Informational and Affective needs: Considering Media Dependency Theory in the Context of Twitter and Natural Disasters

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In a relatively short period of time, social media has emerged as a critical resource in the ways in which people make sense of the world around them. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow for the production of user-generated content, allowing individuals to broadcast publicly-available comments and observations to follower groups or those searching along particular keywords, and to do so instantaneously. This capacity for “masspersonal” information-sharing has led social media users to both create and consume content and to generate shared understandings of content and observable situations as they unfold (O’Reilly & Battelle, 2009; Westerman, Spence & Van Der Heide, 2012).