'Breaking' news: uncovering sense-breaking patterns in social media crisis communication during the 2017 Manchester bombing. Issue 3 (3rd March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mirbabaie, Milad; Marx, Julian
• Is Part Of: Behaviour & information technology. Volume 39:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 252
• Page End: 266
• Publication Date: 2020-03-03
• Subjects: Sense-making -- sense-giving -- sense-breaking -- social media crisis communication -- Twitter; Electronic data processing -- Periodicals; Human engineering -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Periodicals; 303.4833
• DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2019.1611924
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0144-929X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Individuals, (media-) organisations, and crisis responders who are involved in ad hoc crisis communication steadily deploy social media to contribute to collective sense-making as an endeavour to create meaning in highly uncertain situations. Exerting sense-giving in order to shape others' conceptions is causally preceded by an initial breakup of existing understanding. This study aims to explore patterns of sense-breaking in social media crisis communication and its impact on collective sense-making and sense-giving. To this end, we conducted a case study of the Manchester bombing in 2017, including a social network analysis of 708, 147 Twitter postings and a content analysis of 2006 original tweets. We found individual role types to be initiators of sense-breaking in early crisis stages when uncertainty is at its height. Exerting successive sense-giving becomes more challenging if the collective sense-making has progressed along with the sequence of events. This understanding aims to encourage emergency management organisations to move their sense-giving actions closer to the point in time when sense-breaking occurs.