of communication between an organisation and its publics which is aimed at generating goodwill and mutual understanding. Public relations is a planned form of communication which is aimed at building and maintaining a positive perception of an organisation in the minds of its publics. With the advent of information and communication technologies in the 20 th century, the operational activities of public relations practitioners across the globe have been redefined. This has provided a platform for people to interact and exchange ideas on the net. Public relations (PR) firms manage the public perception of individuals and other entities. Public relations professionals have a variety of communication tools they use in this endeavour; these include: facebook, twitter, 2go, etc. Social media are a relatively new communication tools. Media communication, employee communication, public engagements and crisis communication are other tools or strategies public relations firms use to spread messages (Zollars, n.d). Due to
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This study theoretically and empirically identifies a new typology of Chinese publics’ normative expectations of crisis outcomes. It classifies the concept into three culturally relevant dimensions—public expectations of (a) organizational accommodative responses (i.e., how an in-crisis organization should respond), (b) punishment of the organization (i.e., how publics collectively should respond), and (c) government intervention (i.e., how government should respond) for desirable crisis outcomes. Using an online survey of the Beijing public, this study investigates the degree to which information seeking and online expression mediate relationships between crisis blame and the three types of expectations. The study finds that as the level of crisis blame increases, active information seekers expect more regarding organizational accommodation and government intervention, whereas active expressers expect stronger punishments of the organization and less government intervention in China.
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An organization’s survival during a crisis often depends on its speed of response. The introduction of social media into crisis communication discourse has meant that organizations must revisit their crisis communication strategies. This chapter explores a content analysis of the integration of social media platforms into crisis communication based on a comprehensive review of eight purposively selected crisis studies conducted globally. Findings revealed that Facebook and Twitter are increasingly employed as platforms for crisis communication. It was also discovered that responding to crises promptly, and engag-ing with the publics before, during, and after crises are crucial to managing organizational reputation. Social media platforms are also capable of spreading mis(information) about crises. Thus, organizations are advised to fully integrate and adopt social media into their crisis communication plans. This chapter extends our understanding of how social media platforms contribute to crisis communication discourse.
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This study outlines the communication patterns that emerged throughout phases of Hurricane Maria according to the crisis and emergency risk communication model. Topic model analysis, latent semantic analysis , and word-cloud analysis were utilized to capture the complexity of communication through this extreme event. Topics that emerged during different phases of the event are discussed. Findings concerning communication use and content were consistent with previous research. However, the use of topic model analysis allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of communication during a natural disaster and uncovered communication patterns that are less represented in the existing literature. Implications and theory development in the case of crises alongside big data tools in crisis communication are discussed.
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Public relations practitioners can take a reactive stance toward a blogger’s assessments about an organization or issue, and practitioners can take a proactive stance with bloggers. With all the extant information on what blogs can do and for what public relations outcomes, what’s missing is a definitive ethical view of blogging for public relations purposes. In short, if blogging can be a viable public relations tactic, how can public relations professionals do it ethically? The short answer is that public relations practitioners can establish blogs and use them ethically as an additional, proactive tactic. The long and better answer is the substance of this article, and it will cover blogs and blogging basics, public relations purposes for blog types, basic dimensions of ethics for public relations, and an ethical perspective for public relations blogging.
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Based on uncertainty reduction theory, this paper argues that individuals were motivated to seek information and learn about the September 11 terrorist attacks to reduce uncertainty about what happened. Results from a panel survey indicate that negative emotional response was a strong predictor of efforts to learn. Analyses also show that relative increases in newspaper, television, and Internet use from Wave 1 to Wave 2 were positively related to efforts to learn about the attacks. The findings extend uncertainty reduction theory to the mass media context thereby contributing to our understanding of uses and gratifications.
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The uses and gratifications approach is well suited for studying the World Wide Web as a whole and for examining specific types of sites within the Web. This study, therefore, examines the uses and gratifications of accessing online sources for political information. A factor analysis revealed 4 primary motivations for connecting to online political information: guidance information-seeking/surveillance, entertainment, and social utility. Additionally, significant correlations emerged between the 4 motivations and amount of use, trust in government, feelings of efficacy, interest in politics, and the likelihood of voting.
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This study was designed to explore the similarities between television and the World Wide Web (WWW). We adopted a uses and gratifications framework to assess whether Web surfing is a functional alternative to television viewing. A sample of computer-experienced students completed an on-line questionnaire and a three-day on-line media-use diary. We found that three major and two minor television-like reasons for Web surfing: Entertainment, Pass Time, Relaxation, Social Information, and Information. Our respondents used the Web for school, play, to acquire information and materials, and, to some extent, for work. The WWW may be functionally similar to television, especially in its use for diversion. But there are indications that the WWW may not be as relaxing a use of time as television viewing.
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The media, in the sociology of natural disasters, are mainly viewed as management tools used to influence people's preparedness and response to natural disasters. As a consequence, research in this area has been limited to the warning, preparedness, and recovery phases. Through interviews with residents of eight communities in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, impacted by Hurricane Georges in 1998, this paper shows that through integrating mass communication research to disaster theory we can obtain a more accurate picture of the media–audience relationship during natural disasters. In addition to the manifest functions of providing information, the media also have latent functions in disasters, which consist of emotional support and companionship. The media also help isolated individuals to feel connected with the “outside world.” These functions are most salient in the impact phase of disasters. These functions are also particularly crucial as they have been shown to reduce the negative effects of stressful life events.
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In response to Hurricane Katrina's extensive destruction and related public health threats, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deployed more than 1,000 staff to its emergency operations center and to affected areas. Among them were members of CDC's Emergency Communication System. This paper describes the strategies and tactics used by health communication specialists during the pre-event, response, and post-event stages to address a range of emergency communication exigencies. It highlights three difficult challenges for CDC communication specialists during Hurricane Katrina: rapid dissemination of health messages; adaptation of health messages for diverse audiences, locations, and circumstances; and phasing of key risk messages during the emergency response.
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This article reports that blogging is sometimes viewed as a new, grassroots form of journalism and a way to shape democracy outside the mass media and conventional party politics. Blog sites devoted to politics and punditry, as well as to sharing technical developments, receive thousands of hits a day. But the vast majority of blogs are written by ordinary people for much smaller audiences. This article reports the results of an ethnographic investigation of blogging in a sample of ordinary bloggers. Researchers investigated blogging as a form of personal communication and expression, with a specific interest in uncovering the range of motivations driving individuals to create and maintain blogs. Blogs combine the immediacy of up-to-the-minute posts, latest first, with a strong sense of the author's personality, passions and point of view. They found tremendous diversity in blog content, even in their limited sample. On the serious side, a graduate student in genetics, posted commentaries on science and health, covering such topics as AIDS, heart disease, science education and health care policy.
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Internet addiction has been identified as a pathological behavior, but its symptoms may be found in normal populations, placing it within the scope of conventional theories of media attendance. The present study drew upon fresh conceptualizations of gratifications specific to the Internet to uncover seven gratification factors: Virtual Community, Information Seeking, Aesthetic Experience, Monetary Compensation, Diversion, Personal Status, and Relationship Maintenance. With no parallel in prior research, Virtual Community might be termed a "new" gratification. Virtual Community, Monetary Compensation, Diversion, and Personal Status gratifications accounted for 28% of the variance in Internet Addiction Tendency. The relationship between Internet addiction and gratifications was discussed in terms of the formation of media habits and the distinction between content and process gratifications.
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This content analysis study examined health-related message boards to better understand who is using this on-line health information and support device and what topics they are discussing. Besides needing to understand this support and coping mechanism for individuals, this has become an increasingly important topic for health communicators to understand because the Health and Human Services' (HHS) Inspector General recently gave permission to a pharmaceutical manufacturer for sponsorship of a disease management chat room. Very little research has been done on the content of these message boards/chat rooms. Key findings include that the most commonly discussed medical topics were medical treatments and drugs (often specific brands) and that these boards are clearly important sources of information and emotional support. Implication and future research are discussed.
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The blogs which were created to handle an immediate need for the people affected by tsunami are discussed. These blogs were set up immediately following the tsunami as resources for people to make direct-aid-donations, learn of the tsunami effects, assist in findings missing persons and assist in public health and communication issues. WaveofDestruction.org have emerged as the central repository for tsunami disaster photos and videos, currently hosting over 50 videos shot over the entire effected region. One of the advantages of blogs is their interactive and referral nature as most blogs will link to other blogs and within the blogosphere, this referral system act as an effective attention-getting device.
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This study explores how the increasingly popular blog format, as adopted by journalists affiliated with mainstream media outlets, affects long-standing journalistic norms and practice. It focuses on non-partisanship, transparency and the gatekeeping role, using a content analysis of 20 weblogs dealing with politics or civic affairs. Although expressions of opinion are common, most journalists are seeking to remain gatekeepers even in this highly interactive and participatory format. Political j-bloggers use links extensively - but mostly to other mainstream media sites. At least in their early use, journalists are ‘normalizing’ the blog as a component, and in some ways an enhancement, of traditional journalistic norms and practices.
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This study investigated Internet communication and use in a crisis situation, Hurricane Katrina, to explore the role of the Internet in supporting or diminishing geographically- based community during a crisis. The researchers conducted an online survey of Internet users (n � /1192) from the dispersed metropolitan New Orleans area. The survey focused on amount, type, function, and importance of Internet use to creating and maintaining social capital, supporting geographically-based communities, activating social networks, reducing uncertainty, and achieving both expressive and instrumental communication goals. The results indicated that Internet users in a crisis situation went online to seek interactive fora specific to their neighborhoods and to activate weak ties in their social networks. They engaged in more uncertainty reduction behavior when experiencing higher degrees of damage. They turned to the Internet in place of other media as a result of disruptions caused by the crisis. Women valued online expressive communication more than men did. The findings suggest that social capital theorists would benefit from a communication perspective on the Internet. The study also led to the formation of suggestions for emergency preparedness agencies, shelter providers, crisis victims, and online news providers that can improve emergency response.
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Reviews recent studies of hazards and disasters from a general sociological perspective. Historical attempts to define and interpret disasters in sociological terms are important, and such efforts inevitably raise basic questions about the social order. Four core dimensions of disaster are events, impacts, social units, and responses. Using the latter two for illustrative purposes, recent research on social networks and organizational forms of association related to disasters is highlighted. -Author
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Using data collected from students at a fully networked university community, this study examines patterns of World Wide Web use and how they may relate to gratifications people seek from traditional media. Path analyses show that beliefs about the Web predict gratifications sought, and that the latter predict gratifications obtained, with considerable reliability. More importantly, entertainment, surveillance, and passing time—gratifications typically associated with television and newspaper use—prove to be significant predictors of World Wide Web site visitation. Thus, the data indicate that Internet use may be understood and predicted through the application of traditional gratification typologies.
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Some mass communications scholars have contended that uses and gratifications is not a rigorous social science theory. In this article, I argue just the opposite, and any attempt to speculate on the future direction of mass communication theory must seriously include the uses and gratifications approach. In this article, I assert that the emergence of computer-mediated communication has revived the significance of use and gratifications. In fact, uses and gratifications has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium: newspapers, radio and television, and now the Internet. Although scientists are likely to continue using traditional tools and typologies to answer questions about media use, we must also be prepared to expand our current theoretical models of uses and gratifications. Contemporary and future models must include concepts such as interactivity, demassification, hypertextuality, and asynchroneity. Researchers must also be willing to explore interpersonal and qualitative aspects of mediated communication in a more holistic methodology.
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One of the most perplexing problems in risk analysis is why some relatively minor risks or risk events, as assessed by technical experts, often elicit strong public concerns and result in substantial impacts upon society and economy. This article sets forth a conceptual framework that seeks to link systematically the technical assessment of risk with psychological, sociological, and cultural perspectives of risk perception and risk-related behavior. The main thesis is that hazards interact with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural processes in ways that may amplify or attenuate public responses to the risk or risk event. A structural description of the social amplification of risk is now possible. Amplification occurs at two stages: in the transfer of information about the risk, and in the response mechanisms of society. Signals about risk are processed by individual and social amplification stations, including the scientist who communicates the risk assessment, the news media, cultural groups, interpersonal networks, and others. Key steps of amplifications can be identified at each stage. The amplified risk leads to behavioral responses, which, in turn, result in secondary impacts. Models are presented that portray the elements and linkages in the proposed conceptual framework.
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This study draws on the uses and gratifications perspective in mass communication research to examine the audience experience associated with websites. Research participants viewed five commercial websites and evaluated them using 80 rating scale items. The results show similarities to the types of uses and gratifications reported in studies of other media. New dimensions called personal involvement and continuing relationship were identified and found to be important factors when examining audience reactions to websites. The study also established the importance of website organizational concepts and considerations of design efficiency in the development of websites that attract repeat visits.
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This article compares communication technologies within and across crises, using evi- dence from contemporary postings in 68,022 blogs and news feeds and using a semi- automatic method to detect words that increase in usage during a crisis. Three case studies from 2005 are used: the July 7 London attacks, the New Orleans hurricane, and the Pakistan-Kashmir earthquake. The results highlight the information provision importance for bloggers of Web 2.0 resources such as Wikinews, the Wikipedia, and the Flickr picture sharing site, although these still play a minor role in comparison to the mass media. Some personal communication methods were also mentioned significantly, including SMS and cellphones, but the newest technologies of those mentioned were all Web 2.0. The importance of electronic communication for bloggers was found to depend on the nature of the crisis: For example, despite the heavy Pakistan-Kashmir earth- quake death toll, there was relatively little interest in related communication issues from English language bloggers and news sources.
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Big blogger is watching you! Reputation management in an opinionated, hyperlinked world
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The web habit: An ethnographic study of web usage patterns
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Prepare your company blog for a corporate crisis
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The right connections; The simple BlackBerry allowed contact when phones failed. The New York Times
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But as security inevitably tightens up, it will likely be used to do much more: Something to watch over us?
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Tam, P. (September 17, 2001). During last week's horror, technology allowed us to keep in touch with each other. But as security inevitably tightens up, it will likely be used to do much more: Something to watch over us? The Ottawa Citizen.
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