Cross-Media Linking in Times of Disaster

Many possible links and connections can be observed between the different types of media used for communication during a crisis. These links can be detected and assembled to provide a more complete picture of events. They can be categorized according to the type of destination which yields important information for the gathering process as well as concerning general patterns of how platforms are connected. Tweets, posts and comments thus become parts of larger, linked sets of documents forming compound-documents. These documents stretch across media borders and platforms and provide context and broader information for individual entries. In the current paper we describe some of the links and linking behavior encountered during the floods in Central Europe of 2013 from the perspective of Twitter and Facebook.