Peripheral response:Microblogging during the 22/7/2011 Norway attacks

This paper presents a case study of a very recent man-made crisis in Norway on 22 July, 2011, during which a single person first detonated a bomb in downtown Oslo and then killed 69 young people on the island of Utøya. It proposes a novel way of conceptualizing the public contribution to mobilization of resources using microblogging, particularly tweeting. By examining aspects of public and professional response to this crisis, the notion of peripheral response is developed in relation to emergent forms of agile and dialogic emergency response. Through examining the distributed efforts of responding to the crisis, the paper also revisits situation awareness and reflects upon the dynamic and constantly changing environment that social media and crises inhabit together

The Effects of Utilizing Social Media Tools During Crisis from Public Relations Practitioners' Views in the UAE

Despite growing interest in social media over the last few years all over the world, there is a lack of empirical studies on the extent to which PR practitioners in the UAE are using social media tools, and in particular, during crisis. Consequently, this study is designed to bridge this gap in research. The study aims to bring to attention the dynamics of using social media among public PR practitioners during crisis in one of the Gulf countries -countries that have different economic, social and political contexts. The current study is considered one of the pioneer studies in the public relations\u27 field in the UAE which aims to investigate how public relations practitioners are using social media tools in crisis. It also explores public relations practitioners\u27 perceptions and attitudes towards using social media during crisis. A random sample of 160 PR practitioners was selected from different public and private organizations in the UAE. The results indicated that PR practitioners are active and heavy social media users in their organizations during crisis. Furthermore, the study confirmed that the most commonly used communication strategies were compensation, corrective action and justification. Additionally, the study suggested that the organization\u27s websites and Twitter were the most effective social media tools used during a crisis