socialmedian: Report: In Emergencies, People Turn to Facebook

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Report: In Emergencies, People Turn to Facebook

Source: ReadWriteWeb

Apr 30, 2008

Summary

A study that will appear in tomorrow's New Scientist magazine found that social media sites, blogs, and instant messaging services were better at connecting people and providing warnings during emergencies than traditional sources of such information, according to the Telegraph. Dr. Leysia Palen, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, led a research team that studied uses of social media during last fall's wildfires in California and last spring's shootings at Virginia Tech for the report.

During the wildfires, the team found that people were using Twitter to spread updates about where the fires were to friends and family, and Google maps mashups were hacked together to keep people informed of new fires and schools and businesses that were closed. This information was was being disseminated far more quickly than via official governmental channels, according to the report.

"The mass media were unreliable, the study found, as they struggled to access remote areas from which website users with an internet connection could easil

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Comments (5)

Carterfsmith,

May 01, 2008

Great find - I first noted that three police departments were on Facebook (there are now five) and two (there's now a third, but no posts yet, though they have 5 followers) are on Twitter. I made some suggestions in our recent book that police departments could find innovative ways to communicate with the communities, and I have been impressed with those who are (and I am waiting patiently for the tens of thousands who are not). I delved a little deeper into a hypothetical scenario in a post on Social Network Commerce.

I have noted also that a fire department is Twittering (update: Now there's a second). The @LAFD has a very active presence in the Twitterverse, and they add followers by the day (you can follow them, too) though they are only following one. And I just realized that there are nine (yes, 9) Fire Departments on Facebook -- wow!

And yesterday (Wednesday, April 30, 2008), while Twittering with Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), I learned from @wscottw3 (yeah, the Comcast guy) that Amber Alerts are on Twitter, too - see @Amber_Alert, whose Twitter Feed is directly from the national website DM.

http://carterfsmith.blogspot.com/2008/04/amber-alerts-using-social-web-at-least.html

Kamilp,

Jul 15, 2008

Interesting outputs from the research

Jasonkincaid,

Jul 28, 2008

testing this clip

Hoshposh,

Oct 09, 2008

Also raises the importance of someones reliability and whether you can trust the news you hear from those social sites. Great insight though

Zahhh,

Oct 09, 2008

i believe people will take in any negative breaking news immediately and check on it, hence the acceptance of citizen journalism. Who would post a rumor about earthquake or gun shooting? great article.