The major cable and broadcast news outlets came off looking clueless and foolish as reports of a shooting spree on the campus of Virginia Tech began to emerge from Blacksburg. Loaded of misinformation and a ton of mindless blather, anchors found themselves stumbling for something to say -- tripping over their tongues in the meanwhile.
College students knew better. They forgot FOX and turned to Facebook to get answers and connect with one another.
Kate Zimmerman, on the Searchviews blog observes:
Students are using Facebook as a way to share information about students hit, the delayed response of campus officials, misinformation reported by FOX news, and the identity of the shooter. As such, social media sites have become a visible first source of information for journalists. You can see journalists from CBC, NPR, NBC, and more reaching out to students in the comments fields of posts and in facebook forums.
Erica Fink of the Cornell Sun in an interview with communication professor Jeff Hancock reports how the use of social networking sites such as facebook have become important in times of crisis. Hancock attributes Facebook's utility during the crisis, in part, to the failure of other convenitonal communication technologies such as cell phone service, and the university's e-mail and website.
Fink notes, "Facebook provides an alternate means of communication that may work when other means of communication fail."
We cannot underestimate how critical it becomes in times of crisis and afterward to communicate with each other. When other lines of communication crash, people turn to what works for them to stay up to date -- in this case, it was the social web.
Barry Wellman, social network analyst, (quoted in Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs) suggests:
Complex social networks have always existed, but recent technological developments in communication have afforded their emergence as a dominant form of social organization....
Computer networks and the societal flourishing of social networks are now in a positive feedback loop.
The value of feedback loops, through social networking sites, is becoming increasingly important in society. Despite all the forms of communication afforded us through technology, there is still a feeling of deep discontinuity, uncertainty, and angst that comes with living in the 21st century. Social networking allow people to make connections that satisfy an array of fundamental human needs.
The feedback loop that occurs through the use of Facebook makes it possible for people to circumvent conventional media as well as provide alternative ways to communicate when other means fail or become overloaded. In the Virginia Tech tragedy people were and are acting autonomously and spontaneously through social networking. For example, following the shooting dozens of member groups sprang up to offer sympathy and express concern.
What was the basic message expressed throughout the ordeal?
We are praying for you.
This could have just as well happened to us.