Do ICTs help to maintain social capital in the disaster recovery phase? A case study of the L'aquila earthquake

The use of new interactive communication tools, particularly social networking sites (SNSs), has grown considerably in the last couple of decades. According to Boyd and Ellison (2007), SNSs are defined as web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile, ar-ticulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and make visible their social net-works. New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are changing the way in which we communicate and interact with each other (Hu, Johnston & Hemphill, 2013). These communication tools allow for a switch from one-directional communication (from the issuers to the receivers) to multi-directional communication where everyone can spread and exchange information. In addition, with this new form of communication, networks are no longer related to a specific space and the people who live there-they are now outspread networks (Sutton, 2010).