Resilience 2.0: social media use and (self-)care during the 2011 Norway attacks

Abstract

Departing from the understanding that resilience is a technique of self-organization during emergencies, this article provides a study on the way in which the use of social media influenced and engendered societal resilience practices during the 2011 Norway attacks. It builds on the concepts of governmentality and mediality to discuss how the interplay between social media and its users created new forms of self-initiated and mediated emergency governance. Empirically, it draws on material from 20 in-depth interviews with Norwegians who explained and reflected upon their social media use during the attacks. The article presents an overview of the different functions that social media assumed in the process of dealing with the attacks and discusses these vis-à-vis their related challenges. It draws conclusions about the way in which resilience practices and the resilient subject are influenced by the networked character of 2.0 technologies.