Twitter Responds to the Japanese Disaster

Shortly after 12:46 am EST on February 11, when a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of northeast Japan, Twitter began to reverberate with posts about the catastrophe.

"Major quake shakes Japan - preliminary M7.8," tweeted Martyn Williams, a reporter and bureau chief for the IDG News Service. "JMA warns of tsunami, up to 6 meters off Miyagi coast." "wow, that was a crazy earthquake... ran out of the building. 7.9 at epicenter," posted tech blogger Chris Latko from the scene. For the one day, Friday, March 11, fully 66% of the news links on Twitter were about the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. For the entire week, March 7-11, 20% of the news links were on that subject, making it the No. 1 story. The response to the earthquake illustrated the different ways in which Twitter functions as a social media tool. Initially, the site served as a way to get breaking information from a variety of official and unofficial sources, including some eyewitness accounts. It also acted as an electronic bulletin board, passing on tips about everything from the location of bathrooms to ways of tracking loved ones. And once the scope of the catastrophe became apparent, Twitter became a place to raise funds for the recovery effort and for users to express their thoughts and condolences for the victims.