#AustraliaFires2020: obraz katastrofy w mediach online. Analiza wzorów komunikacji cyfrowej

The recent fires in Australia are included among the largest ecological and natural disasters in the present-day world, causing significant damage to ecosystem and killing animals and people. The study presented here sought to analyse the role of online media, particularly social networks, in the dissemination of information during the disaster that struck Australia between December 2019 and January 2020. The primary aim was to analyse patterns of interpersonal communication in social media. What is the role of social media in such situations? Are they sources of information about disasters? How important for this communication are factors such as online impact, online mentions using keywords and hashtags, sentiments, influencers and geographical variables? Descriptive and quantitative methodology was employed along with Mediatoolkit, a tool for online media monitoring and analytics, to track online media coverage for selected hashtags for 32 days during the fires in Australia. The analysis revealed a public interest in the Australia fires and climate change across social networks, with the particular role of Twitter as the main channel of communication among people during the disaster.