How Social Media Is Changing Disaster Response

[Bok]

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, Facebook was the new kid on the block. There was no Twitter for news updates, and the iPhone was not yet on the scene. By the time Hurricane Sandy slammed the eastern seaboard last year, social media had become an integral part of disaster response, filling the void in areas where cell phone service was lost while millions of Americans looked to resources including Twitter and Facebook to keep informed, locate loved ones, notify authorities and express support. Gone are the days of one-way communication where only official sources provide bulletins on disaster news.
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[Terry]

If I ever go back for my PhD. I have always planned to do a paper on Social Medias effect on Nations/States ability to wage war. As we all know people don't go to war, governments do. As people meet others outside their own countries it should make it harder to convince the populace at large to support a war. Say you "talk" to someone in Zambezie and hear about their lives and family you're going to be harder to convince that the people in that country are: "a yellow menace", "red plague" or other stereotype. You're just not going to be so willing to see anyone from that country killed, they won't be just faceless enemies.