Matthew Clayfield writes in The Australian about how mainstream news media and online communications became a new, hybrid version of the old ‘bush telegraph‘ during Victoria’s bushfire emergency this week:
“One Kilmore resident, whose home was spared in the blaze, said the ABC’s coverage had provided her not only with news throughout the ordeal but also company.
“‘Having you there has been sensational,’ she said.
“While less traditional than the trusty wireless, the internet, too, played a crucial role in the news process yesterday, with user-generated content featuring prominently on many news sites.
“As increasingly seems to happen during times of crisis and natural disaster, news outlets and the public came together, with the internet a nexus between the two. While the former provided the latter with news, the latter provided the former with content.
“The online versions of all major metropolitan newspapers, as well as The Australian, featured readers’ photographs prominently. But it was in helping to disseminate the news that the influence of the country’s netizens was most strongly felt. In using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the photo-sharing application Flickr, not only to keep loved ones reassured as to their whereabouts, but also to share links to news sites, hundreds helped generate massive web traffic for the country’s major news sites.
“On Twitter, a simple social messaging utility that allows users to keep abreast of what friends and family are doing, the bushfires were the single most ‘twittered’ about topic yesterday afternoon, peaking with an average of 51.5 mentions every 20 seconds by early evening.
…
“[TV Channel] Nine has also announced its commitment to holding a national appeal for victims of the fires, which is to be held during tomorrow’s Day-Night cricket match between Australia and New Zealand.
“Run in conjunction with Cricket Australia and the Commonwealth Bank, the appeal will run throughout Nine’s live telecast of the match from Adelaide Oval from 2pm.”
This is integrated communication at its best, providing multiple ways to access the news (depending on which technologies are available in your vicinity); immediacy and freshness of updates; a sense of personal contact for those in distress; for distant families worried about loved ones, an alternative to overloaded telephone helplines; and for the rest of the nation a mechanism for collecting donations to charity.
The curious thing is that the integration was not planned or managed: it was an emergent behavior that used the tools and communciation channels available at the time. Many indivduals are telling their own stories, seeking assistance and offering help to others — following that primal urge summarised by EM Forster’s famous phrase, “Only connect.”
We’ve seen this emergent behavior before, in September 2001 and during Hurricane Katrina and after the London Underground bombings. It also happened at a smaller scale during the shootings at Virginia Tech a few years ago.
Many of the messages we heard via mainstream media in the last few days have been carefully orchestrated by the various emergency authorities and public service agencies involved. Much of the communication, however, has been spontaneously generated by individuals not connected with those organisations. Mainstream media have integrated these ad hoc communications into their broader coverage, and vice versa, to a degee I don’t think we’ve seen before in Australia.
Each time this multi-channel communication happens, it seems to happen a bit more smoothly. Our old-school news media organisations are learning about the value of working with — not against — the social media outlets created elsewhere, and with the people who use those social media channels to make connections with each other.
What about your organisation? If you had to communicate about an emergency (or even just a bad quarterly profit report), would you be able to harness the power of the social web to do it well?
Tags: user generated content, news media, bush telegraph, emergency communication, integrated communication, social media
Post a Comment