Social media analytics to explore community experiences of Tropical Cyclone Alfred

This research explores how communities experienced and responded to Tropical Cyclone Alfred by analysing social media activity before, during and after the event. Drawing on publicly available posts from X, Facebook, and Instagram, the study examines how individuals communicated, sought information and coped with the disaster.
The project focuses on several interrelated aspects of community response. It investigates how emergency warnings were received and acted upon, evaluating the effectiveness of official communication channels alongside informal sources such as local knowledge from ad-hoc and pre-existing social media groups. It also examines how households and businesses prepared for the cyclone, exploring the types of protective measures people took and when they acted.
Findings show official one-to-many crisis warnings (e.g., on X) led to less community engagement compared with many-to-many communications in group structures (e.g., in Facebook groups). The study also finds that social media user engagement, including serious discussions about preparedness and recovery, is more pronounced in visual short-form formats (e.g., Instagram reels) compared with textual short-form formats (e.g., X, Facebook posts). Consequently, crisis response agencies can use these findings to adjust their emergency communication strategies to (1) leverage existing many-to-many group structures (e.g., through community ambassadors), (2) prioritise visual short-form media (e.g., TikTok) to benefit from the now dominant practice of “algorithmic audiencing” and (3) use thread-based platforms (e.g., Reddit) to increase control and predictability when engaging with Australian communities on social media.