Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai
November 27, 2008 · Filed Under Citizen Media Monitor, Future of Media, Great Citizen Journalism, Great Use of Community, Great Work Gallery, Blogs
CNN.com reports that “social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news-gathering force to be reckoned with” within minutes of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India.
With more than 6 million members worldwide, an estimated 80 messages, or “tweets,” were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds, providing eyewitness accounts and updates.
Many Twitter users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in Mumbai where doctors were faced with low stocks and rising casualties.
Others sent information about helplines and contact numbers for those who had friends and relatives caught up in the attacks. Tweeters were also mobilized to help with transcribing a list of the dead and injured from hospitals, which were quickly posted online.
As Twitter user “naomieve” wrote: “Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action.”
Neha Viswanathan, a former regional editor for Southeast Asia and a volunteer at Global Voices, told CNN, “Even before I actually heard of it on the news I saw stuff about this on Twitter.
“People were sending in messages about what they were hearing. There were at least five or six blogs from people who were trapped, or who were very close to what happened.”
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11 Responses to “Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai”
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[...] questa straordinaria esperienza di comunicazione, mi sembra molto significativo quanto scrive oggi Cnn: ”(…) Social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news-gathering [...]
Want to know what people tweet about it ? See you on http://tweetag.com/#mumbai/
Who gives a what a bunch of people without real lives (social networkers, aka losers) think or do? We once had friends; we now interact with machines and people we know and care nothing about. It’s rather sad and pathetic, when you think about it. I think I’ll go discuss the events in India with my next door neighbor. I know he’s real.
[...] Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai [...]
This is an email I sent to CNN:
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I am the Twitter user naomieve referred to in the article. I would like to provide some context around the tweet quoted by CNN.com. The tweet Stephanie Busari refers to was NOT supposed to promote the social media aspects over the realities of what was happening to Mumbai.
I actually expanded further on this tweet to argue why I was disappointed that the focus of many tweets regarding Mumbai was to congratulate social media and Twitter for being faster on the uptake than traditional media.
I go on to expand on this in a discussion with Twitter user gyokusai where I say “#mumbai is a media experiment while mumbai is the city under attack that Twitter half the time forgets is bleeding”. That is - the Mumbai experience on Twitter is half genuine citizen journalism in action, and half self-congratulatory social media participants just happy to see a lot of publicity for Twitter regardless of the actual situation on the ground.
It is precisely that mix of content which was disturbing me at the time. Unfortunately that is also the reality of citizen journalism, the Twitter experience, social media - the whole online experience of no quality control or central control over the message to be delivered. I still believe Twitter is a crucial tool for circulating information, from, among and to the people who are in that moment and hoping for a happy ending. But I was and still am upset that users are more interested in what the Mumbai horror meant for Twitter, than what it meant for humanity. Unfortunately, for all the Twitter fanatics may like to argue, the two are NOT identical!
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Thanking for this statement, it is a huge problem in every kind of jouranlism when people are cited not correctly
[...] Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai [...]
[...] light. I found this piece about the use of social media during the Mumbai crisis useful. Also this piece. Visited the Sydney headquarters of AAP this week. They do good videos. And I like their [...]
[...] Media carries a short article on the trend-changing event I had mentioned in class - the tweeting of the Nov. 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks. If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, a micro-blogging network you may check it out here. Yes, I [...]
[...] cannot host video so there was no contest per se. No, the point is that just like the riots in Mumbai demonstrated with people Twittering from the area at the time, Twitter’s 140 character micro [...]
Many Twitter users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in Mumbai