The internet as a news source and adhoc community first became evident to me while following 9/11 online at Metafilter and Fark. I’d say that the 2004 Election season probably represented the strum-and-drang of adolescence, regretably balkanizing us into one of our two respective camps. But the voice has changed, and adulthood may have been reached with Katrina.
No central authority directed the folks at the Google Earth community, and others, to organize imagery and hurricane tracking. No one had to centrally organize all the Flickr posts that appeared tagged with katrina. Craiglist didn’t have to invite people to start using them to check-in with family members and offer temporary housing. Local bayou bloggers stepped up and blogged their personal experiences and perspectives. New Orleans print newspapers and TV stations, unable to broadcast, publish or distribute, opened up their content and went all-online.
The blogosphere online community saw a need, gathered the resources, and quickly disseminated it, supplementing and in some cases replacing the traditional coverage supplied by the cable news networks (Jarvis, Blinq, TatteredCoat). The PC pundits even managed to put away their daggers, with a few exceptions. It’s sad when it takes a tragedy to bring people together, but an outpouring of compassion can be a beautiful thing.
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