Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Communication
First Advisor
Lee Shaker
Term of Graduation
Spring 2021
Date of Publication
7-6-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (M.S.) in Communication
Department
Communication
Language
English
Subjects
Emergency management, Wildfires -- Oregon -- Oregon City -- Case studies, Facebook (Electronic resource)
DOI
10.15760/etd.7592
Physical Description
1 online resource (vi, 68 pages)
Abstract
As traditional sources of local news and information decline, community-oriented social media services (e.g. Nextdoor, Facebook groups) are expanding (Masden, Grevet, Grinter, Gilbert, and Edwards, 2014). Thus far, community-oriented social media use remains relatively understudied. Not only do we not understand how citizens utilize these resources, we are also generally unaware of the content that they create and access using them. A survey of residents of Oregon City, OR and its environs, which were impacted by the Oregon wildfires of 2020, was conducted to assess the differences among citizens who use a local Facebook group & those who do not. This survey includes the Citizen Disaster Communication Assessment (CDCA) battery developed by Spialek and Houston (2018) as well as community resilience and neighborhood belonging scales developed by Pfefferbaum, et al. (2015) and Ball-Rokeach, Kim, and Matei (2001). Results indicate that citizens who utilize locally-oriented Facebook groups during and after a disaster exhibited stronger perceptions of community resilience and neighborhood belonging than citizens who do not use such groups. These results have theoretical implications for CIT and communication ecology research, but they also put forth practical implications for local leaders and organizations.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/36052
Recommended Citation
Riehl, Colby, "Spread Like Wildfire: Assessing the Utility of Local Facebook Groups to Inspire Citizen Communication During a Disaster" (2021). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5719.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.7592