Social Media Use in Disaster Response: Empowering Communities Resilience

Social media metadata is employed to investigate the use of two social media platforms, Facebook and X, during the 2021 flood in Belgium, both in the immediate aftermath of the crisis and in the short-term. First, Facebook data is employed to analyze the activities of Facebook community groups established post-crisis over a six-month period. Then, the tweets related to the 2021 flood in Belgium are analyzed. The analytical framework employs (1) a social media data-driven quantitative and qualitative text analysis using topic modeling and sentiment analysis. The findings highlight the different roles played by the two social media platforms. Facebook served as an effective platform to mobilize and organize local communities for immediate and practical support, while Twitter served as a platform for broader global engagement and advocacy. The convergence of results from diverse data sources provides comprehensive insights into the effectiveness and challenges of leveraging social media for community resilience in the aftermath of disaster events.