Alex Steer

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Social media disaster response, 1906-style

215 words | ~1 min

Just quickly. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan have already started generated the usual hastily cobbled-together journalism on the role of social media during disasters.

I wondered if this was an entirely new phenomenon, or if people used to write the same sort of thing about previous leading technologies. Turns out the answer is yes, as this publication listing in a 1906 copy of Engineering Magazine shows:

Magazine clipping: Telegraphy and Wireless Telegraphy During the San Francisco Disaster

Anyone got a copy?

# Alex Steer (11/03/2011)