Twitter communication during 2014 flood in Malaysia: Informational or emotional?

Abstract

Twitter has become one of the most important medium in spreading information due to its powerful capability reaching beyond the original tweet’s follower. Not to mention, it is effective and easy to get viral especially during extreme events. The behaviour of information dissemination during a natural disaster, specifically flood has been an interest to this study. This paper examines the dynamics of social networks and the formation and evolution of Twitter communities in response to this event. A Twitter dataset of early days during 2014 flood in Malaysia were harnessed. The datasets were harnessed based on the keyword “banjir” in Malay which define as flood from 18 December 2014 until 31 December 2014. The analysis shows that the evolution of Twitter conversation during this range of time tends to focus on flood issue. We get to distinguish the informational and emotional tweets from the content analysis. The dynamics of these informational and emotional tweets are then analysed to observe information dissemination in the community. Emotional tweets are likely to be related to community concern and motivational support. Informational tweets are mostly about the flood condition from time to time, numbers of flood victims, and the flood relief from the government organization, aid organization and news organization.