The Rise Of New Media - The Christchurch Earthquake

A topic that’s been gathering a lot of momentum recently has been the impact that new media is having on traditional media outlets. Social media – such as social networking sites and blogs – are becoming more and more popular as a source of news and current events for the public, which as a result is taking away audiences from traditional mediums – ie. broadcast and print media. This is a trend that is sparking debate among many industry veterans who are beginning to question the longevity and sustainability of broadcast TV and radio as well as print media such as news papers. While I believe that these long standing mediums will be around for many years to come, it is not hard to see why they are under considerable pressure.

The recent coverage of the Christchurch earthquake is a prime example of how these traditional media outlets need to adapt to this new environment. Both TV stations and news websites were unacceptably sluggish with their coverage of the quake which prompted a huge number of people to follow via Twitter. Dozens of photos were surfacing and making their way around the world of social media as users “tweeted” and “re-tweeted” over and over in order to provider friends and followers with up-to-date info.

Here are some of the many photos shared (note all are via social media sites)

http://twitpic.com/2kwei5
http://twitpic.com/2kwhat
http://twitpic.com/2kwhsv
http://twitpic.com/2kwcnk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbergler/4954284461/
http://twitpic.com/2kw706
http://twitpic.com/2kw2j2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbergler/4954284461/in/photostream/
http://twitpic.com/2kwbf8
http://twitpic.com/2kwc34
http://twitpic.com/2kwc27

The extent to which talk of the quakes spread through social networking sites is illustrated bellow in twitters trending topics for both Auckland and Christchurch.




These trends were quickly identified as the best source of news for the quakes. This tweet from TelstraClear was "re-tweeted" 30 times.



One “tweep” (twitter user) was even quick to proclaim:

“New Zealand Earthquake: tweeters decide on hashtag in 30 mins: #eqnz”.

For those that aren’t familiar with a hash tag, it is a method twitter users use for consolidating data into an easy to follow stream. The promptness of this hashtag meant that any tweets regarding the earthquake could be tagged and anyone wanting updates needed to just follow the stream of that tag (see bellow)



This rapid and constantly updating stream became the go-to source of information for people following the quake.

As more and more info and pictures began to surface via twitter there was still no decent info or coverage on TV. This blog surfaced time-lining the lacklustre TV coverage after the quake and was tweeted amongst many outbursts as to the poor response time of the NZ media. Below are some of the tweets:

chiefie: @TelstraClearNZ @NZStuff I got news from BBC and CNN while MCDEM and NZ news aren't up yet. TCL was supplying tweet news since happened.

DavidSlack: What we've seen so far. Christchurch is made of bricks and TV news is made of marshmallow.

jofajafa: Grrrr #tv3 collect random pictures from twittersphere and scroll without commentary...

JonathanMosen: Coverage on TV 3 now, a little under 3 hours after the quake.

JonathanMosen: Getting better TV coverage from US than here. Some people need to be out of jobs PDQ

nztv: TV ONE, TV3, please interrupt your regular programming even if you repeat the same things over and over #christchurch #quake

nztv: Why is there not a news ticker on TV ONE/TV 3 for people needing information?

juhasaarinen: TV3's news site can't cope with the extra attention... 503 server busy

Ultimately the traditional mediums woke up and began reporting the quake, but their response was not nearly quick enough. This sort of response time and the fact that people were able to obtain such quick and constant updates via twitter is definitely not a good sign for TV and Print media.

More analysis will follow. What are your thoughts?