Mediatized governance in environmental disasters: self-organizing community rescue through collaborative online documents

The frequency of risks and disasters in contemporary society has created new challenges for rescue governance. Through content analysis and participant observation, this study examined the development of an online collaborative and self-organizing community during the 2021 rainstorm rescue effort in Zhengzhou, China. The study shows that this community provided and optimized major public goods and services, adapted rescue resources to victim needs, facilitated streamlined information transfer, protected privacy, and connected a multitude of actors. The findings illustrate the significance of a new mode of mediatized governance that emphasizes the continuous process of reconciling conflicting interests and encouraging joint action among multiple actors, thereby realizing a flexible and efficient rescue that could not have been achieved by a top-down government-led administration.