2011 is said as the first year of social media in Japan, with break out of Twitter in 2010 and of Facebook in January 2011. On March 11 of such a year there was the Japan earthquake and tsunami, followed by the Fukushima nuclear plant issue. Similarly to President Obama’s election campaign and the recent changes of power in North Africa countries, social media have been playing a major role among users including the in sharing timely information.
From actually leveraging social media to share the Japan disaster information the author acknowledged potentials of social media when she also acknowledged there are limitations as well. Such limitations and potentials are well analyzed and summarized with concrete examples by Motohiko Tokuriki, a leading Japanese Internet marketer, in his recent online article.
In this article the author would like to introduce the essence of the article, adding some comments to what she actually did. The article was posted on March 25 but Tokuriki had written the article one week after the earthquake and thus he says “the whole process is ongoing and might be too early to summarize but this is what he started to see as an expert”.
1. What are limitations of social media?
1) Social media are useless unless the lines are connected
It might be too obvious but what became clear is the fact that even if social media have become an important infrastructure to share information it is useless if the telecommunication network that operates under the media goes down.
At least just after the earthquake in many regions including Kanto area (e.g. Tokyo, Kanagawa/Yokohama, Chiba) mobile phone network did not operate properly and people were in extreme situation to use mobile phone and sending e-mails from their mobile phones.
The damage on telecommunication network in Kanto was comparatively small so many people managed to overcome by accessing the Internet using fixed line and mobile phone broad band connections. However, in regions where the communication network was severely damaged it was extremely difficult for people to access the Internet by mobile and smart phones.
This showed that compared to phones that were completely disconnected the Internet connection was more stable and better. However at the same time, people acknowledged anew that it is with stable telecommunication environment that social media can be leveraged.
2) Disinformation and false rumour can proliferate easily and quickly
This is also obvious as often been pointed out by mass media, but through use of social media in sharing information about the disaster people re-acknowledged that various disinformation and false rumour are easily proliferated. This is because social media such as Twitter and Facebook are of the world in which everyone can be a publisher at anytime, anywhere with ease. (This is mentioned in the author’s another article about the disaster Reality and Lessons from the Japan Earthquake / Tsunami Tragedy and this is why she included “Importance of integrity in accurate information sharing” as a lesson from the disaster.)
Of course, in reality, social media also is used to deny such disinformation and false rumour (and the author did, too) and it is true that disinformation and false rumour are also spread mouth-to-mouth by other forms of communications such as e-mails and face-to-face communication. But it is open media such as social media in which records clearly remain and thus people seem to have a strong impression that social media is weak against proliferation of disinformation and false rumour.
3) Social media is not suitable for one-way communication to the general public
This may contradict with what some social media experts in the west say whey they say why social media should be used in emergency; this statement is in comparison with traditional mass media such as TV and radio.
It is TV that is the most effective and the quickest in delivering the information immediately after the earthquake about the tsunami warning and earthquake intensity to the mass. Moreover it is traditional mass media that is more effective an quicker to deny disinformation and false rumour.
Of course, it is effective to provide people who could not watch TV a certain amount of information leveraging Twitter by including link(s) to TV company websites. But the number of followers of accounts of TV companies and/or of official government accounts is currently 200,000 at the most. The situation may change in the future when social media becomes much more popular in Japan, though.
2. What are the potentials of social media?
1) Strong “pull” media – ideal for safety confirmation
It was by no means social media were extremely effective in confirming safety immediately after the earthquake and tsunami. (Indeed the author leveraged Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to inform her worldwide online friends that her family and she are all safe).
With “push” media such as phones and e-mails, people would need to inform that they are safe by pushing the information to recipients of the information.
There are many people who could be worried about the safety of the person such as family, relatives, colleagues, boss and so forth and such list of people are limitless. It is impossible to know if the person is safe of not unless the person contact one by one of such people or unless the recipients contact the person.
With social media, posting/updating to say that the person is safe equals announcing that the person is safe, thus “pull” communication is possible. Therefore, as long as the recipients know the Twitter account etc. of the person, the person do not need to contact recipients one by one.
Many people actually said that in the disaster they could not contact by phone or e-mail but were able to know that the safety of their family and friends by social media.
2) Information sharing by the central player – timely and live
National and local government, companies and other organizations as well as individuals proactively leveraged Twitter to share information about the disaster, opening new Twitter accounts specifically for the disaster, when they already had opened official Twitter accounts as the “face” of the organization.
The fact that Fire and Disaster Management Agency is sharing information on Twitter account was informed by TV telop. Also Prime Minister’s Office opened a Twitter account, Japanese and English, specially to share information about the disaster, with which information including press conference information of the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary Minister was shared. TEPCO also opened an official Twitter account to share information about “planned” blackout.
Recently experts in nuclear topics also started to leverage social media as well. They started to share their high level knowledge, information and insights on Twitter and/or to discuss on the topics on Facebook.
In addition, people affected by the disaster have been sharing first hand information from the devastated area to deliver what aids are necessary. This is something quite different from previous disasters.
(Indeed, the author has been sharing information with online friends around the global integrating information from Japanese and western media plus what her friends and she have been seeing and doing in Japan to deliver the information that are not reported by western media such as about the “planned” blackout and effects on Kanto area by blogging as well as Twitter, Facebook and LinedIn. It was because of such blogging that she was ready when a LinedIn friend in Europe with an enormous online network kindly offered her help; she asked him with a link to her blog article(s) to spread her message as much as possible leveraging his online and offline channel, including access to Japanese society/school in his country. She could also post her blog articles in the Facebook fan page designed to raise money to save Japan.)
3) Filter to screen and select useful and valuable information
As mentioned earlier, one of the social media limitations is the fact that disinformation and false rumour is easily spread, on the other hand, people acknowledge anew that social media function as filtering to screen and select useful and valuable information.
Vast amount of information is now flooded on the Internet because everyone can be a publisher, anytime, anywhere.
In such a situation, a certain level of IT literacy is required to screen and select useful and valuable information but this means that with a certain level of IT literacy people can efficiently screen and select such information.
For this reason, there has been many phenomenon in which useful and valuable information that became hot in the social media world are valued in the traditional mass media world to be acknowledged by more people.
A well known case is of a web site in which inspiring comments of a Twitter account of an engineer living in Fukushima @paryforjapan.jp are introduced. The web site became hot and was introduced in a few TV programmes. It seems that the information/articles in the website is regarded as a source to understand with calmness the risks of Fukushima nuclear plant issue that are difficult to be communicated by traditional mass media.
4) Collaboration among social media users
What is impressive is the fact that collaborations are ongoing to help people in need among social media users.
Some examples include promotion of saving energy/electricity to minimize and avoid “planned” blackout. This is not only calling for saving energy/electricity. There are also web sites that share poster designs calling for saving energy/electricity and for voluntarily restraining speculative stocking attributing to panic.
There have even such things as starting of Wiki to update with collaboration about volunteer information and with collaboration creating movie based on a comic and a song by a famous comic artist.
This could be an evidence that online collaborative work is also feasible in Japan when traditionally it was believed that online collaborative work is difficult and not feasible in Japan compared to the U.S.
3. The author’s additional comments and final thoughts
1) What is importance is strategic integrated communication of online and offline synergy, leveraging the characteristics of the Internet
The above analysis and insights of Tokuriki are based on the characteristics that distinguish the Internet from other traditional media, which was mentioned in the previous article Vol.22 – What Distinguishes Internet/Web From Traditional Media?
The importance is the approach based on media mix concept; strategic integrated communication using both online and offline traditional mass media for synergy.
2) It is the individuals that are responsible to minimize limitations and maximize potential of social media
It cannot be denied that it will take time to overcome the historical disaster, but on the other hand being connected online and through information sharing and collaboration by social media people including the author acknowledged anew the potential of mankind and social media/Internet.
After all, it is every social media user that determines the limitations and potential of social media. It is the mindset (integrity, openness, responsibility, authenticity), skills/competencies (IT literacy) and actions (flexibility, agility, courage) of the individuals as well as the technical IT infrastructure and environment that minimize limitations and maximize potential of social media.
References:-
Tokuriki, Motohiko (March 25, 2011) 3 “limitations” and 4 “potentials” of social media clarified by the Japan disaster (in Japanese)
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/manage/20110323/219105/
Resources:-
Social media have been a major communication tool in sharing information regarding the Japan disaster by the government, companies, organizations and individuals, from which limitations and potentials of social media are revealed. What is importance is strategic integrated communication of online and offline synergy, leveraging the characteristics of the Internet. And it is the individuals that are responsible to minimize limitations and maximize potential of social media.
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