Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on April 20, 2010, information was widely broadcast through social media platforms such as Twitter. This study aimed to gain insights into the content and flow of the tweets that had shaped the conversation related to the oil spill within the first 4 months of the rig explosion and to understand how these online interactions may have contributed to disaster response and resilience. A set of tweets (n = 876,298) was identified and processed to yield 736,324 clean tweets. The study used a mixed-methods approach, including human coding, machine learning and social network analysis to examine the online discourse. Visualizations were used to present the patterns and connections within the dataset into a more readable and interpretable format. Our analysis revealed that popular themes such as environmental and economic concerns, clean-up and volunteering, health impacts and frustration towards BP had contributed to the shaping of the discourse. The Twitter users included seekers and providers of information and resources. Another group of users, local volunteers and digital activists, functioned as boundary spanners by facilitating information flow between the seekers and the providers. Additionally, Twitter had been used for risk communication and the dissemination of factual health information. The online communication and coordination efforts may have contributed to the mitigation of the impacts of the oil spill. Our findings suggest that social media empowered community-based users, affording access to power brokers, reliable information, the formation of online networks and social capital and potentially contributed to their resilience.

在2010年4月20日发生的“深水地平线”溢油事故之后，信息已通过Twitter等社交媒体平台广泛传播。这项研究的目的是深入了解在钻机爆炸后的前四个月内与漏油有关的对话所涉及的推文的内容和流程，并了解这些在线互动如何对灾难响应和复原力做出贡献。确定了一组推文（n = 876,298）并进行处理，以产生736,324条干净的推文。这项研究采用了混合方法，包括人类编码，机器学习和社交网络分析，以研究在线话语。可视化用于将数据集中的模式和连接呈现为更具可读性和可解释性的格式。我们的分析表明，流行的主题（如环境和经济问题，清理和志愿服务，对健康的影响以及对BP的挫败感）促成了话语的形成。Twitter用户包括信息和资源的寻求者和提供者。另一组用户（本地志愿者和数字活动家）通过促进搜寻者与提供者之间的信息交流来充当边界扳手。此外，Twitter还被用于风险交流和事实健康信息的传播。在线交流和协调工作可能有助于减轻溢油影响。我们的调查结果表明，社交媒体可以增强社区用户的能力，使他们可以访问电力经纪人，获得可靠的信息，