From the OC Weekly:
The study co-authored by Carter Butts, a UCI professor of sociology affiliated with the California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology, found that messages describing hazard impacts and emphasizing cohesion among users generated the most retweets. … “In an emergency, information comes to us from our friends, family and co-workers as often as from official sources," Butts says.

For the full story, please visit http://www.ocweekly.com/news/uci-research-exposes-effectiveness-of-terror-or-natural-disaster-tweets-6843794.