In what ways did Twitter help people in Christchurch?
Twitter has allowed people trapped by rubble to tweet where they are and that they need help. For some people it saved their lives, for others it was their last few words- a tweet on twitter! People have also being allowed (through twitter) to let people in need of food, water and shelter to know that they have these sorts of resources either in their houses or warehouse. For example, a man tweeted that he had cartons of water in his warehouse and before long a hundred dehydrated people turned up in desperate need of water.
Quote examples of tweets that show the different uses.
1. mairesmith: RT @WgtnCC: Plea for cash donations rather than donated goods for quake victims. http://bit.ly/hCi7fS #eqnz
2. michellefeyen: RT @ShotbyRobins: Need to locate Emma Johnston and Shen Yi Luan, please RT #eqnz
3. dmanww: RT @Jeramedic: CA-TF2 USAR has departed LAX enroute to #NewZealand. Estimated flight time of 13 hours on flight UAL9797 http://ow.ly/42ice #eqnz #LACoFD
4. DerMoosealini: RT @nzherald: Teams from Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Taiwan and Japan are sending help to Christchurch: http://t.co/zcfxxb6 #eqnz
How do people use the Twitter functions?
They use Twitter functions such as the hash key and searching. By using the hash it is immediate group that not only goes to your friends but the whole world. It is as democratic as possible. Through the search engines anyone can type in anything in the search bar and all the tweets using those words that you used to search will come up. You don’t have to be a member nor do you have to be friends with the people who made the tweets. It is fast and efficient and is an easy way to communicate to people across the other side of the world. For example a lady in Christchurch was stuck in traffic trying to reach her Dad’s home to make sure he was safe. She rang her sister in Auckland who rang the brother in San Francisco, who then tweeted if anyone knew if this person was alright at the certain address, within a few minutes someone on Twitter replied saying he was trapped in a car.
Why is Twitter good in a crisis?
You can communicate with the world if you have a hand held device either letting them know where you are or whether you need help or not. Also it allows people to advertise for food and water in an efficient and accessible way. Twitter allows for mass communication between large groups of people and you don’t even have to be friends with them. You can organise things much easier and get a greater understanding of what needs to be done. Countries from right around the world are able to see what is going on and therefore let people know of the help they are contributing towards the crisis situation.
Compare it with Facebook.
On facebook only your friends can see your status and you can only invite your friends to groups that you create. Yes this is more private which some may say is a good thing but it is also less open and global in the sense of trying to get a message across in the time of a crisis.
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