ORCID
Yiqi Li: 0000-0002-3730-5743
Document Type
Article
Date
Spring 2025
Disciplines
Communication Technology and New Media | Organizational Communication | Social Media
Description/Abstract
This study examines how the communication network structure of a community of U.S. nonprofits evolves in response to the COVID-19
pandemic by examining their multiplex strategic communication network- building on Twitter/X. This study identifies two types of networks:
representational ties (for third-party audiences) and substantial ties (for direct resource exchange). Our findings suggest that organizations remain consistent with network strategies through different crisis stages, and the crisis provides opportunities for nonprofits to maintain existing substantial networks while building more extensive substantial networks. Representational ties, even the ones formed pre-crisis, hold the potential to turn into substantial relationships. Theoretically, this research contributes to the network evolution theory that network tie variation and selection could occur simultaneously through a multiplex process. Practically, organizations could strategically expand representational connections in normal times to prepare for crises.
Recommended Citation
Li, Yiqi; Yang, Aimei; Liu, Wenlin; Sun, Jingyi; Michigan State University; and Chen, Lizhen, "Variation and Selection During Pandemic: Toward A Multiplex Framework for Understanding Nonprofit Community Network Evolution in Crisis Time" (2025). iSchool - All Scholarship. 1.
https://surface.syr.edu/ischoolall/1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Organizational Communication Commons, Social Media Commons
