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"I wanted to see if Twitter was an effective tool for sharingmeaningful information about nuclear risk in the wake of thedisaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant," says Dr.Andrew Binder, an assistant professor of communication at NC Stateand author of a paper describing the work. "I knew peoplewould be sharing information, but I wanted to see whether it wasanecdotal or substantive, and whether users were providing analysisand placing information in context. "In the bigger picture, I wanted to see whether social mediais changing the way we communicate, or if we are communicating thesame way using different tools." Binder searched for Twitter posts, or "tweets,"originating in the United States that specifically referenced"Fukushima Daiichi" - which is the name of the nuclearplant - rather than searching for the term "Fukushima."This allowed him to target tweets about the plant instead ofgeneral references to the tsunami and overarching disaster in theregion. Using that as a base, Binder then selected every 20th tweeton each day over the two weeks following the onset of the Fukushimadisaster - from March 11 to March 25, 2011 - to create arepresentative sample of these tweets. Fifteen percent of the tweets in the sample contained some mentionof risk-related terms, such as hazard or exposure, while 17.7percent of the tweets included language that helped place theevents at Fukushima Daiichi and their potential causes orconsequences in context. For example, one tweet read "Most ofthe 100s of workers at Fukushima Daiichi live close to the plant soit's their families and houses at risk." Overall, 54 percentof the tweets included hyperlinks to external websites, of which62.7 percent linked to traditional news sources. "I found that, initially, tweets that mentioned risk wereunlikely to include analysis or information on context,"Binder says. "Similarly, tweets that attempted to helpunderstand events at Fukushima Daiichi rarely mentioned risk. Bythe time people began tweeting about risk issues in a meaningfulway, the initial high level of interest had begun to wanesignificantly." Binder also found that people were more likely to include links towebsites as time went on. And, as time passed, a higher percentageof those links were to traditional news sites. "This highlights a significant problem," Binder says."People are clearly looking to news outlets for insight andanalysis into disasters such as this one. But news organizationshave fewer and fewer reporters who specialize in covering scienceand technology issues - and those are the very reporters who wouldbe able to provide insight and analysis on these events." The study also seems to imply that social media have notsignificantly changed the content of our communications. "Thiscase, at least, indicates that Twitter is allowing people to sharenews quickly and easily," Binder says. "But the news theyare sharing is not much different from that available to someonereading a print newspaper - they're simply getting it sooner.". We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Cast Aluminum Heaters , China Drum Band Heater for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Nozzle Band Heater.
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