All hands on deck to tweet #sandy: Networked governance of citizen coproduction in turbulent times

Authors

Akemi T. Chatfield, University of WollongongFollow
Christopher Reddick, University of Texas at San AntonioFollow

RIS ID

116682

Publication Details

Chatfield, A. & Reddick, C. (2018). All hands on deck to tweet #sandy: Networked governance of citizen coproduction in turbulent times. Government Information Quarterly, 35 259-272.

Abstract

While citizens previously took a back seat to government, citizen coproduction of disaster risk communications through social media networks is emerging. We draw on information-processing, citizen coproduction, and networked governance theories to examine the governance and impact of networked interactions in the following question: When government's capacity in information-processing and communication is overwhelmed by unfolding disasters, how do government and citizens coproduce disaster risk communications? During the Hurricane Sandy, we collected 132,922 #sandy tweets to analyze the structure and networked interactions using social network analysis. We then conducted case study of the government's social media policy governance networks. Networked citizen interactions - their agility in voluntarily retweeting the government's #sandy tweets and tweeting their own messages - magnified the agility and reach of the government's #sandy disaster communications. Our case study indicates the criticality of social media policy governance networks in empowering the lead agencies and citizens to coproduce disaster communication public services.