My blog was picked up by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism site journalism.org‘s New Media Index: Social Media and the Haiti Relief Effort in a discussion on how social media was involved in spreading information about the Haiti earthquake and other significant news. This was my quote:
“Citizen media, including blogs, video reports and Twitter are becoming more influential as sources of information these days,” summarized Kajsa Hallberg Adu at Rain in Africa. “If anyone ever doubted that blogging and tweeting could go beyond navel gazing, I guess today we have evidence of the contrary.”
I must say I am delighted my blog was picked up in such a well written report. I especially like, (yes, of course in addition to the mention of my own blog), the statistics the project has been able to develop, see for instance this excerpt from the report with the amazing figures:
Social media also became a source of information, offering first-hand accounts or assembling details which some mainstream media outlets then posted on their own websites.
For the entire week of January 11-15, 43% of the news links in blogs were about the tragedy in Haiti according to the New Media Index produced by PEJ. And, the event did not even occur until the middle of the week. For Thursday and Friday, 82% of the news links were on the subject.
The project for excellence in journalism was earlier affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is “dedicated to trying to understand the information revolution”.
I guess it is no coincidence at all that’s an interest of mine too!
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.