What it Takes to Get Passed On: Message Content, Style, and Structure as Predictors of Retransmission in the Boston Marathon Bombing Response

Abstract

Message retransmission is a central aspect of information diffusion. In a disaster context, the passing on of official warning messages by members of the public also serves as a behavioral indicator of message salience, suggesting that particular messages are (or are not) perceived by the public to be both noteworthy and valuable enough to share with others. This study provides the first examination of terse message retransmission of official warning messages in response to a domestic terrorist attack, the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. Using messages posted from public officials’ Twitter accounts that were active during the period of the Boston Marathon bombing and manhunt, we examine the features of messages that are associated with their retransmission. We focus on message content, style, and structure, as well as the networked relationships of message senders to answer the question: what characteristics of a terse message sent under conditions of imminent threat predict its retransmission among members of the public? We employ a negative binomial model to examine how message characteristics affect message retransmission. We find that, rather than any single effect dominating the process, retransmission of official Tweets during the Boston bombing response was jointly influenced by various message content, style, and sender characteristics. These findings suggest the need for more work that investigates impact of multiple factors on the allocation of attention and on message retransmission during hazard events.

Lung Cancer Messages on Twitter: Content Analysis and Evaluation

“…We present the first descriptive analysis of Twitterbased lung cancer messages drawn from a large sample of cancer-related microblogs on Twitter. Message quality is a central aspect of "terse messaging," which we have previously identified as "brief messages that are easily shared and quickly propagated, [having] the potential to reach online users in real time" [16]. The type and nature of terse lung cancer tweets, and their quality of cues to action, are unknown.…”

Alerting under imminent threat: guidance on alerts issued by outdoor siren and short message alerting systems

“…Other ways of drawing attention to the message text, itself, include the use of ALL CAPS (Sutton et al 2014), bolded letters and/or different colors for words or phrases to which attention should be drawn (Wood et al 2015). Short messages that use imperative, directive statements (Sutton et al 2015b) and/or include a hashtag (#) (Suh et al 2010) are also more likely to gain attention (Sutton and Kuligowski under review).…”

A review of public response to short message alerts under imminent threat

“…Messages with hashtags were more likely to be passed on (Suh et al 2010); however, including all three microstructures, e.g., URLs, hashtags, and mentions, had a negative effect on message salience (Sutton et al 2015b). Taking this one step further, the use of external links did not necessarily increase saliency (Sutton et al 2014).…”

“…In research studies, messages that included the following features were more likely to be passed onto others, including the most up-to-date and relevant information (Vieweg et al 2010); geo-location on what is happening (e.g., location of road closures) (Vieweg et al 2010); information about protective action guidance, hazard impact and hazard location (Sutton et al 2014); and disaster information (within the message) rather than information sent as a webpage only (Liu, Fraustino, and Yin 2015). Also, messages that used imperative voice (Sutton et al 2014), clear and specific statements (Sutton et al 2014), and "ALL CAPS" for the signifier 4 , rather than for emphasis of words throughout the text (Sutton et al 2015b), were also more likely to be passed on to others.…”