Visualizing Institutions: Tweeting Images and Emotions in the Wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings

On April 15, 2013, two bombs were detonated near the Boston Marathon finish line, bringing the race to a halt and killing three onlookers and seriously injuring over 260 others. Onlookers in Boston and across the world turned to social media, and especially the microblogging website Twitter (now “X”), to express their reactions and feelings. We analyzed #BostonStrong tweets and accompanying images to understand how images and attendant emotions animate the work of reappraising institutions, particularly in the wake of disruption or crisis. Our findings expose the surprising criticality of images in response to tragedy, complementing textual expressions and revealing an unexpectedly positive emotional tenor in tweets. Our work points to the practical value in generating and drawing on collective symbolic resources – like “Boston Strong” – as a starting point for understanding the development of resilience in the face of institutional disruption.