Connections to neighborhood storytellers and community-oriented emotional disclosure on Twitter during an emergency event

Abstract

From a communication infrastructure theory perspective, this study examined local residents’ connections to neighborhood storytellers and its association with community-oriented emotional disclosure, a specific form of neighborhood storytelling, during an emergency event. A sample of 1676 local residents and their Twitter activities were obtained from Twitter’s streaming application programming interface (API) during a 2-hour window after the event. A connection was established when the focal user retweeted, commented on, or replied to another user. The results show that scope of connections to residents, community organizations, and mainstream media positively predicted community-oriented disclosure of negative emotions. Scope of connections to residents positively predicted community-oriented disclosure of positive emotions. Scope of connections to local media did not predict community-oriented emotional disclosure.