During disasters like hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, and earthquakes there are a lot of people that are going to either know or want to know what is going on. Before there were social media sites like twitter and Wikipedia it was not very likely that you were going to be able to get minute by minute coverage on what it going on in these disaster areas.
As a first time user of Twitter, it is clear that, although geared towards people interested in media, it is very accessible to the average person who may not be completely enthralled with the new technologies. This allows for the information posted onto these sites to have a very broad spectrum of topics and coverage of disasters.
When searching around for news sites that had coverage of disasters, there were a few key ones that seemed to show up more often then others; AidNews, Breaking News, and the American Red Cross. These groups are “followed” by people connected to the website where they can communicate back and forth about the goings on in the world.
In times of disaster these sites are great for keeping people in touch with other people in different parts of the world and country. Topics consisted mostly of information about these disasters typically in this particular order:
First, if it is certain that the disaster is going to happen, the topics revolve around what is expected to happen when the disaster hits, and what is pre-emptive actions are being taken to soften the blow of the disaster.
Once the disaster has struck the forums all seem to be buzzing with every detail of what is happening in the effected area. Topics including what is being done in the immediate future to help victims to safety, what are the effects of the disaster, including total of deaths, injuries, homes destroyed and the like.
After the disaster, there are endless posts about people wanting to collect supplies for the injured, how to donate money and time to the people effected by the disaster, the actions that are being done to now rebuild the area, and how the people that were affected are doing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment