Identification

Title

Information dissemination, diffusion, and response during Hurricane Harvey: Analysis of evolving forecast and warning imagery posted online

Abstract

This article aims to build interdisciplinary understanding about modern hazard communication by investigating visual information dissemination, diffusion, and response leading up to and during a weather-related disaster. The study analyzes data from online social media posts by authoritative sources during Hurricane Harvey, focusing on forecast and warning tweets containing hurricane risk imagery. The research integrates quantitative and qualitative analysis of tweets, retweets, and replies to explore how the roles of different information content and sources evolved with Harvey's threat. Building on the work of Mileti and other warning scholars, the results illustrate the complexity of dynamic multisource, multimessage, and multihazard forecast and warning situations, including hurricanes. In such situations, people can engage in different hazard response processes simultaneously and near-continuously, as they are exposed to, attend to, and make sense of an evolving, heterogeneous collection of available information. The analysis also finds that during Harvey, authoritative sources used a mix of tweeting strategies to disseminate and amplify emerging information. Different types of sources led the creation of forecast and warning content at different times, with other sources playing complementary roles in communicating potentially important or salient content to broader audiences. Overall, the study provides updated models of hazard warning communication and response and associated processes such as milling, along with new methodological approaches for utilizing social media and other online data to understand these processes. In addition to these theoretical and methodological contributions, the analysis points to opportunities for the National Weather Service and others to improve tropical cyclone risk communication.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7z03dcv

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-08-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact