Manon
If I were to summarize the things I learned from making this practical assignment, it'd look like this!
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Consequences of using social media as a tool during this disaster are all different. First of all, a lot of awareness was spread. All groups of the population got to know about it. Actions and active use of social media spread a certain message which brought many people to donating money. Younger groups in the population got to know about the urgency of help and the size of the disaster. Unless you had been living under a stone, there was no one completely ignorant of the situation. Unfortunately, using social media also brought a lot of negative upheaval. (Check out this page for more details! manonevelinesgs.webnode.nl/social-media/) Trijntje Oosterhuis clearly underestimated the power of social media!
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The main use of social media was definitely to spread awareness. Of course it wasn't about changing or solving a situation, what was there to be changed? The situation was truly terrible. Yet, due to social media, the whole got to know about it. How the typhoon was the strongest ever. How the inhabitants had to survive for five days without food or drinking water, in the middle of all the devastation.
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As in every situation, there were pros and cons to the use of social media. A definite pro is the amount of money, and thus help raised by social media. As I already mentioned, so much more awareness and knowledge was spread than there would have been with only the news. Actions were set up on Twitter, people donated 10 cents for every retweet they would get. Of course every single euro helps. Unfortunately, there have been cons as well. People with a lot of influence posting false information that caused confusion and ignorance. All the negative reactions about the question to donate money.
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But mostly I saw how social media makes a global difference in everything we do!