The terrorist attacks in Mumbai unleashed unprecedented, real time unfiltered raw data on the web.
Within seconds of shots being fired, Twitter users in India provided compelling eyewitness accounts and updates on the unfolding drama. According to some estimates, 70 to 80 tweets were being posted every five seconds.
On Wikipedia, a new page was set up within minutes of the news breaking.
YouTube featured frequent updates with the latest video — both from mainstream media and individuals.
Facebook sites provided a forum for online communities to share stories, express their anger and reach out.
“The Hindu” news service featured a story on how “internet blogs united horrified people across India. While some used them to vent their anguish and pray for the victims, others provided minute-by-minute updates of the tragedy.” Read the complete story here.
Mumbai resident Vinukumar Ranganathan took dramatic photos of “mangled cars, bloodstained roads and fleeing crowds”. He uploaded more than a hundred photos to Flickr.
The images on television showed us dramatic unedited pictures of fires, menacing gunmen, blood in the streets, faces of fear. Reporters on scene and commentators worked hard to keep up with the events as they unfolded, to provide context and interpretation.
Frequently, this is done in the line of fire.
New media analyst Cherian George told Reuters the Mumbai attacks “highlighted the emergence of citizen journalism and user-generated content.”
“If the event is highly dispersed and affects very large numbers of people, it would be physically impossible for a very large news organization to keep track of every development. Those kinds of events show the great potential for these user accounts to be valuable to the mainstream media.”
Here are the problems: the internet has become an information dumping ground. Unfettered access is heady stuff. But with no filter, no interpretation, no authority, information consumers have to become information editors to distinguish facts from first impressions.
Here is an excerpt of a Times of London article last Thursday:
“People using Twitter reported that bombings and attacks were continuing but none of these could be confirmed. Others gave details on different locations in which hostages were being held. And this morning, Twitter users said that Indian authorities were asking users to stop updating for security reasons.”
British columnist Alexander Wolfe wrote a thought-provoking piece — “Twitter in Controversial Spotlight Amid Mumbai Attacks”.
Wolfe said Mumbai would be viewed as an example of a major shift in crisis coverage.
“Journalists will henceforth no longer be the first to bring us information. Rather, they will be a conduit for the stream of images and video shot by a mix of amateurs and professionals on scene.”
I think a melding of digital technology with the experience and training of mainstream journalists will serve to make sense of the information deluge that will become commonplace in the opening stages of any international crisis.
(#4)
