Social media and civic engagement during calamities: the case of Twitter use during typhoon Yolanda

Abstract

This study explores the nature and promise of citizen engagement in Twitter during calamities, specifically in the context of typhoon Yolanda. Through topic modeling and content analysis, the article explores the “acts of civic engagement” expressed in disaster tweets and how the character of the tweets changed over a five-month period. The article adopts the actualizing citizenship model which offers an alternative understanding of citizenship as performative and which is relevant for the analysis of social media engagement by citizens. The article concludes with a reflection of the nature and typology of Twitter-mediated communication during calamities, highlighting the active engagement of celebrities in disaster tweets, and analysis of whether and how these can be construed as acts of civic engagement.

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