Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Global Village is alive – on Twitter and YouTube

I’m watching the incredible and tragic images from Japan on the earthquake and the tsunami that followed. The human devastation, accompanied by physical destruction, infrastructure and economic damage, and the potential environmental impact of a nuclear plant meltdown all combine to make this one of the worst disasters of our time. I know the whole world will respond with emergency relief, but it will be many years before this one is over.

I’m also struck with how much this story has exploded on social media sites, most obviously Twitter and YouTube. In the hours after the disaster, there were 1200 tweets per minute about the disaster (not all of these were from the scene: the whole world was talking). YouTube now has many thousands of videos from Japan, some taken during the quake, many others showing the aftermath.

We just saw how the web played a pivotal role in the unrest in the Middle East. Thousands, perhaps millions of protesters, used Twitter and Facebook to communicate, band together and plan their next steps – first in Tunisia, then Egypt and now Libya. This is still going on. Over two hundred years ago, printing presses in the American colonies fueled a revolution that defied a powerful oppressor. Today, smartphones and web sites are doing exactly the same thing.

These sites are a clearing house for anyone with news to spread or a picture or video to share. They act as always-on sources of information with an immediacy that the news media – no matter how tech-savvy they are or will become – can never match. They are open and accessible by all; there are no filters or gatekeepers here. As we know, this is not a good thing when thoughtful, careful, accurate reporting is required; they won’t compete with traditional news sources when it comes to reasoned consideration of a complex story. But for cases like this, where immediate on-the-scene news is needed, nothing can beat the tools of Web 2.0.

The founding of YouTube in 2005 and Twitter in 2006 are well known stories and can be easily sourced on the web. Suffice it to say that the founders of both did not envision that their creations would be, within just a few years, major forces on the world stage bringing people together for common cause, toppling governments, sharing news and experience worldwide.

These sites also provide something that no news media has ever done – allow anyone, anywhere in the world, to share the emotions of the experience. The revolutionary fervor and hope of those in the Middle East has been astonishing to see. The outpourings of grief and concern for the Japanese people this week has been equally impressive. The highest trending hashtag on Twitter right now: #prayforjapan.

You have to be amazed at the new roles found for tools that seemed to start with a very different purpose. What began as fluffy, inconsequential, almost trivial web sites, has been put to new uses by popular demand. We remember that Twitter started with the question “What are you doing right now?” And who can forget all those skateboard-riding gerbils on YouTube?

I still encounter many who scoff at Twitter and other sites like it: trivial time-sinks with no serious purpose. Perhaps after 2011 these skeptics will have a different viewpoint. We should all find a new respect for the power of these sites that enable mass communication, mass sharing and an almost subversive way for people to communicate without barriers or gatekeepers, official or otherwise.

There has long been talk about the Internet turning us into a global village: it’s times like these that I can believe it.

1 comment:

NikeBlack said...

I'm also struck by the current trend to source things we use daily, most notably food, locally while expanding our information reach globally. We have been able to get just about any fruit or vegetable from anywhere at anytime of the year for quite a while in local grocery stores. Truly instant access to thoughts and events from around the world is much more recent. My world becomes richer when I know what you experience - and you become real to me, no longer a stranger to be feared so much as understood. Food however IMHO, works best when it's close to home - better for us, better for those who grow and raise it. Is it possible we're becoming more sensible in how we view and interact with our world?