YouTube space as the propagative source for social power: An experimental study on the social meaning of disaster

Abstract

The meaning of disaster is explored in the context of Weick's (1995) sensemaking concepts through three different videos on YouTube. Information Communication Technologies (ICT) has become much more critical for individuals coping with disaster experiences. YouTube connects people in ways that transform their way of understandings of historic disasters, challenging the traditional view of disaster that is based on developmental stages in temporal measurement: prediction, planning, rescue, relief, recovery, reconstruction, and rehabilitation. In modern disaster situations, disaster is no longer a temporal event but it is a continuum. Through a grounded theory approach, this study looks solely at those individual comments.