Social Networking Sites in the Aftermath of a Crisis - the Enabling Role for Self-organization

During crisis circumstances, people increasingly rely on social networking sites (SNS). SNS offer new ways for people to participate and communicate, including seeking local and timely information and activating their social networks quickly, which in turn supports self-organization during crisis events. However, little is known about the motives that influence people’s different SNS usage behavior for the goal of self-organization and the underlying mechanisms of this behavior. Based on uses and gratifications theory and the literature on crisis communication and crisis informatics, this conceptual paper argues that during crisis circumstances, particular needs influence people’s SNS usage for the goal of self-organization. In addition, the paper investigates the conceptual underpinnings of self-organization via SNS. This paper, therefore, contributes to theory by developing a conceptual model for the analysis of self-organization via SNS during crisis circumstances.