Affording Twitter in Emergency Situations

Abstract

This study focuses on Twitter affordances and sense-making outcomes during a single emergency situation. By using an interpretive affordance lens, this study aims to assess rumors as influencers of sense-making during the 2017 Manchester terrorist attack. The authors combined a quantitative network analysis with a qualitative content analysis to assess the role of rumors during the emergency management after the attack. This study provides argumentative grounds for the notion of sense-making as a consequence of affording social media and builds on prior research to place sense-making as a cognitive process within the affordance concept. The authors emphasize new potentials to prevent or control rumors on social media for practitioners and contribute insights to rumor research. Namely, the authors contribute a novel perspective of rumors and their role during emergency management on social media.