Sunday, January 24, 2010
Haiti and the rest
My final paper, an analysis of the situation in Haiti from the perspective of global media, has turned up some rather amazing facts. Since I am focusing this paper on the world wide web perspective (rather than the humanitarian plight or even the response at the international level, though I certainly make mention of both), I have spent days culling through articles, twitter feeds, youtube videos, etc. What is clear is that there is an unprecedented level of viewer-level access to the disaster and its fallout. The numbers for the Red Cross cell-phone text donations alone are staggering. All of this would never have been possible before our current internet age.
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Dear Andrew,
ReplyDeletethank you for your paper review, and thank you so much for exploring the most current news narrative.
I regard the Tsunami as the first "global" catastrophe. What differences do you see, also in regard to the Couldry readings?
Sincerely yours,
Annemarie Fischer
More than anything, it seems to be an acceleration of the reorientation of the global zeitgeist. Essentially, the tsunami was a prelude of things to come for the blogosphere's role in the dissemination of information on the global level. What that trend started, the earthquake in Haiti has brought to a startling new peak. I'm certain that this trend, of global media interdependency, will only continue to develop, as paltry concepts such as 'geography' begin to dissolve in the face of a unified, global information continuity.
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