Social Media, Disaster Reporting and Local News

Dr. Jean BurgessARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & InnovationQueensland University of Technology

Social Media Research in the CCI

• ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation (national, based at QUT)– Project: Media Ecologies & Methodological Innovation

• Axel Bruns & Jean Burgess (QUT), Kate Crawford & Frances Shaw (Journalism & Media Research Centre (JMRC), NSW)

• Aims to implement new methods to understand the changing media environment;

• Focusing on the relationship between social media and traditional media and communication platforms;

• Combining large-scale computer-assisted techniques with media & cultural studies theoretical frameworks, qualitative research and close textual analysis

Social media and convergence

•Twitter as convergent platform:

1. Social networking (’friending’, ’following’,interpersonal communication)

2. Publishing original content (‘broadcasting’ updates)

3. Large-scale information consumption, sharing and propagation.

•‘Global’ commercial platforms; engaged with on a personal, hyperlocal, interest-based basis (increasingly through mobile devices)

•‘Flat architecture’ – ‘personal’ accounts of ordinary citizens have the same structural properties as mainstream media, government, business etc.

•News, information, affect and ideas propagate through multiple network layers: follower/followees; distributed interest/issue publics (via #hashtags)

Twitter and the Queensland Floods: #qldfloods tweets

10 Jan. 2011 11 Jan. 2011 12 Jan. 2011 13 Jan. 201114 Jan. 2011 15 Jan. 2011

Twitter and the Queensland Floods: #qldfloods themes

From CCI Report on the use of Twitter in the Queensland floods – Shaw et al. (forthcoming, 2011).

Every 20th tweet coded.

Local Focus: #qldfloods from Toowoomba to Brisbane

• Toowoomba vs. Lockyer/Grantham vs. Ipswich vs. Brisbane slide

10 Jan. 2011 11 Jan. 2011 12 Jan. 2011 13 Jan. 201114 Jan. 2011 15 Jan. 2011

Twitter and the Queensland Floods: #qldfloods posters

retweet feeds

mainstream media

Qld Police

Twitter and the Queensland Floods: #qldfloods @replies

mainstream media

authorit ies

@QPSmedia as Central #qldfloods Information Source

#qldfloods Network Map – Most Active Accounts Only(Degree >= 15 / Node size: indegree / node colour: outdegree)

(mobile) image sharing

1 in 5 links were to an image-hosting service

“Showrooms of furniture floating into the street. #Toowoomba #Qldfloods”--@noveltylady

“People are starting to freak out man #qldfloods” -- @sammehmcspam

“Swimming pool area - before and after #qldfloods”--@pattycam

“Gold Coast Bucket gang helping at Rocklea #qldfloods Prem_Team”--@TheQldPremier

• Uneven primary access (but social media users can act as channels and amplifiers)

• Connectivity between citizens on the ground in local areas and authorities/mainstream media (need better “listening” mechanisms and “trust” settings)

• Rumours, misinformation, etc (emergent community norms, literacy programs could help)

• Questions around commercial platforms (datasharing problems, lack of archiving, geofiltering/geoblocking etc)

challenges