The Importance of Social Media in Times of Crisis

Social media is used for many different reasons both positive and negative. People use social media to sell products, share important information, advertise a company, and even reflect and show respect in times of sadness and suffering. Regardless of what the reason is, one thing is for sure, social media is one of the first places to go to find out information on anything nowadays. Even if it is not the full story, social media is the main place that keeps people informed. 

So if people choose not to respond to a crisis or don't put out a statement or are just plain not quick enough when it comes to responding to a crisis on social media, then people of this modern day society tend to lash out pretty quickly. Take the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson for example. The police department took way too long to release anything and by keeping everyone in the dark like that about their decisions or even just plan moving forward, the tension in the community thickened. The outrage and anxiousness grew.

I am certainly not saying that by releasing information about the incident sooner and their plans with how the police were going to handle it would have made the situation any better because it certainly probably wouldn’t have. However I do feel like by keeping the community more informed from the beginning, keeping the lines of communication more open, the violence that followed, the destruction of the community may not have been as bad. #Ferguson may not have started trending like it did. But that is a fine example of how social media is used in times of crisis to get a point across.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/19/us/ferguson-social-media-injustice/