North Korea, South Korea, and Social Networking

Last night before I went to bed (22/11/2010) I was about to login to my Twitter account when I noticed the Top Tweets page was full of Tweets about North Korea attacking South Korea. I immediately checked several news websites to try to get an idea of what was going on.This clip on the BBC website shows the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island plus a small report on the situation.

I am reminded of the part in Susan Griffin's 'A Chorus of Stones' where she writes, "I run upstairs to the television. A reporter is quietly describing bombs as they are being dropped in Baghdad." (319- 320.) We are separate, far away from the action, yet we learn about it as it happens, not days, weeks or even years later, as was the case with many previous conflicts. Griffin's book was written before the advent of many new technologies. It's easier now than ever before to learn about what is going on. It's possible to learn what's going on from social networking sites instead of watching, reading or listening to the news.

The two screen grabs above come respectively from my personal Twitter and Facebook. They illustrate a tiny fraction of what is being said about the situation. Just looking at the internet and ignoring print, television and radio, you can find almost any viewpoint you can imagine, from news correspondents in South Korea reporting what is going on, to average people reacting to what they have seen and heard.

I am reminded of the game I played as a child, Chinese Whispers. Someone whispers something and it is passed on through various people until it has come full circle. Whether the message comes back the same as it started all depends. It's the same with the media and social networking, I feel. Someone witnesses the event, they tell a journalist, they tell their version of the story, someone else comes across this article or broadcast, they tweet or blog about it, I read it in Canada and the story I end up with has been filtered through different people with various perspectives and political slants.

In this exercise I have tried to comment on events as they are happening but it is difficult and I think sometimes you need to look at a situation retrospectively to fully understand it.