Building public resilience through social media activism during a collective tragedy

Using the case of the crowd crush tragedy in South Korea, this study examined how publics’ communicative actions on social media helps them to achieve community resilience after experiencing a collective tragedy. Results of a survey with 420 citizens residing in Seoul, South Korea, revealed that active information seeking and forwarding on social media enhanced individuals’ resilience processes—continuity and change—thereby increasing community resilience. Implications for publics’ social media usage and community resilience are suggested.