Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Crisis communication, social media and natural disasters – the use of Twitter by local governments during the 2016 Italian earthquake

Crisis communication, social media and natural disasters – the use of Twitter by local... The objective of this exploratory research is to investigate the role of Twitter in crisis communication by analysing all the earthquake-related messages from local public authorities in four Italian regions (Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche and Umbria) during the seismic sequence that began on 24th August 2016 and finished at the end of January 2017.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a manual data collection of earthquake-related tweets. Founded on a theoretical framework, the data analysis has been developed both through textual analysis and in-depth interpretation by two researchers to catalogue the messages according to identified categories.FindingsIt emerges that the affected Italian regions used Twitter only for information coverage without offering a complete and detailed picture of the disaster. Most of the tweets concerned daily statements by politicians or regional administrators engaged in crisis management, while an accurate selection of the topics and messages to be launched does not emerge, with significant implications on the effectiveness of the tweeting activity itself.Originality/valueThis paper aims to contribute to the literature on crisis communication and social media during a natural disaster, highlighting the criticalities shown by the Italian case studies. The originality of this study relates to the comparative examination of Twitter activities for four regional government bodies involved in the 2016 Italian earthquake. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Corporate Communications An International Journal Emerald Publishing

Crisis communication, social media and natural disasters – the use of Twitter by local governments during the 2016 Italian earthquake

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/crisis-communication-social-media-and-natural-disasters-the-use-of-ZEvK2hMdfx

References (49)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1356-3289
DOI
10.1108/ccij-03-2021-0036
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The objective of this exploratory research is to investigate the role of Twitter in crisis communication by analysing all the earthquake-related messages from local public authorities in four Italian regions (Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche and Umbria) during the seismic sequence that began on 24th August 2016 and finished at the end of January 2017.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a manual data collection of earthquake-related tweets. Founded on a theoretical framework, the data analysis has been developed both through textual analysis and in-depth interpretation by two researchers to catalogue the messages according to identified categories.FindingsIt emerges that the affected Italian regions used Twitter only for information coverage without offering a complete and detailed picture of the disaster. Most of the tweets concerned daily statements by politicians or regional administrators engaged in crisis management, while an accurate selection of the topics and messages to be launched does not emerge, with significant implications on the effectiveness of the tweeting activity itself.Originality/valueThis paper aims to contribute to the literature on crisis communication and social media during a natural disaster, highlighting the criticalities shown by the Italian case studies. The originality of this study relates to the comparative examination of Twitter activities for four regional government bodies involved in the 2016 Italian earthquake.

Journal

Corporate Communications An International Journal – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jun 30, 2022

Keywords: Crisis communication; E-Public Relations; Social media; Twitter; Natural disaster; Italian earthquake

There are no references for this article.