Needing to know about the crisis back home: Disaster information seeking and disaster media effects following the 2015 Nepal earthquake among Nepalis living outside of Nepal

Abstract

In 2015, Nepal was hit by a series of powerful earthquakes. More than a million Nepalis currently live outside of their home country while maintaining deep social and economic ties. When Nepal was hit by the disastrous earthquakes, the traditional channels of communication were disrupted affecting the immigrants' ability to check on their friends and family members’ safety. The purpose of this study was to understand the communication behavior of Nepali immigrants during this event, and how the exposure to information about damage and destruction affected their mental well-being. This study conducted a survey of Nepalis living outside of the country (N = 228). Findings showed that Nepali immigrants first learned about the events through a phone call from a friend or relative, consistent with previous findings that people use personable channels of communication to alert those in their social network in an unexpected disaster event. This study found that social media, especially, Facebook was the second most used platform to share the news. Additionally, exposure to personal accounts on media outlets, including social media, influenced Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS), more than the exposure to images and videos of the events. Implications and recommendations for future studies are further discussed.