TY - JOUR
T1 - Organizational sensemaking in tough times
T2 - The ecology of NGOs’ COVID-19 issue discourse communities on social media
AU - Li, Yiqi
AU - Shin, Jieun
AU - Sun, Jingyi
AU - Kim, Hye Min
AU - Qu, Yan
AU - Yang, Aimei
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - NGOs are important civil actors in societies' emergency and disaster responses, and they come together on social media to identify prominent issues and coordinate issue responses. This research explores how U.S. NGO form topic-driven communities on social media to discuss and build representational strategic networks around issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from Issue Niche Theory, we examined how NGOs' networks and discourse evolved before and after the general public paid great attention to the COVID-19 issue and how such patterns changed across the whole issue niche and sub-issue niches. We analyzed the evolution of Twitter-based networks and discourse of 2,588 NGOs in the first five months of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. Our analysis revealed important factors that shape tie formation patterns in the NGOs' communities in this novel issue niche. The findings show that NGOs’ discourses help to orient the organizational community to identify most salient issues. Finally, changes in the discourse patterns reflected changes in the communication networks in the NGO community.
AB - NGOs are important civil actors in societies' emergency and disaster responses, and they come together on social media to identify prominent issues and coordinate issue responses. This research explores how U.S. NGO form topic-driven communities on social media to discuss and build representational strategic networks around issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from Issue Niche Theory, we examined how NGOs' networks and discourse evolved before and after the general public paid great attention to the COVID-19 issue and how such patterns changed across the whole issue niche and sub-issue niches. We analyzed the evolution of Twitter-based networks and discourse of 2,588 NGOs in the first five months of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. Our analysis revealed important factors that shape tie formation patterns in the NGOs' communities in this novel issue niche. The findings show that NGOs’ discourses help to orient the organizational community to identify most salient issues. Finally, changes in the discourse patterns reflected changes in the communication networks in the NGO community.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Issue niche
KW - NGO
KW - Organizational community
KW - Social issue discourse
KW - Social networks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105956629&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.chb.2021.106838
DO - 10.1016/j.chb.2021.106838
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105956629
SN - 0747-5632
VL - 122
JO - Computers in Human Behavior
JF - Computers in Human Behavior
M1 - 106838
ER -