Lixiong Chen, Monika Buscher, & Yang Hu. (2019). On Liquid Ground: Contesting the facts around Shouguang Flood on Weibo. In Z. Franco, J. J. González, & J. H. Canós (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management. Valencia, Spain: Iscram.
Abstract: As one of the most well-known social media platforms in China, Weibo provides an online public sphere. During the 2018 Shouguang flood, many people who were affected converged on the platform to discuss the disaster. The government ? the highest emergency management authority ? was accused of using censorship and other measures to suppress the coverage of the disaster. Based on an analysis of 34 qualitative interviews with Weibo users, of which nine directly address the Shouguang floods, this paper examines how three major actors contested facts and responsibilities during the disaster. Focusing on the state-censored, market-moderated social media context in China, our ongoing study provides new insights into a universal challenge of managing diverging interpretations and expectations in risk communication. We show that the establishing and framing of facts is inherently ethical and political. Time, time-space compression, liability and scales of risk responsibility emerge as critical points of friction. We draw on theories of risk governance, public discourse, computer supported collaborative work, and media studies for analysis and to articulate avenues for design.
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Lixiong Chen, Monika Buscher, & Yang Hu. (2020). Crowding Out the Crowd:The Transformation of Network Disaster Communication Patterns on Weibo. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 472–489). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: There is a surge in people turning to social media in disasters in China. In the 2010 Yushu earthquake, 5,979 Weibos were posted. Almost 10 years on, in the 2019 Yibin earthquake it was 17,495. This study presents a Social Network Analysis of the dynamics of this growth, taking the six major Chinese earthquakes of this decade as a case study. By constructing relationship matrices, the research reveals a transformation of networked crisis communication patterns on Weibo. We show how communication relationships between verified organisational users, government agencies, verified individual users (such as celebrities) and unverified ordinary users have changed, and we observe that government agencies are 'crowding out the crowd' of other users. We consider key aspects and the ethical complexities of this phenomenon.
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