Unravelling dynamics of vulnerability and social media use on displaced minors in the aftermath of Italian earthquakes

The uses of social media technologies in disaster risk management have been increasing in recent years, and a high number of studies have been produced with the purpose to investigate how social media can support disaster risk management processes. However, some criticalities in the use of social media, especially connected to limitations to accessibility, representativeness capacity, and the risks of disinformation and surveillance, have emerged and need to be further investigated. Accordingly, this work offers a critical analysis on how social media can impact post-disaster vulnerability, but also how it can be used as a tool for resilience by vulnerable people. In particular, the paper focuses on the challenges to which displaced minors have to deal with in post-disaster settings, following a series of large earthquakes which struck central Italy in 2016 and 2017. The results show that virtual space, and especially social media, is used by displaced minors to deal with the transformations that occur to the physical spaces of sociality. The virtual space becomes a potential source of resilience to help reconnecting with places and communities and working as a potential space of catharsis. The study is based on a series of semistructured and in-depth interviews that took place in Italy between 2021 and 2022. The interviews involved participants with experience in disaster risk management in Italy, as well as with direct experience in the response and recovery efforts for the 2016-2017 Italian earthquakes.