The Power of Twitter

Although we talked about social media quite a few weeks ago, I think this past weekend has brought up a great opportunity to discuss the power of Twitter. This past Friday, as I'm sure you are all aware, there was a situation on campus involving a potential gunman in the Rec Center. Once notified of the situation, the university began sending out notifications through e-mail, texts, on their website, and finally through social media such as Twitter. The notifications continued to be sent out throughout the night until the search of the large building was complete. Even though the university sent out updates, my friends and I had realized that the first notification of the situation was actually sent out on Twitter by a student NOT the university. I think that it is extremely fascinating how fast information can fly when social media is involved. In this situation, people that have a Twitter were notified of the situation on campus and it was spread quickly through re-tweeting the information or posting new statuses. Many pictures of the area on campus along with pictures from inside the Rec Center were shared through Twitter as well. RTV6 Staff  stated "Ball State students on Twitter were tweeting photos of campus police with rifles securing the recreation building, and police cars blocking off roads in the area." These photos and the information shared on Twitter was able to give other students information about the area and what was going on. Although the sharing of information and photos on Twitter was pretty helpful, there is always the chance of miscommunication with false information. Just as we often see with the media, there was quite a bit of misinformation going around on Twitter, along with through the media. Most of us got the updates from Ball State saying "The previous statement of an explosion are inaccurate" or "The previous statement from the media stating there is a hostage situation is inaccurate." A lot of the "rumors" that were going around were created either by the media or from people on Twitter not really knowing what was going on. Unfortunately, this type of miscommunication is common in almost any situation like this. Just like any other topic, there are positive and a negative side. For a situation like this, the positives are that information is spread quickly and effectively. The negative is that there will almost definitely be misinformation with the situation.