Social Media and Urban Resilience: A Case Study of the 2016 Jakarta Terror Attack

Abstract

The rise of urban terrorism worldwide underscores an urgent research need for public administration. The unpredictable nature of urban terrorism requires resilience of the city. This paper examines the role of social media in effecting urban resilience during the 2016 Jakarta terrorism, by raising two research questions: 1) what are critical capabilities necessary for urban resilience in the face of urban terrorism? 2) how does social media effect urban resilience? We collected 212 articles published by Detik.com, an online news article website based in Indonesia, for media content analysis. Moreover, we closely examined the use of social media by Jakarta stakeholders on January 14, 2016. By drawing on adaptive capacity research, our study finds that urban resilience was influenced by capabilities such as information and communication, competence, social capital, and leaderships. Our findings indicate the critical role of social media in leveraging the salient capabilities for faster recovery from the terror attack and hence greater urban resilience.