5 juin 2012 | EN | ES Twitter may speed up the exchange of
information [SANTIAGO] A study has cast doubt on the innovative
role that some claim Twitter, the 'microblogging' social media
tool, can play in generating new information during disasters,
although it did find that 'tweets' speed up the exchange of
existing information. An analysis of tweets sent by people in
the United States following the emergency at Japan's Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant found that most linked to
traditional news outlets, such as the New York Times and CNN,
for updates. "Since tweeters clearly did not have the expertise
[on radiation] nor could they find others on Twitter or in the
blogosphere who did, they relied on traditional news media,"
study author Andrew Binder, at the department of communication
at North Carolina State University, United States, told
SciDev.Net. The paper, to be published in the June edition of
Environmental Communication, shows changes in the quantity and
content of 2,359 tweets from the United St