July 2011
Twitter as an Example
Yumi Yoshitsugu
The Great East Japan Earthquake, followed by the tsunami and the nuclear accident, turned out to be an unprecedented catastrophe. In comparison with the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that struck Japan 16 years ago, one big difference stands out in terms of information transmission; social media represented by Twitter played a certain role along with traditional media such as television and radio. The author outlines what role these social media performed in transmitting information at the latest earthquake.
The Great East Japan Earthquake that hit Japan on March 11 registered a magnitude of 9.0, the largest in recorded history in Japan, and giant tsunami waves engulfed a broad area of the Pacific coast of Tohoku to Kanto regions. The death toll from the series of earthquake and tsunami has exceeded 15,000, far outnumbered that of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (6,434) to prove the unparalleled scale of the disaster.
One notable phenomenon observed in relation to the 3/11 earthquake is that social media using the Internet played a certain role as a communication tool alongside of conventional media such as radio and television -- a big difference from the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. In particular, a large number of people actively used Twitter to exchange information; within an hour after the tremor more than 1,200 tweets were sent per minute from Tokyo alone and the number of new accounts made on the following day, March 12, marked 572,000, showing a dramatic increase from 460,000 per day in February. Facebook was also used for confirming safety of friends and acquaintances, and the numbers of visitors to Ustream and other video streaming services soared as they provided disaster-related news parallel to TV broadcasts. It can be said that in the wake of the quake social media took a huge step for gaining a social status as a communication tool.
Meanwhile, another important aspect of the 3/11 earthquake is the spread of many pieces of false information via the Internet including the false rumor regarding the Cosmo Oil refinery fire. Social media are expected to coexist and develop with conventional media by assuming a role in covering what traditional media cannot cover sufficiently. At the same time, for social media to grow in a healthy manner, information literacy of users should be improved, and social media are required to be more conscious about their roles in society.