TY - GEN
T1 - An exploration of social media in extreme events
T2 - 31st International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2010
AU - Oh, Onook
AU - Kwon, Kyounghee Hazel
AU - Rao, H. Raghav
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Due to its rapid speed of information spread, wide user bases, and extreme mobility, Twitter is drawing attention as a potential emergency reporting tool under extreme events. However, at the same time, Twitter is sometimes despised as a citizen based non-professional social medium for propagating misinformation, rumors, and, in extreme case, propaganda. This study explores the working dynamics of the rumor mill by analyzing Twitter data of the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. For this analysis, two key variables of anxiety and informational uncertainty are derived from rumor theory, and their interactive dynamics are measured by both quantitative and qualitative methods. Our research finds that information with credible sources contribute to suppress the level of anxiety in Twitter community, which leads to rumor control and high information quality.
AB - Due to its rapid speed of information spread, wide user bases, and extreme mobility, Twitter is drawing attention as a potential emergency reporting tool under extreme events. However, at the same time, Twitter is sometimes despised as a citizen based non-professional social medium for propagating misinformation, rumors, and, in extreme case, propaganda. This study explores the working dynamics of the rumor mill by analyzing Twitter data of the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. For this analysis, two key variables of anxiety and informational uncertainty are derived from rumor theory, and their interactive dynamics are measured by both quantitative and qualitative methods. Our research finds that information with credible sources contribute to suppress the level of anxiety in Twitter community, which leads to rumor control and high information quality.
KW - Haiti earthquake
KW - Non-parametric ANOVA
KW - Rumor theory
KW - Semantic network analysis
KW - Social media
KW - Twitter
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84870963741&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84870963741&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84870963741
SN - 9780615418988
T3 - ICIS 2010 Proceedings - Thirty First International Conference on Information Systems
BT - ICIS 2010 Proceedings - Thirty First International Conference on Information Systems
Y2 - 12 December 2010 through 15 December 2010
ER -