Digital Traces of Online Self-Organizing and Problem Solving in Disaster

Abstract

Natural disasters are associated with breakdown of existing structures, but they also result in creation of new social ties in the process of self-organization and problem solving by those affected. In highly-distributed setting of social media, collaborative arrangements must depend on the aspects of work that facilitate (or not) the creation of a shared information space-such as an explicit shared site of work and visible, legible record of the activity. In my dissertation I investigate what organizational structures emerge through problem solving in the context of more or less explicit shared site of work and more or less visible record of activity.