title: Snow Tweets: Emergency Information Dissemination in a US County During 2014 Winter Storms.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This paper describes how American federal, state, and local organizations created, sourced, and disseminated emergency information via social media in preparation for several winter storms in one county in the state of New Jersey (USA).
  
  
  METHODS
  Postings submitted to Twitter for three winter storm periods were collected from selected organizations, along with a purposeful sample of select private local users. Storm-related posts were analyzed for stylistic features (hashtags, retweet mentions, embedded URLs). Sharing and re-tweeting patterns were also mapped using NodeXL.
  
  
  RESULTS
  RESULTS indicate emergency management entities were active in providing preparedness and response information during the selected winter weather events. A large number of posts, however, did not include unique Twitter features that maximize dissemination and discovery by users. Visual representations of interactions illustrate opportunities for developing stronger relationships among agencies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Whereas previous research predominantly focuses on large-scale national or international disaster contexts, the current study instead provides needed analysis in a small-scale context. With practice during localized events like extreme weather, effective information dissemination in large events can be enhanced.
authors: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Galloway, New Jersey, USA.
authors: Jess
authors: J
authors: Bonnan-White
authors: Department of Physics, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Galloway, New Jersey, USA.
authors: Jason
authors: J
authors: Shulman
authors: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Galloway, New Jersey, USA.
authors: Abigail
authors: A
authors: Bielecke