"Our Hearts Go Out": Social Support and Gratitude after Disaster

Disasters have devastating effects on communities, which struggle to recover without sufficient social support. This exploratory study uses Twitter as a lens for examining gratitude for support provisions in the aftermath of disasters. Gratitude for support is examined in the context of two major disasters in the United States, the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and a May 2011 tornado that devastated Alabama. Analyzing tweets from these communities after each disaster, we identified and described six categories of support exchanged through Twitter. We found distinct difference in expressions of gratitude for different types of social support in these two communities. While some of these differences could be expected based on the nature of the disaster, others were less predictable. These findings suggest that social media has value as a window into real-time community behaviors relating to response and healing after disaster, and may offer potential for monitoring community resilience and recovery, and provide insights for disaster mental health provision.