The shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the 19 other people injured or killed on Jan 8, 2011, is being reported with many references to the role of social media, in terms of what motivated the tragedy and people's reactions to it. Find one of these references (include a link) and analyze, evaluate and apply what you feel are relevant concepts from at least four of the six required Session 1 readings to the role of social media in this story. You may post links to more than one news story to illustrate concepts from different readings if you like, but be sure your post is substantive enough to demonstrate your understanding of the relevant concepts from the papers you cite. Conclude by providing a brief definition of social computing, and comment on its potential power as a motivating force for positive and negative social phenomena.
-- Part I --
When this tragedy event first hit the news, I did some google searches with relevant keywords, such as “Gabrielle Giffords”, “Arizona gun shooting”, and “Congresswoman assassination”. One of the first things that I remembered was that some of the news didn't agree with each other. This is not surprising. It is exactly what people would expect from any recently happened high profile news events. In other words, don't trust just one news source and search for more information, just what I was doing.
During the procedure of delivering news, some people injected their personal views into the information passed on by them, such as, guesses, predictions, or even wishes. This brings up one of the questions asked in the paper, Online Databases-Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall?
When advertising and public relations are disguised as news, the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred. Instead of more community, knowledge, or culture, all that Web 2.0 really delivers is more dubious content from anonymous sources.
-- Online Databases-Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall?
We could name an example of such phenomenon happened in this particular new event. After the gun shooting on Jan 08, some news reported that Gabrielle Giffords was shot and killed, while some other news stated that she survived the fetal period. For a moment, people have two versions of the story. The following link is about ABC's false report.
http://www.examiner.com/tv-in-national/abc-news-issues-apology-for-false-gabrielle-giffords-death-report
The news president of ABC responded with an apology.
Here’s what happened at ABC News. … for a brief moment, about 10 minutes, ABCNews.com put up a banner citing other reports that congresswoman had died. ...
This brings up another point made in the paper, Online Databases-Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall?
Message getting through? Keen might see this as one of the most pervasive dangers of social networking--the seductive power that leads even those professionals tasked with creating, collecting, and distributing high-quality information to become early adopters
As a news network, a broadcasting company, people might think they need to be precise with what they say about some objective events, such as whether Gabrielle Giffords is dead or not. But reported news that was adopted from other reporters.
ABC had to correct it and went out of their way to apologize and clarify the mistake. However, information online is passed on in so many different ways, such as blogging and forum comments. People might not go back to correct their mistakes. Here is one of the more careful bloggers who did correct the blog entry.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/01/in-memoriam-rep-gabrielle-giffords.html
-- Part II --
During my search of news stories, it was not surprising to find that many interesting entries are what people said on their facebook, Myspace, or some other social network service (SNS). In order to study and view the contents, I, as a social information research, need to be part of the SNS. This is one of the points made in the paper, Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations.
First, we need to be inside of the networks, online communities, and collaborative movements to be able to see what is going on and describe it
We will have to become part of the collaborative cultures of Web 2.0, we will need to build our own profiles, make some flickering friendships, expose our own choices, preferences and views, and make ethical decisions about what we reveal and the information we filter out of these communities and into our findings.
-- Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations.
People digging information from SNS sites are not necessarily social information workers. They discover news and deliver what they discovered in these SNS sites as news to other people. Apparently, this is a common practice inside and outside of the academic world. This agrees with the make idea of the paper, Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations. The following link is an example of such information dug from a SNS, facebook. Although, this particular “news” was found out false by the author later.
http://www.elliscountyobserver.com/?p=18475
-- Part III --
Also during this study, I found many different personal opinions about this tragedy event. We always have ideas about things happening around them. Typically, we would like to share, exchange, and even defend our opinions if necessary. I believe this is part of the human nature. We would like to have many audiences. This is one of the focuses of the paper, Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary?
Many bloggers liked that they could be less responsive with blogging than they could in email, instant messaging, phone, or face to face communication. They seemed to be holding their readers at arm's length.
-- Blogging as Social Activity, or, Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary?
For example, the following link is a blog entry. The author thinks Gabrielle Giffords was shot because she is Jewish. It doesn't matter whether the opinion itself is true or false, what matters is that blogging provides this platform of sharing and picturing a large number of audience.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/01/gabrielle-giffords-was-shot-because-she.html
-- Part IV --
Last but not least, I'd like to mention the bridging of online and offline social network provided by SNSs. I learned about this news from a friend of mine through a SNS. This person is also my friend in real life. The paper, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship addressed this idea.
Although exceptions exist, the available research suggests that most SNSs primarily support pre-existing social relations.
-- Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship
For me, I have only people that I know in my SNS, so this statement should hold for in my case. The SNS provides us a convenient way of exchanging information. If we were to exchange news only through a person to person manner, such as emails, or phone calls with friends, then the amount of news exchanged would decrease by a large number
-- Summary --
Without any doubt, in this new event, the social media played an important role, and continue does. With great power comes greater responsibility, there are issues and problems that social media researchers need to consider, such as the truthfulness and the accessibility for researchers. Meanwhile, social media provides the users great convenience: We can express ourselves with potential large number of audience; We build online communication platform over our offline communities; And lots more.
While I was reading through your first point, I began to wonder about the future of news organizations. I mentioned in my post that it seems like getting news out quickly is becoming more important than getting the news correct. This seems confirmed by your quote from ABC - they ran a headline based on reports from others. Obviously it only took them ten minutes to get the record straight, so why didn't they just take that ten minutes to do it right the first time? It is good that they apologized (running incorrect information is becoming so common that I don't always expect it to be addressed) but is that what the future of reporting holds? I wonder how this dynamic will play out in the future. Hopefully news organizations have taken some insight from this experience and realized that they do need to continue double checking their sources, but I'm not idealistic enough to think it won't happen again. I wonder at what point they will realize that we would rather have complete and correct stories that are slightly delayed than short misleading stories immediately. On second thought, maybe that's not the right question to ask. Are people actually willing to wait for the real story, or would they rather get bits and pieces from whatever source they can (reliable or not) as soon as possible?
ReplyDeleteHi Susu, I agree with what you mentioned in part 1. Since the sources is not authority and the timing might be hastily when spreading news through social networking sites, there could be inaccurate information occuring now and then. But unlike what the "old trusty medias" will do-like your instance of ABC's respondence-the people, or communities in the virtual environment are not conducting credible actions. However, it is nice to know there are some responsible bloggers out there, and what matters more is this should work as a standard in the future of the social computing world.
ReplyDeleteI was more focused on erroneous new reports by the major media outlets after getting confused by two different channels, one which said she was killed and one which said she was in hospital. Like ABC, I found Washington Post also made the same mistake and did apologize. False reports are not new thing in media history, but nowadays – web2.0 age, it could cause a big mess, just like this case. One of the Post’s excuses on the incorrect report was ‘competition’ with online news source including SNSs. It is interesting that you found one of the ‘updated’ blogs on the Arizona shooting case. I agree with you that people might not go back to fix their mistakes, so this false news could be spread out continually.
ReplyDeleteI think the way you opened your blog illustrated a common entry point for many people--doing Web searches to try to make sense of a tragedy. Emotional events tend to generate emotional reactions, and one coping mechanism is to reach out for--or create--explanations and try them out on other people, in this case via social media. Under the circumstances, the first report of Giffords' death would generate enormous traffic from people seeking answers, and indeed media competition to have the first report led to the error.
ReplyDeleteIt’s good to know that some blogs corrected the information reporting the rumor that Giffords died. I was disappointed with old news organizations which didn’t edit their posts but removed them instead. Check this blog on different responses after news organizations noticed they sent wrong information and people’s comments on deleting incorrect tweets (http://www.lostremote.com/2011/01/09/how-an-incorrect-report-of-giffords-death-spread-on-twitter/).
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I found it fascinating that you considered the false reports of Gifford’s death by ABC. Interestingly one of NPR’s stories (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132764367/congresswoman-shot-in-arizona) was ambiguous about her death and did not include corrections or updates. The NPR story indicated that NPR and other news sources reported her death. However, no new information or updates were posted within the story. In this sense, it makes me think about how content on the Web is corrected. In ABC’s case, updates were posted and apologies were made. In the NPR article posted above, it appears that updates were posted as new stories. Therefore, it is possible that people searching for information can find false information. It is interesting how the on-line climate may be contributing to what Tenopir described as our cultural downfall.
ReplyDeleteIn the third part of your post, you considered blogging as a method of sharing your thoughts with a large audience. When you discussed the blogger that posted that he/she believed that Giffords was shot because she was Jewish, I do wonder how often people come across the post and think that it is accurate.
It is also interesting to hear that your SNS supports your pre-existing relationships. However, I do wonder how true this is for people in general now. How many people “friend” others they do not know in real life (e.g. friends of friends) or become fans of groups on Facebook. In some cases, it can augment a person’s relationship to a company. However, if the company has a problem (e,g, Enron), what will it look like for a person to be linked to it? The same holds true to “friending” another person on a SNS.
Susu, by searching multiple sources and following up on some sources to verify or understand how they handle erroneous reporting is commendable. It is a consummate example of being information literate. However, I don't think it is a common practice among average folks. In this day and age where sociologists admit that "cultural digitization" is moving faster than their ability to understand it, it would seem that many folks do not apply due diligence and ferret out more verifiable details. It kind of reminds me of novice searchers, who choose the first item that comes up...not bothering to check if it is the most relevant and/or factual source available.
ReplyDelete@MBCO - It is frightening to learn that some news sources don't remove or amend their original erroneous accounts right away and instead post newer stories. Indeed, it is quite likely that someone can type in a search term and end up on an older, mistaken-laden, article. Since nothing gets taken off the web, it should be a golden rule among news sources to edit or at least group (if not directly re-route users to) related links/topics/articles.