Author: Jim

First video post not tied to National Public Health Week! As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

Link 1: World Health Organization Frequently Asked Questions on human infection with A(H7N9) avian influenza virus, China
Link 2: CDC Travel Notices regarding Influenza A (H7N9) avian influenza virus
Link 3: Chinese urged to eat poultry despite bird flu cases (ABC Radio Australia)
Link 4: H7N9: The Impact on China’s Poultry Industry (Avian Flu Diary)

I don’t think anyone would say we live during a peaceful time. Bad news permeates the airwaves and broadsheet. This isn’t exactly new, of course (though there is some evidence of an increasing number of weather-related disasters due to climate change), but our perception of this bad news has changed.

We no longer experience disasters third-hand. We experience them in real-time, in living color, with no filter or delay. The advent of social media and mobile devices has brought disasters into our living room, on our bus rides, into those moments when we are quiet and peaceful.

This phenomenon is something that really started on 9/11. Because of the breaking nature of that disaster, the fact that it took place in the city with the most media in the US, and the delay from start until terrible, terrible finish means that many of us were watching at some point. In the days following, the news media showed loops of the disaster, over and over, attempting to try to make sense of it all.

And we haven’t stopped with the violence and tragedy since. The first picture of the Boston bombings I saw was of a blood-stained street. We all remember that iconic image of the children in Newtown being lead through the parking lot, covering their eyes. The images are burned into our memory and while most of us grieve and move on, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes those images hurt more than is healthy.

Liz Halloran, of NPR, published a piece recently that (besides being an example of how I wish I could write) described what we’re putting ourselves through:

But this time, in our full-on, post-Sept. 11 surveillance society and freshly Twitterized media, we were able to experience each event in excruciating, exquisite detail.

Through the saturation of social media, we were also able to experience it equally, whether reporting from the streets of Boston or the scorched explosion site in Texas, from newsrooms in New York or Los Angeles or Berlin, or from our own living rooms and college dorm rooms.

This week, these awful events have cemented the reality that the media is now everyone, anyone with a computer or a smartphone, a Twitter account or a Facebook page.

Ms. Halloran speaks of the public, of the great us. While I’m obviously concerned about them, my first concern is with those of us who work in this field. Who, whenever the bell rings–anywhere in the world–get on social media and start tracking. We see all of the images. All of the video. The stuff that doesn’t make it onto the news. From the ground. From the scene. Shot by cell phone cameras that look scarily like our own. In neighborhoods that look scarily like our own. By people who look scarily like we do.

We know it’s wrong. And the research bears out that this isn’t healthy. But we don’t need research to know that. We have the nightmares. We check on our kids in the middle of the night, just to make sure they’re sleeping peacefully. Unfortunately, there is no critical incident stress management team or experts for wounds inflicted via social media. This is a great tragedy in the making.

It’s also an opportunity for behavioral health supports to take the lead after a disaster. Not on a scene, but in the world. To support the public, to support the responders, to support the virtual responders. And maybe we’re seeing it already?

https://twitter.com/PhillyRecovery/status/324955789787820032

Given last week’s post on getting the news right, I think it’s important to acknowledge that “truth” can be a subjective term. Not in the sense of my truth versus your truth, of course. More in the sense of the truth being a process that we arrive at over time. For example, when an explosion happens, no one knows the cause or resulting damage right away, we learn that over time. When a new disease starts making people sick, it takes public health folks a while to figure out who it is making sick and how best to avoid it or heal it. They aren’t lying, they just haven’t made it to the truth yet.

Mass media, I think, works very similar to this process. Something is said, usually wrong, and eventually, as time passes and more information is obtained, the truth is arrived at. Social media, as I say during my presentations, is almost another iteration of media and suffers from the same problem; and I’d say it’s worse because of the low-threshold for publication and wide variety of users.

The difference between the two (social media and mass media) is that social media has access to a LOT more information and thus has the potential to arrive at the final “truth” more quickly. In addition, the mass media throws around slogans like, “The Worldwide Leader in News,” and tends to imply in their reporting that once something is reported, it’s the truth. Full stop.

Is it clear now where the problem comes in? Where the disconnect is? When the mass media is trying to out-Twitter Twitter with breaking news, they’re reporting the not-quite-truth. The not-finished-and-ready-for-publication truth.

I was reminded of this dynamic thanks to a post by Jon King, on his blog about public sector transformation. He brought up a great point about the recent AP Twitter account hacking, that even though the tweet about an explosion at the White House was wrong, social media has a trick up it’s sleeve that the media, with their this-is-the-final-truth reporting doesn’t have: the great ability to self-correct.

Jon lays out the case here:

If (god forbid) an explosion did go off at the White House, there would be multiple messages with photos and video flying around the twittersphere within moments. I won’t add a link to the disturbing scenes captured in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings but I think I’ve made my point.

A bomb has gone off at the White House? Go on Twitter and search the hashtag #whitehouse or #obama or #bomb or anything similar. Use your common sense. If there’s tumbleweed blowing across the desert and the sound of crickets, the chances are, it’s a hoax.

And this is definitely not the only case of social media taking a little bit to get to the “truth.” What are some other examples you know of?

UPDATE POST-WRITING: Holy smokes, Andy Carvin (one my media heroes), wrote something amazing and similar recently, definitely a must read.