Abstract
This study utilized social network analysis to identify the top 10 Twitter influentials during the Hurricane Irma crisis period and examined the relationship between social media attributes and the bridge influence of controlling information flow. The number of a user’s followers and tweets significantly predicted one’s control of information. Crisis information tended to be shared in scattered subgroups. Social network boundaries impeded information diffusion, and the communication pattern was largely one-way. The findings partially supported the opinion leader argument while indicating that influentials can directly generate information, which is consistent with the social-mediated crisis communication model. Such findings will contribute to crisis literature and help emergency management professionals advance social media usage to disseminate crisis information, build effective communication, and provide immediate disaster relief responses.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.30658/jicrcr.3.2.3
Repository Citation
Jin, Xianlin, "Exploring Crisis Communication and Information Dissemination on Social Media: Social Network Analysis of Hurricane Irma Tweets" (2020). Communication Graduate Research. 1.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/comm_gradpub/1
Included in
Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, Social Media Commons
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research, v. 3, issue 2.
© 2020 by Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. All articles in JICRCR are open access can be distributed under the creative commons license.