Collective tragedy and digital emotions: the Earthquake in Abruzzi “lived” on Facebook

Alessandra Micalizzi

IULM University – Communication dept.

alessandra.micalizzi@iulm.it

AFFECTIVE FABRICS OF DIGITAL CULTURE: FEELINGS, TECHNOLOGIES, POLITICS

University of Manchester – Manchester research Inititute for Cosmopolitan Cultures (RICC)

Framing the research: the Event

Something about the Abruzzi earthquake:

On 6th April 2009 (3.32 A.M.) there was an hard sequence of earthquake shakes;

After few hours the L’Aquila City center was destroyed and about ten little countries experience the same situation;

All communication channels are disrupted;

After the following two weeks the there were 1600 hurts and 286 deads.

Framing the research: mediascapes

What happened on the Media and above all the Net: The information about the Event arrives above

all the next morning (TV and Radio gave the news also in the night but the tragedy happened in the night, so common people aren’t informed about that, a part o f the direct or indirect interested)

The movement on the Net started the next day too, but someone, with a key modem could inform relatives about what had happened;

The groups in Facebook started in the first hours of the afternoon…

Framing the research: who are the victims?

Cusano (2002) individuates three typologies of victims: The persons that are directly involved The relatives of that persons Experts and help operators that work on the

field in case of tragedy.

According to me there are an other typology of victm: Audience-surfers : people who “live” the events

through the media, but has a great affective and emotional involvement

Framing the research: a focus on Facebook

Definition of the Net: A narrative technology (Walzer, 2001:2002)

“where” is defined a new socio-anthropological place, where doing experiences of virtual togetherness (Bakardjieva, 2005)

The structure of Facebook:

The Facebook page isn’t a collective space where writing about self (like a forum), but is a personal space where you allow other people to access.

The group in Facebook are based on:- The joining by invitation or direct contact- A viral fowarding of the group link

The goals of the research

What is the role of the Net in the specific circumstance of a collective tragedy?

More specifically, the research wants to understand: the characteristics of the fragmented narratives

shared on Facebook; the motivations (of Facebookers) connected with

the act of publishing personal feelings in a public space;

the expectations about the effects of the posting action;

the collective representation of the earthquake (above all on a visual level) on Facebook;

the functions of the Net in order to elaborate a collective trauma.

Methods and sample

Narrative qualitative content analisys of 21.000 posts of the first 5 groups about the earthquake;

E-mail interviews with authors of the posts (25 on 100 contacts);

visual analysis of 500 photos, chosen in order to represent the first 500 groups

The results

In the next slides I show the results about the narrative content analysis and about the e-mail interviews - used as support to the first part of the research – in order to:

describe the different typologies of narratives Individuate motivations and expectations Define the functions of the Net

The schedule for narrative analysis

Subject: What is the focus of the narrative? The Event The author of the narration

The object: what kind of the theme is proposed on the post? Anecdote: something about the earthquake Experience: something referred to the past Emotion: feelings and sentiment about the

event Needs: specific request (foods, help, lost

people etc)

The schedule for narrative analysis

The referent: who is the addressee of the post?

All the facebookers Specific referents (known persons or the author

of the post)

The aim: what is the implicit or explicit motivation contained in the message?

To express (more personal) To share To describe (more analytic and detouched)

Typologies of narratives

I identified 9 typologies:

Typologies Subject Object Referent aims

Help request Event-f Needs everyone express

Empathetic solidarity

I-focused Emotions Specific others Share

Pragmatic Solidarity

I-focused Needs Specific others share

Witness Event-f. Anecdote everyone Express

Denunciation Event-f. Anecdote everyone Describe

Pray Event-f Emotion Specific others Share

Memory I-focused Experience Self Describe

Searching I-focused Experience everyone Describe

Delayedmourning

I-focused Emotions Specific others express

Motivations and expectations

Why they arrive to the group: The respondents declare to be arrived to the

group through:• Invitation forwarded by a friend• Personal search on Facebook• By chance

In any case, they have a link with the Abruzzi (or the event): Sense of belonging Relatives Previous experience of earthquake Direct experience (especially of help)

Motivations and expectations

Why they wrote on the wall: The reasons expressed in the e-mail interviews

confirm my classification with the content analysis:

• To share feelings of solidarity, a pray for the victims, memories about previous experience

• To express emotions (above all anger, pain and suffer) or the sense of belonging

• To promote initiatives • To inform about incorrect actions

Motivations and expectations

More in depth, they underline the importance of writing on the Net in order to: give and to leave a memory (not to forget!) give a sign of their presence (“we are a part of…

we are affectively close to…”)

At the same time: Some respondents don’t remember to have

wrote on the wall (generally people less engaged)

Some interviewees – more involved –used the interview to tell again what happened on 6 April 2009 in their life

Motivations and expectations

With which expectations: To move to an action: In a lot of cases, the act

of writing on the wall was the first sign of pragmatic participation to the event;

They don’t express specific expectations, especially when the message is about emotions and feelings (I wrote only to pour out my feelings)

They specify the importance to leave e memory (not to forget)

They would express the sense of belonging to Abruzzi (not of being Italians)

The functions

I try to elaborate e synthetic model about the functions of the Net using two axis:

The narrative focus: I-focused vs. Event-focused;

The aim of the posting: egocentric vs. solidarity one.

In this way I identified 4 functions: (proto) Therapeutic f. Socio-affective f. Pragmatic f. Function of memory

Final model

I-focused

Event-focused

solidarityegocentricity

Delay. Mourning

memory

searching

Emph. Solidarity

Pragm. solidarity

Denunciation

Help request

Witness

Pray

(Proto) therapeutic f. Socio-affective f.

Memory f. Pragmatic f.