No one can have escaped the total devastation that has afflicted Haiti over the past week. It is a situation that is almost too hard for the majority of people around the world to comprehend. It has become readily apparent that people on the ground are in dire need of key resources, as well as exposure in order to help find the thousands of missing people in Port-au-Prince and beyond. With the majority of formal lines of communication down, social media has had a significant role to play in facilitating donations and giving a voice to people on the ground. CNN’s iReport platform is currently putting together a database to help connect people with loved ones in Haiti by calling upon people to post names and upload photos of people who may be missing. Similarly, the twitter hashtag #rescuemehaiti is being used to direct rescue efforts to where trapped survivors have been located. The Haiti Earthquake Support Center has also created a crowd sourcing app to “harness the power of the crowd to help locate and identify missing persons with just a few minutes of your time”.
These are all powerful examples of how social media can be harnessed in ways that can have a positive effect and, potentially, save lives. The past year has been punctuated by similar examples where social media has had a role to play in giving people a voice and bringing about some form of action – from student protests in Iran, to the PCC investigating Jan Moir’s article about Stephen Gately in The Daily Mail. With all these examples in mind, it begs the question: is social media coming of age as a force for good?
A key criticism that has been levelled at social media is that, whilst it allows people to easily show their support for a variety of causes or social issues, this does not often lead to tangible action. What does pledging your support for a cause on Facebook really mean in actual terms? Is this a viable alternative to good old-fashioned physical collectives of people? Moreover, does this ultimately lead to people doing less than they would before, with digital support becoming a replacement for physical action? These have all been valid criticisms of the role of social media in political and social causes and crises.
However, are we now seeing the first signs of how social media content can translate into tangible positive action? The proliferation of tech startups focused on social innovation would indicate this is the case. A key example of this is Ushahidi, a simple website mashup using user generated reports and Google Maps to gather citizen-generated information. It has already proved invaluable in mapping reports of violence and peace efforts in Kenya, reporting activity in Gaza for Al Jazeera and monitoring the voting system in India. Ushahidi exemplifies the benefits that the real-time and flexible nature of social media can deliver in emergency and conflict situations.
For now, this is still probably a question of watch this space, but hopefully this heralds the dawn of the positive role that social media can play in such situations.
Related Links:
Some great stuff from Wired on Haiti and ‘Disaster Relief 2.0’
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by Facecocreation: New Blog from @sharmilasub Tweeting From The Front Line – http://bit.ly/5Jmei5 – How Social Media Is Helping Aid Relief Efforts #socialmedia…