Twitter updates to the #bushfires hashtag
Where do you start with this breathtaking, unattributed statement of “fact” from Emma Young in yesterday’s SMH:
Facebook, Twitter, My Space and their offshoots have a bad reputation. People communicate but they don’t talk, they exchange words without a face and can function as part of a network without ever stepping outside their house. Because of this optional distance, social networking sites like Facebook are panned by the civic-minded for a lack of humanity and authenticity.
Young’s feeble thrust is that the Victorian bushfires have at last given social networks a chance to prove to right-thinking people that they’re capable of closing distance. The whole thing is nonsense of course: social networking has nothing to prove to Young’s invented civic-minded think tank.
We “new” media types are too easily goaded by heritage media but they do represent the thinking of a chunk of the population and supply its “information”. However, for those who have stumbled on this cutting-edge ( 
) blog, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate what Twitter (and other networks) have done in gathering and spreading information about the Victorian bushfires.
The #bushfires and #vicfires hashtags on Twitter bring together many of the tweets about the bushfires, enabling people who don’t usually see each other’s updates to share information. So many tweets, in fact, that a third hashtag emerged, #firecomments, for people just wanting to talk about the fires rather than share facts.
Certainly there’s a proportion of look-at-me emoting, as Stilgherrian describes in Crikey. But there is a genuine need to share the emotions: it’s part of the process, too. Even those of us who aren’t directly impacted are affected and these networks are our communities so they’re the places where we would share what we’re feeling.
Twitter is also catering for the people who want to do more than talk and relay information. A user named Dean created the CFA-Updates account, for instance, which broadcasts updates from the CFA website, reducing load on the site (the CFA has asked people to stay off its website, if they can help it). And ABC Melbourne has won praise for its Twitter feed (@774Melbourne), which is directing offers of help to where they are needed, many of them from people who wouldn’t have access to listen to the same information on the station.
The role that Twitter and services like it might play in another major disaster is something that should be analysed when the crisis is over. The internet was built to ensure that information could still be circulated when systems were under attack, routing round points of failure. Twitter has proven (again, Ms Young) that it has a role to play in a disaster.
[For a digest of social media/networks being used around the bushfires, see Lee Hopkins' post.]
Twitter isn’t just for kids. I’m nearly fifty. I’d only been using it a relatively short space of weeks before the bushfires.
It’s all too easy for some to sit back and pan Twitter’s role or contribution. But it has enabled a channel which is proving itself in a crunch. And if you want to talk about being ‘civic-minded,’ look no further than hundreds of twitter volunteers getting out the information that’s needed.
As one article I read this week pointed out…you’re in a fire, your sole method of contact to the outside world is your mobile phone and twitter, you’d find information which is crucial to surviving and give you a clue what’s happening.
There have been some mistakes and some lessons to sort through during the first few days. There have been well-meaning situations that nearly trod on the flow of important information. But we’ve worked out an etiquette protocol to solve such situations. All as we were going along.
It’s a very good tool. In an emergency it may need a very teeny bit of moderation, but otherwise, I’d give it the thumbs up. It’s enabled a fair few of us to contribute and help in a constructive, meaningful way.
Before any future disaster, though, we’d need to know how we could improve on what was done in this one. I agree, after this, some thought and examination on how to use it more effectively.
Thanks for your comment, George. There have been some thoughtful comments in the media about Twitter recently, particularly abroad, which is perhaps why Emma Young’s silly article was so irksome.
We’re inviting people to guest blog on this site and I have been following your contributions to the #bushfires stream. It would be fascinating to have a first-person account from someone who has been a stalwart of that stream. Would you be interested?
Also, I notice you link to your Lulu self-publishing account. Your experiences with POD would also make a great blog post. Can we tempt you?
At the moment, my main priority is to first of all maintain my efforts on #bushfires and the other two hashtags I’ve monitored. There’s still a huge amount of relevent information to stil put out there until the fires are closer to being out. You can link to my blog if you wish, as I’ve been mulling over a few thoughts each day, depending on what’s been happening. But guest blogging wouldn’t feel right just yet anywhere else. Not with the job still to do just trying to help people.
Experience with POD? A lot of work just to promote a POD book. And at the moment, selling it is on hold until after the bushfire situation is over. That’s why I’ve shuttered any images to do with the book for the moment on my blog page and my twitter page.
The entry on my blog for 17 February might be worth a read. First hand reaction to news on an accused firebug and the fact he is known to have been mentally-handicapped or developmentally handicapped. How that affects reaction to that particular fire.