Observation on copying and pasting behavior during the Tohoku earthquake: Retweet pattern changes

•Retweet patterns in the Tohoku earthquake were analyzed.•Users became more sensitive to the fact whether the messages include the earthquake relevant keywords or not.•Whereas, the pattern of including external hyperlinks was declined.•This study contributes to the research stream on dynamic patterns of framing messages in that it supplies empirical evidences of pattern changes before and after the outbreak of a disaster.

Social media has become one of the primary sources for risk communication in a disaster. Especially, the behavior of copying and pasting messages generated by others is a primary method to redistribute information in this context. This paper examines the mediated messages that were generated after the outbreak of the Tohoku earthquake to investigate patterns of selecting received messages for redistribution. The results show that the frequency of mediated messages including external hyperlinks decreased after the disaster. In addition, the impact of a direct request to mediate a message was diminished. However, users became more sensitive to the fact whether the messages include the earthquake relevant keywords or not. This study contributes to the research stream on dynamic patterns of framing messages in that it supplies empirical evidences of pattern changes before and after the outbreak of a disaster.