Analyzing the role of social media in management of flood crisis

Understanding the role, nature, position and potentials of the media, conscious and correct use of the media, in order to properly deal with the crisis,is of essential importance. Therefore, the present study is dedicated to analyzing the content of news related to the flood crisis, with the aim of analyzing the role of social networks (Telegram) in the management of this crisis. The study population is all news broadcast in Telegram channels and groups, including Golestan Crisis Management Channel, News Room Channel, Official Online News Channel, News Coverage Group, News Events Group and Crisis News about the Spring 2019 flood, published from March 21to April 3 2019.Therefore, the method in this research is content analysis, analysis unit and sampling method. Findings show that a total of 26 basic subjects and 9 organizing subjects were extracted from the three subjects before the crisis, during the crisis and after the crisis. In the pre-crisis stage, the three roles of awareness and warning, surveillance, and safe training; during the crisis phase, three roles of informing, accompanying, information gatekeeping and in the post-crisis phase, the three roles of analytics, accountability and calming of social networks (Telegram messengers), were identified. In the analysis of flood-related news, social networks with an interactive approach, used qualitative approach to analyze the published news. The media strategy used in the face of crisis on social media is a passive strategy. Information gatekeeping is less used in social networks and this affects their accuracy and authenticity of their published news. The volume and comprehensiveness of news on social networks is based on a Mirror Model.