Bottom-up crisis communication on social media : Twitter reflections of the 2021 Bodrum Wildfires in Turkey

In the aftermath of a crisis, uninterrupted flow of the crisis information is vital to take immediate action in battling against the crisis phenomenon which causes threat and harm. Crisis information is transferred through crisis communication practices which is no longer limited to top-down perspective. Ordinary people execute crisis communication with the aspatial digital affordances social media facilitate and they participate in crisis response through networks formed in such platforms. Although significance of the subject increases, the bottom-up perspective of crisis communication on social media remains as a gap in the research literature. This thesis aims to contribute to the research field with a case study on Twitter reflections of 2021 Bodrum Wildfires in Turkey. The crisis phenomenon chosen in this thesis stands out with its intensity and scope as it is considered as the largest wildfires that have happened in Turkey. The purpose of this research is to examine social media reflections of the public during 2021 Bodrum Wildfires as it gives hints of how and what kind of crisis communication practices they performed, especially in forms of crisis response. In addition, functions of social media usage in specific to case of this thesis are explored. In this thesis, 1.000 tweets under the hashtag #bodrumyangın during the acute phase of the crisis are collected from Advance Search inquiry of Twitter. As the principles of digital media ethnography is followed, data are examined via utilizing qualitative content analysis. The results of this thesis showed that people conducted crisis communication on Twitter to disseminate breaking news in regard to Bodrum Wildfires and to facilitate volunteer mobilization networks and crisis response coordination efforts. The main functions of social media usage in this case study are dissemination of breaking news about the crisis, retrieving on-site crisis information, formation of mobilization networks for crisis response, virtual public arena to evaluate crisis management and to discuss origin of the crisis, outpouring emotional load and receiving sentimental support, generation of humorous content as coping mechanism. Findings goes in line with the concept of bottom-up crisis communication on social media in which this thesis adopted as theoretical framework. Additional value this thesis presents is the observation of hashtag utilization on social media crisis communication acting as a digital affordance to ease dissemination and accession of the crisis information