Jeremy Sim
In what ways did Twitter help people in Christchurch?
Quote examples of Tweets that show the different uses.
How do people use the Twitter functions?
Why is Twitter good in a crisis?
Compare it with Facebook.
Twitter has helped people in Christchurch by allowing them to mass communicate and to request for help. People have been trapped under debris and have been able to tweet and been able to be rescued. Also people have tweeted where food and water is available. Twitter also helped by allowing news to be communicated about family and friends.
An example of how twitter helped people in need is this Tweet by CEQgovtnz,
“If you are unable to boil water add 1 tsp of bleach to 10 litres of water & leave for 30 minutes before use.”
Another example of an ordinary man trying to help out other members of the Christchurch community,
“Any payphones that remain working in Christchurch are currently free to use”.
“If you are safe, or had direct contact with safe loved ones, pse report to officials. NZ: 0800 733 276”, was tweeted by safeinchch.
Drew Richardson asked for advice on twitter,
“Packed what I can carry from house, rest will have to say goodbye to. It's only possessions, am grateful to be in one piece. Now what?”
Twitter user ‘heemi’ tweeted,
“Here's a list of pharmacies that are open today…”.
NZdoctor_news reported,
“Canterbury residents with urgent medical needs can visit a GP free of charge until SUNDAY: CDHB”.
The people who use twitter to communicate successfully know methods of getting their message or tweet out there. The main method is to use a # tag. The main # tags that have been used regarding the earthquake have been #eqnz and #chch.
Twitter is good in a crisis because it spreads a message that the tweeter wants to convey fast. The tweet can be seen by the whole world and can be quickly retweeted by lots of people spreading the message even further. Twitter can help bring community’s or large groups closer together and help them communicate as a group quickly and effieciently. An example of how Twitter was used well in a crisis was when a man stuck beneath a car tweeted his location, requesting for help. This tweet was seen by a man in Auckland who retweeted it, which was seen by a man in San Francisco. This San Francisco Twitter user than retweeted to all his follwers and a man up the road from the original victim rescues him successfully.
Twitter is better than Facebook because anyone and everyone can see tweets and do not have to have an account to view profiles. On Facebook, you can only talk and post with your friends thus resulting in limited communication. Also on Twitter people can retweet things so all of their followers can see it and this has a chain like effect.
