Outrage and decontextualization in the communication of extreme weather events on Twitter: analysis of communities and digital public debate about the wildfires in Spain
Abstract
This study has analysed the digital conversation on Twitter regarding the wildfire wave that affected Spain in 2022, which was deemed the worst year of the 21st century in terms of the number of hectares burned -more than 300.000- in Spain. Using a methodological approach based on Social Network Analysis (SNA), 145.081 tweets were analysed and a network of mentions was created. This network contains the digital communities that emerged around this conversation, as well as the predominant tones in the debate. It has been noted that communities with weight and influence in the digital public debate focus their discourse on the attribution of responsibility for the fires through an outraged tone, as well as a clear lack of contextualisation of this extreme event with climate change, aspects that suppose significant challenges to environmental hashtivism.
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