Twitter and Self-organization of Connective Action - The Case of Missing Iranian Climbers.

Immediately after three Iranian climbers went missing on Broad Peak in the Himalayas in July 2013, Iranian Twitter users reacted and participated in a communication flow that led to spontaneous organization toward a common cause. We examined this tweet-based self-organization through quantitative and qualitative analyses of the information-sharing patterns of users during a two-week period surrounding the day when the climbers were reported missing. The data analysis process included descriptive and content analyses of 32,760 Persian and English tweets through generating hashtag, mention, and word frequency as well as topic modeling of the tweets. The results of the study proved the formation of a self-organized connective action by Iranians; previously non-affiliated people came together in an emergency, contributed to disseminating news about the event, and internally coordinated the flow of communication to reach their common goal. Iranian Twitter users worked toward making the disappearance of the climbers a trending topic on Twitter to draw global attention and used hashtags and mentions to coordinate their self-organized communication network toward reaching out to international news agencies and organizations for help. Our analysis suggests that while new media facilitated the participation of masses of people in this common cause, traditional media was deemed more effective in mobilizing resources and authorities and hence was reached out to for help disseminating information with the hope of accelerating the rescue process. The study provided insights into the dynamics of Twitter-based connective action in crisis communication in a non-Western socio-cultural context.