Here’s how old I am: When I wanted to make a strong impression in accepting my first full time job, in 1972, I sent a telegram. To me, the means of communication symbolized urgency and importance. Today urgency and importance are increasingly signaled through social media, as the convergence of social and news media speed along.
My teenaged children have never sent nor received a telegram. They rarely talk on the phone or send emails, preferring to text friends’ cell phones or, in my son’s case, through game communications in World of Warcraft. He knows many of his friends will be there, just as my daughter knows a lot of dialogue among her classmates is going on through Facebook.
I now check Twitter a couple of times a day, LinkedIn every day or two and Facebook when it alerts me, for signs of what my friends and colleagues are up to.
The widespread adoption of social media in personal and business communication is now working its way into the news ecosystem, with Hurricane Gustav being the latest example.
I picked three news organizations (formerly known as newspapers) with good track records I knew were well-positioned to follow developments, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Biloxi Sun Herald and Austin American-Statesman. In addition to print and online coverage, each fielded a Twitter presence. New Orleans used its ongoing Twitter account, NOLAnews; Biloxi established FollowGustav and Austin created TrackingGustav.
The advantage of Twitter over the Web is that virtually everyone with a cellphone purchased in the past few years has the technology to receive instant Twitter updates, 140-character bursts of information sometimes, but not always, linked to a longer Web entry.
Even the Red Cross provided hurricane information through Twitter. The advantages lay in the instant and portable nature of Twitter and its near universal availability.
Check out the the great interview on Poynter about NPR’s efforts to use social media in Gustav coverage http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=2&aid=149732
2 responses so far ↓
Hot, covered hurricane « Douglas and Main // September 2, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
[...] September 3, 2008 · No Comments Gustav has been the center of destruction and social media. Lou Heldman guides you through the aftermath. [...]
pamelakoneal // September 21, 2008 at 3:45 pm |
Being in my late thirties I am intrigued on how different generations communicate and don’t quite understand the text messaging thing. Although I have to admit I do it occasionally. I can’t stand to have a conversation in the text messaging style. Totally drives me nuts. I’m more of an e-mail person myself and the find the phone very convenient. I have even been known to write a letter and send it in the mail. I just wonder how the next generation is going to communicate. Because really, that text messaging thing sometimes just drives me nuts!