Twitter as a Rapid Response News Service: An Exploration in the Context of the 2008 China Earthquake

Abstract Micro‐blogging websites (such as twitter), a new information channel, was widely reported as outperforming the mainstream information channels in numerous ways during the massive 2008 China earthquake, including beating the first official mainstream news released from the USGS to report the initial tremor (BBC May 12 2008). According to Twitter.com, there have been noticeable spikes of twitter usage during disasters and other large events, serving as an extremely powerful and effective fast response news service. This raises some important exploratory questions: What kind of information can micro‐blogging provide regarding disaster news? Of what quality is the information provided by micro‐blogging? Can the modern communication tool – micro‐blogging, replace the mainstream media information channel or merely supplement it in distributing disaster news? How do twitter (and other micro‐blogging services) compare with the mainstream information channels during the different timeframes in terms of information quality and collective intelligence? For this research paper, we will use Twitter as a proxy for micro‐blogging in general, the mainstream media information channel as the benchmark, and the massive 2008 Sichuan earthquake as our research subject. At the time of the Sichuan earthquake, Twitter was universally available in the China mainland. The aim of this exploratory study is to shed some light on how micro‐blogging can provide integrated and speedy information regarding disaster news.