The spread of information: the Australian bushfire crisis 2019-2020

Abstract

Australia’s environment has always been affected in one way or the other by bushfires. Most of Australia's native plants rely on fire to reproduce themselves. Furthermore, native Australians have been using fire to protect their belongings and for agricultural reasons for centuries. This paper will focus on how the information spread through social media, in particular through Twitter. The aim is to see how information, about the Australian bushfire crisis, spread through Twitter and to see what the public perception was. In further detail, this thesis is divided into three sections. The first section is dedicated to the most important social media and mass communication literature. The second section is dedicated to the Australian bushfire crisis of 2019/2020, in detail. Meanwhile, the third section will focus on web research and Twitter data analysis of the news and information surrounding the Australian bushfire crisis and its public perception.