Spatial and Social Embeddedness of Emergency Contact Ties

• In Event: 2207 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Digital Geographies

Abstract

The importance of networks for the dissemination of information has been widely agreed upon, whether through face-to-face interaction (Centola and Macy, 2007; Granovetter, 1973) or online (Bakshy et al., 2012; Guille et al., 2013; Zinoviev, 2011). How information is diffused during emergencies or disasters is of interest to researchers and arguably to emergency managements officials and organizations as well as it has important implications for resource mobilization and aid. When a disaster occurs, information diffuses quickly, and this information often diffuses through pre-existing personal ties. Thus, in order to understand where information will go when a disaster occurs, we need to understand these conduits for information diffusion and where they are located. However, although disasters are inherently spatial phenomena, we do not currently have a grasp on the geography of these ties. Using a spatially stratified egocentric network sample of adults in the western United States, we examine respondents' set of potential emergency contact ties in an attempt to characterize the relation with respect to social and geographic space. In particular, we explore to extent to which these ties are geographically close versus socially-emotionally close. Preliminary results indicate that non-household emergency contact ties tend to be strong and are often relatively long-range, suggesting that despite the spatial nature of disasters, information does not necessarily remain local.

Authors

• Emily J. Smith, University of California-Irvine

• John R. Hipp, University of California-Irvine

• Nicholas Nagle, University of Tennessee-Knoxville