Cross-Sector Emergency Information Networks on Social Media: Online Bridging and Bonding Communication Patterns

Abstract

A key challenge for public administrators is facilitating communication among diverse actors. This article illustrates the information seeking and sharing preferences of notable emergency information suppliers on social media who operate primarily within four states. Through homophily and brokerage analyses, two basic communication preferences were noted: (a) bridging patterns in which actors interact with diverse sources of information, and (b) bonding patterns in which actors rely on sources from similar backgrounds. Both provide value for practitioners. A crucial task, then, is to balance those approaches and adjust to the shifting demands of the external environment.

Using Collaborative Technologies and Social Media to Engage Citizens and Governments during the COVID-19 Crisis. The Case of Spain

“…Since the beginning of the crisis, the Spanish Government, as well as many others, used social media (mostly Twitter) to provide information, encouraging citizens to socialize critical messages and collaboration using the hashtag #EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos (#UnitedWeStopThisVirus). However, we need to deepen our understanding of what types of actors are interacting and how they are behaving within concrete contexts generated inside these networks, and the collaboration with governments and co-production dynamics [Wukich et al 2019;Reuter and Kaufhold 2018]. Regarding public managers, understanding these processes could be essential to promote proactive responses among citizens, as well as to help authorities targeting appropriate audiences.…”

User roles for emergency management in social media: Understanding actors' behavior during the 2018 Majorca Island flash floods

“…In some cases, audience mapping has been carried out using vague or generic groupings ( Bonsón et al, 2015 ; Colineau, Paris, & Vander Linden, 2012 ; Mahler & Regan, 2011 ). In other cases, they have not provided relevant information about the expected behavior towards agents of the public sector, with some noticeable exceptions ( Shwartz-Asher et al, 2017 ; Wukich et al, 2019 ).…”

“… Bergstrand et al (2013) categorized actors depending on existing profiles that bestow information with a unidirectional perspective, distribute information and retweet authorities, or disseminate opinions and self-expression. The most recent work of Wukich et al (2019) has defined social media communication patterns of bridging and bonding. This work presents a model of brokerage behavior, which also takes into account public, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, including: a) coordinators , who facilitate information flows between actors; b) consultants , profiles that link two actors from different organizations than the consultant's; c) representatives , receivers of information from their group, and senders of information to other groups; d) gatekeepers , which receive information from other groups, filtering and promoting this information inside their own group; and e) liaisons , that create a link within a receiver group who gets the information from an external actor, spreading this information to a different group.…”

“…The taxonomy proposed by Congosto (2018) and hosted by her Twitter analytical framework “t-hoarder” ( Congosto, Basanta-Val, & Sanchez-Fernandez, 2017 ) operates here as a starting point for studying audiences' configurations and behaviors during crises. From there, we have initially reinterpreted the original categories according to early role taxonomies contributions applied to emergencies ( Reuter et al, 2013 ; Wukich et al, 2019 ), network studies ( González-Bailón et al, 2013 ), and other social media and communication during crises research. Then, we test this typology ( Fig.…”

“…Social media and emergency management literature conceptualize these actors as “stakeholders”, “citizens” or “audiences”, whereas it is not completely clear who are the participants during these emergency situations and the role they play during the crises ( Gascó, Bayerl, Denef, & Akhgar, 2017 ; Panagiotopoulos, Bowen, & Brooker, 2017 ; Song, Kim, Kim, & Jung, 2015 ; Yildiz & Demirhan, 2016 ). Moreover, authorities can also become “audience” of the content created by other users ( González-Bailón, Borge-Holthoefer, & Moreno, 2013 ; Reuter, Heger, & Pipek, 2013 ; Wukich, Hu, & Siciliano, 2019 ), which makes active listening essential to improve the understanding of information flows. These problems manifest particularly on popular applications such as Twitter where different audiences interact on the same platform and during the same situation ( De Widt & Panagiotopoulos, 2018 ; Marwick & Boyd, 2011 ; Spence, Lachlan, Lin, & del Greco, 2015 ).…”