On the Scene of Major Disasters: The Influence of Social Media is Underestimated

If there is one aspect of social media and "new wave" communications that is underestimated, it is social media and the impact it has on the coverage of natural disasters. The catastrophic earthquake in Japan that jolted all of us from our sleep today and the recent ones in New Zealand and Haiti are the latest examples of how social media lets us "live in the moment"of these unfolding tragedies in a way that even live TV news cannot replicate.

There is something "eerily intimate" about watching a homemade YouTube video from the streets of an earthquake zone; watching an amateur camera pan crumbling buildings, broken glass, overturned vehicles and downed power lines with the slow, sifting rise of smoke as the only movement in the video. For me, that trumps a television reporter's commentary and professional pictures on the reality meter.  TV feels like TV but a YouTube feels like real life.

Live Twitter feeds from the scene of natural disasters also push some emotional and internal buttons because they are people's real, live thoughts at the moment of tragedy. You are privy to the first thing that comes to their minds by virtue of a tweet.

And then there are people sharing thoughts and information via blogs, Facebook posts and even photo sharing social media sites like Flickr. All of this adds a "reality layer" to the news coverage, giving it depth and meaning and context.

Traditional news is still good for the who, what, when, where and why. But social media is all about the "how" -- how does it feel to be there, how does it affect life at its most basic element (emotion and the soul), and how does it really look,sound and feel from the inside. Social media lets us go there and almost simulate what it is like.

Here is an interesting news report on social media in the wake of the Japan earthquake.

And here is one interesting homemade YouTube video among many.