Americans would prefer TV over Internet for Emergency Info

Anonymous Patron writes “Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article on a Pew survey showing that most Americans would rely on television or radio instead of news Web sites in the event of a terrorist attack.” Here’s the Pew Survey.

August 31, 2003 by Uncategorized 4

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4 Responses

  1. Peter says:
    September 1, 2003 at 7:43 am

    I’m not surprised

    The news web sites have gotten better at positioning resources so they, too, don’t black out as a couple thousand people hit them at the same time. However, nothing beats the efficiency (broadcast versus unicast) and “absorbability” (listening/watching versus reading) of radio and TV. Until we have a little more media convergence (more streaming audio/video over the Internet in a more bandwidth-efficient manner), I don’t think these numbers will change.

    One could ask, though, what this article has to do with libraries…

    Reply
  2. rochelle says:
    September 1, 2003 at 5:32 pm

    Re:I’m not surprised
    I chose to post the submission because of the internet angle. As a public reference librarian, 70-80% of my reference desk time is spent in helping people access information on the internet, and accessing information for people using web=based resources. I also have patrons call me from home and use me as tech support for their computer problems. I would contend that posting internet-related stories on lisnews is as valid as posting book and publishing news.

    Reply
  3. Walt says:
    September 1, 2003 at 9:08 pm

    Re:I’m not surprised
    Rochelle’s right–part of a ref. librarian’s job should be pointing out the most appropriate sources, and this is one such case.

    I wrote a “disContent” column on this issue, “Turn on the radio,” shortly after 9/11/2001. (See the February 2002 EContent, or various popular full-text aggregations.) As the first message noted, there are sound technological reasons that broadcast media are likely to continue as the first place to go for breaking stories that affect lots of people, simply because they are broadcast.

    And, ideally, the library is where you’d go to make sense of it all a few months or years later, or to find background for the event right away. The radio for news, the library for meaning.

    Looking back at that column, I see that Google actually put a “turn on the TV or radio” advisory on its home page–along with doing its best to keep up. As I said in closing:

    “The best lesson was Google’s. Don’t depend on one medium alone. When the Gilder/Negroponte crowd touts the wonders of digital convergence, think about the virtues of divergence and traditional media. Sometimes your best move is to turn on the radio.”

    Reply
  4. Fiona says:
    September 3, 2003 at 4:07 am

    Re:I’m not surprised
    Where I live, stations are mandated by broadcasting law to provide emergency information, and their airwaves can be taken over by safety or government officials for this purpose.

    This is something major happens, you are guaranteed to hear about it on radio, I can’t see a website being mandated to do the same thing in the near future.

    Reply

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