Case Study - The Digital Divide - Asia Tsunami

This is my case study for modern communications and the south east Asia tsunami:


The tsunami which happened on Boxing Day, 2004 was caused by an earthquake which happened under the sea. The first people to know this were Americans studying for earthquakes, they sent out information via e-mail to as many cities, towns and villages in South East Asia as they could.
When the tsunami struck there was many different they presented information about the tsunami, there were e-mails, telephone calls, text messages, web sites were set up especially for the disaster and every news channel on the TV was describing it. E-mails were used to give signals of the disaster and for people to contact others, telephone calls were made to let people know of the disaster and to contact relatives also, text messages where sent to let people know that they were alright, web sites let people know of missing people, contained statistics an were a way of people contacting each other and on the news gave descriptions of what happened, and also had a ‘ticker’ which relays text messages and e-mails so people could find missing relatives.
Information was shared quickly, scientists in America e-mail people in Asia as soon as the earthquake happened saving numerous lives. Text messages allowed survivors to contact relatives and let them know they were alright; this was much quicker than having to wait until you could fly home or until main line phones were working again. Also, websites were set up almost instantly after the disaster allowing people to find out what had happened.
There was a greater interaction between organisations and individuals, the BBC received 30, 000 e-mails the day after the tsunami happened all relating to the tsunami itself. Also, news channels gave individuals up-to-date reports of what had happened keeping them in the know and also they had a ticker which allowed individuals to contact individuals. The Lonely Planet bulletin board was used so people could leave messages letting any one know they were alright and the BBC had similar bulletin boards.
Blogs were used to keep in contact over the tsunami period these brought together a virtual community were people could talk to each other all over the world who were worried, confused or looking to contact friends and family.
Modern communication systems were used over old fashion ones because for the main reason they were faster, e-mails can be received within seconds of them being sent as do text messages. Old methods mainly relied on word-of-mouth or using land line telephones which during most disasters fail to work. However, modern communications work because they travel through satellites which aren’t on the ground but in the air. Also, the information sent can travel a lot further distance than older methods due to these satellites which can be accessed anywhere in the world.
The services that were used were very effective. For example, a boy of two was recognised and rescued because a family member had seen him on the front page a website set up to find lost people. Also, hundreds of other people were identified and rescued from websites and news reports.