Emergent uses, as rumour systemic analysis, of Twitter messages during social crises

Abstract

The hideous and extreme events taking place on a global scale are increasing, creating an extensive emotional burden among the affected community's population and testing the whole state mechanism that is in charge to inform. In the past, there were many cases that the efforts of the official bodies were insufficient, so the citizens felt that they did not receive the information they desired and consequently felt helpless in front of the uncertainty. So, they developed an informal collective communication among the members of the afflicted area, in order to reduce the collective emotional burden through the dissemination of useful information. This information disseminating through blogging platforms, such as Twitter.