research-article

Think Local, Retweet Global: Retweeting by the Geographically-Vulnerable during Hurricane Sandy

Authors:

Kenneth M. AndersonAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

Pages 981 - 993

https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675218

Published: 28 February 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Hurricane Sandy wrought $6 billion in damage, took 162 lives, and displaced 776,000 people after hitting the US Eastern seaboard on October 29, 2012. Because of its massive impact, the hurricane also spurred a flurry of social media activity, both by the population immediately affected and by the globally convergent crowd. In this paper we explore how retweeting activity by the geographically vulnerable differs (if at all) from that of the general Twitter population. We investigate whether they spread information differently, including what and whose content they chose to propagate. We investigate whether the Twitter-based relationships are preexisting or if they are newly formed because of the disaster, and if so if they persist. We find that the people in the path of the disaster favor in their retweeting locally-created tweets and those with locally-actionable information. They also form denser networks of information propagation during disaster than before or after.

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Index Terms

Think Local, Retweet Global: Retweeting by the Geographically-Vulnerable during Hurricane Sandy
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
2. Social and professional topics

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cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

February 2015

1956 pages

ISBN:9781450329224

DOI:10.1145/2675133

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Cornell University, USA
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Published: 28 February 2015

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Morss RPrestley RBica MDemuth J(2024)Information Dissemination, Diffusion, and Response during Hurricane Harvey: Analysis of Evolving Forecast and Warning Imagery Posted OnlineNatural Hazards Review10.1061/NHREFO.NHENG-180225:3Online publication date: Aug-2024
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