There is No THEY
July 21, 2009 at 11:01 AM |
1 comment
Nice article on Tweeting Under Fire in Reason. Summarizes a study by disaster sociologist (love the title) Jeannette Sutton about how regular people communicated during the 2007 Southern California wildfires--and it leaves no doubt that locals are by far the most important messengers. My favorite line (from a resident):
“There is no ‘they.’ ‘They’ won’t tell us if there is danger, ‘they’ aren’t coming to help, and ‘they’ won’t correct bad information. We (regular folks) have to do that amongst ourselves.”
For future reference, two good community forums for fire info:
socalmountains.com & rimoftheworld.net
Check out the full study here (warning: PDF).
Thanks to Dan for the heads up.
Peter said on July 21, 2009 at 11:50 pm
During the San Diego fires in 2007 I came across a site in which a man who lived near the danger zone (his house was spared) was doing hourly updates with maps and photos. It was fascinating, even though I’m on the other side of the country, and far more informative than any MSM reports.