1. AFFECTIVE FABRICS OF DIGITAL CULTURE: FEELINGS, TECHNOLOGIES, POLITICS
University of Manchester – Manchester research Inititute for
Cosmopolitan Cultures (RICC)
Collective tragedy and digital emotions: the
Earthquake in Abruzzi “lived” on Facebook
Alessandra Micalizzi
IULM University – Communication dept.
alessandra.micalizzi@iulm.it

2. 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.

3. 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…

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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)

11. Typologies of narratives
 I identified 9 typologies:
Typologies Subject Object Referent aims
Help request Event-f Needs everyone express
Empathetic I-focused Emotions Specific others Share
solidarity
Pragmatic I-focused Needs Specific others share
Solidarity
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
Delayed I-focused Emotions Specific others express
mourning

12. 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)

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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)

16. 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

17. Final model
(Proto) therapeutic f. I-focused Socio-affective f.
Delay. Mourning Emph. Solidarity
memory
searching
Pragm. solidarity
egocentricity solidarity
Witness
Denunciation
Pray Help request
Memory f. Pragmatic f.
Event-focused