#saveaustralia: Twitter Participation and its Impact on Australian Bushfires Cal Meachem, Patrick Rice, Allie Bolton Furman University

ANALYSIS

During our group analysis, we discovered that, of the 400 #saveaustralia tweets evaluated, the overwhelming majority were sorted into Other Involvement. 120 tweets were classified as Other ABSTRACT Involvement, accounting for 30 percent of all #saveaustralia tweets. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION This usually included tweets where users reached out to pray for the Since its creation in 2006, Twitter has grown to become a major media source for Australian people, wildlife and first responders as well as personal Although the Australian bushfires have been a real-life issue that has terrorized people from all around the world, and an outlet for them to come together and expression of sadness, sorrow, and even anger toward the raging fires. individuals, wilderness, and animals alike, it is the cyberscene that has had a discuss current events, and occasionally, work together to solve problems. At the The second most prevalent category of tweet was Message Intrigue. profound impact on how people are aiding Australians and reacting to the news. start of 2020, a great crisis occurred in Australia. Massive wildfires engulfed nearly Message Intrigue was slightly more confusing, as it tended to carry a People across the globe have reached out on social media apps to provide some one third of the entire continent, decimating plant and tree populations, as well as sort of support, in any way possible. As we have seen in the analysis, more often hundreds of thousands of animals. It wasn’t long after the fires started that millions lot of overlap with both Other Involvement and Product Involvement. than not, those who have offered any sort of backing for the Australian people and of twitter users took to the app to express their concern through hashtagging. By However, after much discussion, our group discerned 88 tweets, or 22 environment have been from other nations all over the world. adding a hashtag (“#”) and a single phrase to the end of a tweet, it is automatically percent, lined up with our criteria for message intrigue. Many of the The Social Information process theory is key in helping us understand how added to a community of tweets from other public user accounts, which is one of tweets placed in the message intrigue category had to do with reactions communities react and communicate with one another despite a lack of face to many ways Twitter builds community better than any other app. In this study, our to the damage caused by the bushfires, oftentimes retweets and face contact. Through retweeting and hashtagging, public information can reach team analyzed the #saveaustralia community, taking four hundred tweets and favorites. communities and users all across the globe, creating online communities despite analyzing each one, applying it to one of five categories of how a user would not being able to see each other in person. These communities transcend utilize this hashtag. Our goal was to determine how a set of users from a hashtag The next most common category was Product Involvement. In total, nationality, race, and politics, and as our data shows, it was a human concern for community used the app during this time, and what was the motivation behind we found that 73 tweets, equaling 18 percent, fell into this general life that made the community so strong. their tweets. Once our information was gathered and sorted, we analyzed our classification. The majority of this category consisted of tweets findings using online resources, as well as the social information process theory. At advertising that a portion of proceeds from certain products would be the conclusion of our research, we discovered that most people used twitter to donated to the bushfire control effort. This included sales of clothing, express their concern and heartbreak over the Australian wildfires, more so than art, and gear, as well as online streaming platforms where viewers REFERENCES calling politicians to act, raising funds for Australian benefit, personal gain, or general reaction to the information shared by other users. could donate, and efforts such as Red Cross or other larger organizations who reached out for donations. • McArthur, J. (2015). Altruism Meets Participatory Video: A Correlational Following product involvement, our group found 61 tweets that we Study of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Jodml.org, 1–11. BACKGROUND/METHODS grouped into the Social Benefit category. With nearly all of the tweets • Mendoza, M., Poblete, B., & Castillo, C. (2010). Twitter Under Crisis. having an amount of social benefit attached inherently, it was hard to Proceedings of the First Workshop on Social Media Analytics - SOMA 10. In order to conduct our analysis, 400 tweets, all containing “#saveaustralia,” had decide what tweets did and did not fit in this category. We decided that • Castillo, C. (2011). Information Credibility on Twitter . SOMA 10, 1–9. to be retrieved from Twitter. To obtain the best possible tweets concerning the • Morgan, G., Sheppeard, V., Khalaj, B., Ayyar, A., Lincoln, D., Jalaludin, B., Australia bush fires, we took tweets only sent between the dates January 2nd, and Social Benefit primarily pertained to people, celebrities and everyday people, using what influence they have to reach out and raise Lumley, T. (2010). Effects of Bushfire Smoke on Daily Mortality and January 10th, 2020, when support for Australia was at a high point. We gathered Hospital Admissions in Sydney, Australia. Epidemiology, 21(1), 47–55. awareness or ask people to donate. these tweets via an online application called BirdIQ. Tweets were collected • Walther, J. B. (n.d.). Social Information Processing Theory: Impressions and regardless of the Twitter user. Tweets from everyday users, celebrities, large The least common of the groups of categorized tweets was Self Relationship Development Online. Engaging Theories in Interpersonal companies and businesses alike were all selected. As mentioned before, once Involvement. Again, we found that Self Involvement was a difficult Communication: Multiple Perspectives, 391–404. these tweets have been collected, they will be categorized into five specific one to classify, as it tended to overlap heavily with Product • Fulk, J., Steinfield, C. W., Schmitz, J., & Power, J. G. (1987). A Social groups, based on those created in Altruism Meets Participatory Video: A Information Processing Model of Media Use in Organizations. Correlational Study of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. As mentioned before, these Involvement and sometimes Social Benefit. In the end, only 56 tweets were labeled as such. This made up the remaining 14 percent. We Communication Research, 14(5), 529–552. categories are Product Involvement, Self Involvement, Other Involvement, • Gupta, A., Lamba, H., Kumaraguru, P., & Joshi, A. (2013). Faking Sandy: Message Intrigue and Social Benefit. Each group member will individually found that tweets where users only attempted to get personal gain from Characterizing and Identifying Fake Images on Twitter during Hurricane classify every tweet into one of the five categories based on how it is composed, the popularity of the bushfires were classified into this category. This Sandy. Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide the user, and if it is attempting to profit off of the Australian bush fires or is could be both monetary or something such as an Australian working Web - WWW 13 Companion. simply reacting to them. Finally, after each of us have organized the 400 tweets on the front lines to rescue animals and control fires, requesting aid. • Blanchi, R., Leonard, J., Haynes, K., Opie, K., James, M., & Oliveira, F. D. based on how we understand them, the three of us will compare our evaluations, D. (2014). Environmental circumstances surrounding bushfire fatalities in seeing where we agree and disagree, and regroup them collectively, before finally Motivation Behind Tweets Using #saveaustralia Australia 1901–2011. Environmental Science & Policy, 37, 192–203. presenting our findings. Below is a brief description of each category that our • Cheney, N. P. (1976). Bushfire Disasters in Australia, 1945–1975. Australian team will be using to sort the #saveaustralia tweets, based on the ALS Ice Bucket Forestry, 39(4), 245–268. research done by Dr. John McArthur: Product Involvement: A connection to the message - will be represented by personal projects with all proceeds going to the relief effort in Australia. Self Involvement: A motivation for personal gain - will be represented by a desire for personal benefit or virality. Other involvement: A concern for Australia - will be represented by a desire to help through well wishes, religious prayer, and personal expression of concern. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Message Intrigue: A reaction to media - and will be represented in this study as a reaction to personal media released by family friends, and celebrities concerning We would like to thank Dr. John McArthur for guiding us on the correct path when Australia. it came to research and for aiding us in creating the best project possible. Social Benefit: A desire for action - will be represented in this study by users calling on people to act, such as politicians and CEOs, or the general population as a whole. Product Inv. Self Inv. Other Inv. Message Intrigue Social Benefit