Twitter and Disasters: The uses of Twitter during the 2010 Pakistan floods

This research explores the specific use of the prominent social media website Twitter during the 2010 Pakistan floods to examine whether users tend to tweet/retweet links from traditional versus social media, what countries these users are tweeting from, and whether there is a correlation between location and the linking of traditional versus social media. The study finds that Western users have an overwhelming preference for linking to traditional media and Pakistani users have a slight preference for linking to social media. The study also concludes that authorities and hubs in our sample have a significant preference for linking to social media rather than traditional media sites. The findings of this study suggest that there is a perceived legitimacy of social media during disasters by users in Pakistan. Additionally, it provides insights into how social media may be – albeit minimally – challenging the dominant position of traditional media in disaster reporting in developing countries.