Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy
ABSTRACTDisaster resilience describes the ability of a community to bounce back from disaster impacts by resilience building activities. Social media provides an innovative way to observe human attitudes and responses, especially during disasters. However, most previous social media and disasters st...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Annals of GIS |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19475683.2023.2165545 |
| _version_ | 1811165053021323264 |
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| author | Kejin Wang Nina S. N. Lam Volodymyr Mihunov |
| author_facet | Kejin Wang Nina S. N. Lam Volodymyr Mihunov |
| author_sort | Kejin Wang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | ABSTRACTDisaster resilience describes the ability of a community to bounce back from disaster impacts by resilience building activities. Social media provides an innovative way to observe human attitudes and responses, especially during disasters. However, most previous social media and disasters studies were conducted at a coarse spatial scale such as by county. This study analyzes Twitter activities during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, at the county and the zip code area levels in the five affected states. The study examines two questions: (1) will the relationships between disparities in social media use and disparities in disaster resilience found at the county level in previous studies still hold at the zip code area level? And (2) what new information or patterns can be revealed with the zip code area level analysis? Results show that correlations between Twitter use indices and social-environmental variables representing community resilience found at the county level in previous studies still hold, but they are weaker at the zip code area level. The study also shows that zip code areas that have major transportation hubs and commercial activities or low night-time population are major factors affecting Twitter use indices and hence the correlations. Future research should consider adding data on land use types and population dynamics to help improve social media use for disaster resilience analysis. Furthermore, employing a multiscale analysis approach can reduce uncertainties involved in analysis and obtain a more thorough understanding of the relationships between Twitter use and geographical and socioeconomic characteristics of the affected communities. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T15:32:26Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7b2a7ddebcc44b49933ce3690296f103 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1947-5683 1947-5691 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T15:32:26Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Annals of GIS |
| spelling | doaj.art-7b2a7ddebcc44b49933ce3690296f1032023-02-13T13:38:23ZengTaylor & Francis GroupAnnals of GIS1947-56831947-56912023-01-0129112010.1080/19475683.2023.2165545Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane SandyKejin Wang0Nina S. N. Lam1Volodymyr Mihunov2Department of Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USADepartment of Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USADepartment of Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USAABSTRACTDisaster resilience describes the ability of a community to bounce back from disaster impacts by resilience building activities. Social media provides an innovative way to observe human attitudes and responses, especially during disasters. However, most previous social media and disasters studies were conducted at a coarse spatial scale such as by county. This study analyzes Twitter activities during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, at the county and the zip code area levels in the five affected states. The study examines two questions: (1) will the relationships between disparities in social media use and disparities in disaster resilience found at the county level in previous studies still hold at the zip code area level? And (2) what new information or patterns can be revealed with the zip code area level analysis? Results show that correlations between Twitter use indices and social-environmental variables representing community resilience found at the county level in previous studies still hold, but they are weaker at the zip code area level. The study also shows that zip code areas that have major transportation hubs and commercial activities or low night-time population are major factors affecting Twitter use indices and hence the correlations. Future research should consider adding data on land use types and population dynamics to help improve social media use for disaster resilience analysis. Furthermore, employing a multiscale analysis approach can reduce uncertainties involved in analysis and obtain a more thorough understanding of the relationships between Twitter use and geographical and socioeconomic characteristics of the affected communities.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19475683.2023.2165545Disaster resilienceHurricane Sandysocial mediasentiment analysisspatial scale |
| spellingShingle | Kejin Wang Nina S. N. Lam Volodymyr Mihunov Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy Annals of GIS Disaster resilience Hurricane Sandy social media sentiment analysis spatial scale |
| title | Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy |
| title_full | Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy |
| title_fullStr | Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy |
| title_short | Correlating Twitter Use with Disaster Resilience at Two Spatial Scales: A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy |
| title_sort | correlating twitter use with disaster resilience at two spatial scales a case study of hurricane sandy |
| topic | Disaster resilience Hurricane Sandy social media sentiment analysis spatial scale |
| url | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19475683.2023.2165545 |
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