Storms of a feather tweet together: An exploratory study examining Houston-area emergency management communication on Twitter in Hurricane Harvey

Adam M. Rainear; Kenneth Lachlan; Zhan Xu

doi:10.5055/jem.0685

Storms of a feather tweet together: An exploratory study examining Houston-area emergency management communication on Twitter in Hurricane Harvey

Adam M. Rainear, Kenneth Lachlan, Zhan Xu

Communication, School of

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

The 2017 hurricane season was particularly troublesome in the Atlantic Ocean Basin. Two storms in particular-Hurricanes Harvey and Irma-severely affected the southeastern United States and Gulf Coast, causing over $175 billion in damage and killing over 200 people. This study seeks to examine Twitter content that emerged from a Houston-area emergency management account during Hurricane Harvey. Specific emphasis is placed on the quantity of emergency management retweets, linguistic characteristics and similarities, and the emergence of opinion leaders in this disaster discussion. Results are discussed with respect to future risk communication in weather events, in addition to comparing with other recent disasters.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	53-60
Number of pages	8
Journal	Journal of Emergency Management
Volume	20
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5055/jem.0685
State	Published - Jan 2022

Keywords

emergency management
hurricanes
risk communication
social media
weather

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Emergency Medicine
Safety Research

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10.5055/jem.0685

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abstract = "The 2017 hurricane season was particularly troublesome in the Atlantic Ocean Basin. Two storms in particular-Hurricanes Harvey and Irma-severely affected the southeastern United States and Gulf Coast, causing over $175 billion in damage and killing over 200 people. This study seeks to examine Twitter content that emerged from a Houston-area emergency management account during Hurricane Harvey. Specific emphasis is placed on the quantity of emergency management retweets, linguistic characteristics and similarities, and the emergence of opinion leaders in this disaster discussion. Results are discussed with respect to future risk communication in weather events, in addition to comparing with other recent disasters.",

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Storms of a feather tweet together: An exploratory study examining Houston-area emergency management communication on Twitter in Hurricane Harvey

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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