It’s been just shy of eight years since the national shock of Columbine. Back then social networking was basically limited to the real, physical world. Now, however, in the wake of the disturbing shootings at Virginia Tech, the virtual social world has erupted in dozens of groups on Facebook alone, each dedicated to the reported 33 people who died in Blacksburg, VA this morning.
These are no ordinary Facebook groups either. One, entitled “A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech Shooting,” has a remarkable 33,745 members, 209 board topics, 3,719 wall posts, all since this morning. There are growing niche groups surrounding the tragedy too — a Christian group, of course, as well as an EU group.
One group has formed to let the world know “I’m OK,” a necessity given that the university and authorities haven’t identified or released the names of all of the victims yet.
Oddly enough, unlike Columbine, there’s not a lot of video footage of the shootings or the wounded victims, despite the proliferation of handheld and cell phone video cameras since then. Unlike the subway bombings in London two summers ago, the scene at Virginia Tech has been little captured by cell phone videos, with only a few sedate videos of police patrolling the grounds released so far.
The lack of sensational video might stem from the wide dispersal of the student body — the university covers 2,600 acres and perhaps only a few lone students were wandering by at the right time. Video footage may, however, emerge over the coming few days as shell-shocked students or professors start releasing any videos they’re too traumatized to distribute now.
K.C. Jones of Information Week has this piece about the role of cell phones, blogs and even podcasts in spreading the word about the shootings. (As terrible luck would have it, the server for the school paper was out this morning, but reporters began posting items on the school paper’s parent company’s website within three hours.)
Update: The LA Times has this piece today that focuses on the role of social networks and blogs in helping students track the tragedy. Other good reads on new media’s role in the VA Tech shootings: Washington Post, Boing Boing and Bloggers Blog.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:49 PM|Comments(1)
It's amazing how transparent the development of the story was from social to mainstream media. You can see journalists from NBC, NPR, etc, using blog comments and facebook forums to try to find eyewitnesses.:
http://searchviews.com/archives/2007/04/virginia_tech_shootings.php
Posted by: Kate Zimmermann at April 17, 2007 10:00 AM
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