Samenvatting

By pointing to the immense use of Twitter by citizens during crises, communication experts argue that governments should participate more actively on Twitter during crises. Until now, however, little empirical research has been conducted to validate this claim. This article aims at validating this claim and putting forward building blocks for an evidence-based vision on the use of Twitter by governments during flash crises, i.e. large-scale incidents that occur unexpectedly and immediately. The authors analysed 52.806 tweets sent by citizens and governments during a large-scale industrial fire in Moerdijk (2011). They looked at the content of the tweets and sorted them into fourteen categories. The results show that most of the tweets sent by citizens contained no new or relevant information for governments. In addition, the tweets sent by governments were totally ‘snowed under’ in the huge stream of tweets from citizens. Consequently, the tweets sent by governments were very little re-tweeted by Twitter users. The authors conclude that the Moerdijk case does not show a need for a more proactive role of governments on Twitter.