Mary Ann Glynn, Joseph F. Cotter Professor of Management and Organization & Director of Research, Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, Carroll School of Management at Boston College

On April 15, 2013, the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon was the site of an act of terrorism. Two bombs detonated; three lives were lost; hundreds of people were severely injured; and the city grieved. The public response was immediate, defiant, enduring, captured in what became a ubiquitous claim: “Boston Strong.” The city resiled and became a model for response and recovery. We investigate the role of discourse on social media to reveal how such communications expressed cognition and emotion, condensed into a powerful symbol ("Boston Strong") and crafted strategies of action, over the two years following the Bombings; we supplement this with interviews and participant observation in public events. We map the dynamic processes over time and reveal how symbolic meanings and practices associated with the Marathon and Boston were reconstituted in a complex interplay of collective online sensemaking, emotional expression, and calls to action. We theorize that “Boston Strong” functioned as a “condensation symbol,” and we show how it endured and expanded beyond its original expression.