FLOOD VICTIMS TURN TO TWITTER

Ali Rosenberger

ATHENS, Ga. - With excessive rainfall practically drowning the city of Atlanta the weeks surrounding September 20, 2009, people everywhere have been tuned in to keep track of the flood and its developments. Many students at the University of Georgia are Atlanta natives and turned to social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter for information about their hometown during the flood.

(Pictured above is flood damage to a home in Buckhead 2 days after the floodwater subsided)

Although TV and radio news maintain their audience, it is social media outlets that many are turning to as their primary news source. From updates on social networking Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, people of all ages are exchanging information through social media. With this constant flow of new information, social media users expect their news organizations to keep up.

News organizations everywhere broadcasted updates and details daily to inform the public of damages and future forecasts.

“My family lives in Buckhead, and I knew they were being affected by the flood because of what I heard on the news,” said Kieva Hannon, currently in her fifth year at UGA. “Having to be in class every day and not with my family during such a hard time has been really stressful.”

(Pictured right is Kieva Hannon, a 21 year old business major at the University of Georgia. Hannon is checking her Twitter page for updates about the flood.)

Hannon said that she stayed updated with details about her area through personal tweets—which are status updates or posts on Twitter of 140 characters or less—by her friends and neighbors still living in Atlanta. “Being able to see what was happening every minute through Twitter really gave me piece of mind throughout the whole thing,” Hannon said.

Hannon was not the only one looking to Twitter for flood updates. The tag “#atlflood” was one of the top trending topics on Twitter—trending topics are typically one-sentence summaries of the most popular topics that people are “tweeting” about. They are listed on the Twitter homepage, and clicking on a trending topic brings up the most recent tweets about that topic, and the latest news and photos for that topic.

Because people are obtaining newsworthy information through outlets like Twitter and Facebook, news organizations are presented with a challenge: maintaining their audience by having the most recent and reliable news at any second, at any time of day.

Twitter has been a raising eyebrows in the newsroom for going on three years now, it allows the organization to post minute by minute updates on breaking news. From national newspapers like the New York Times to campus newspapers like UGA’s Red and Black, since Twitter’s creation in 2006, more and more news organizations have incorporated it as one of their news sharing outlets.

“We have an automatic update system set up through Twitterfeed, where the top five stories printed every day go to the Red and Black’s Twitter page,” said Ed Morales, the editorial advisor for the Red and Black.

The Red and Black adds about 20 followers a day to their Twitter page. Morales also said that when there is local breaking news, especially news that affects students, there is a huge jump in followers. During the Zinkhan case in Athens, for instance, the Red and Black gained over 1,000 followers in 36 hours.

Morales’s phone is synced to the Red and Black’s Twitter page.

“When there is breaking news, either I or another one of the editors will personally update our site,” Morales said. “Like when the Georgia Theater was burning down, for example, I was the one tweeting updates because I was actually there.”

When it comes to non-local news, Morales said the Red and Black tends to leave it up to larger publications to inform the public. During the Atlanta flood, for instance, Morales said he hoped people would have gone to the Atlanta Journal Constitution first, because those are the reporters on site, with the most up to date information.

“I might have posted links to other news sources on my personal Twitter page, but the Red and Black is a campus newspaper. There’s no need to report secondary information,” Morales said.

The AJC posted flood updates via Twitter almost every hour during the primary days of the flood. From weather forecasts to school closings to missing persons, the AJC made sure to have up-to-date information that its audience could rely on.

“My family really isn’t one of the most technologically savvy families I know…” said Anne Jones, a senior fashion major at UGA. But Jones said that her family recently started using Twitter to stay connected.

“I’ve got a brother at school in Alabama, and one that works in Chicago” Jones said, “and rather than my parents calling each of us with updates about what had been going on, dad just posted to his Twitter page.”

Even now, in the weeks after the flood, the AJC continues to tweet information about repairs being done, missing persons, and even information on hazards like sinkholes caused by the excessive rainfall. This information has been crucial to many family members of UGA students still living in metro-Atlanta.

“The only reason I use Twitter is to stay updated with news. I can connect to it from my iPhone, and get updates all day of what’s going on or who’s doing what,” said Pam Griffin, a 44-year old from Woodstock, Ga. “And what’s more is that I can follow a number of news sites at a time, unlike listening to a radio station or watching TV,” said Griffin.

Griffin has 2 kids, one of whom attends Gainesville State University in Athens, Ga. She said they are the ones responsible for introducing her to Twitter, and teaching her how to use it to her advantage.

(Pictured left is road damage caused by the flooding in Marietta, Ga.)

“I have had to change my route to work twice since the flood because of road closings,” said Griffin, an insurance agent who commutes from Woodstock to Atlanta daily, “and I only heard about the closings before I actually stumbled upon them because of Twitter,” Griffin said.