What I’m learning about social media from Ferguson

Twitter and other social media are not only the fastest, but may also be the most reliable and impactful sources for news and information.

Late last Sunday evening I scrolled through my home timeline, which displays all of the Tweets from the over 600 people I follow. One of the tweets said something to the effect that I cannot believe what I am seeing on the streets in the U.S. in 2014.

Via tweets, many with photographs and videos, I saw that they were referring to a police confrontation with peaceful marchers the day after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown.

The best “coverage” came via tweets from Antonio French (@AntonioFrench), a black St. Louis alderman. His love for his city, the pain he was feeling, and the desire to do something to prevent more violence were apparent in his photos and comments.

Via Twitter links to live video coverage I discovered St. Louis television coverage which I then watched on the TV in my family room streamed through my iPad.

Live coverage of looting, arrests, interviews, and random shots in the background playing on my TV at 11:00 PM my time and 1:00 AM in St. Louis. None of the coverage was on CNN, FOX, or other national news networks.

It was via recorded TV coverage from St. Louis that I got to see police in military gear with machine guns, tear gas, and German Shepards lined up next to townspeople holding a candle light vigil.

I couldn’t help but feel I was back watching footage of race riots in the 1960’s. All via coverage on Twitter. Social media, not traditional media.

I shared my thoughts in a post at Above The Law.

Going to bed Saturday night I started seeing tweets from @Jack saying I am going home after sharing what he saw and heard in Ferguson. Jack is Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and native of St. Louis, who was down marching with his parents.

The gist of what I got from Jack and others, including Alderman French, was that a curfew had been imposed to clampdown on the fear of minimal crime. The enforcement of the curfew against a very few was raising tension and increasing the chance of violent activity.

Again there was no way I could get this type of late night, first hand coverage from such caring people without social media. By the next morning news reports would be influenced in some form or another and not provide such a raw feed.

There are those with far more eloquent reports on the impact social media has had on reporting from Ferguson. Check out out the story by Ashley Southall (@assouthall) in the New York Times of the protests being chronicled in social media and the post by Jeff Jarvis (@JeffJarvis) on what social journalism could do for Ferguson.

Certainly mainstream media, nationally and locally, used Twitter and other social media to spread word of their reports from Ferguson. But without citizen reports via social media we would not have had near the coverage.

I question, without social media, whether the light would be shining so brightly on Ferguson and the possible wrongful killing of an unarmed young black man and the subsequent crackdown by a white police force against peaceful marchers in this mostly black community.

Social media is so powerful. Powerful in providing timely news amd information. Powerful in shaping opinions. And probably more powerful than traditional media in both regards.