The document discusses how social media created new ways for people to engage in affective culture during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It explores how social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook helped spread information about the disaster and mobilize aid efforts. The document also examines how social media provided new ways for people to feel connected through sharing personal experiences and visual/textual updates. By capturing and disseminating information about the horrific events, social media helped shape the public's understanding of the disaster and feelings of collective experience.

1. The Mourning After:
A Case Study of Social Media
in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan
Elsa
27.08.2012 Week7

2. • The essay demonstrates that people are
increasingly becoming witnesses to various
natural disasters with their own specific type of
affective cultures dues to the development of
social mobile media.
The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

3. How social media offer new
channels for affective cultures?
The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

4. • Capturing, sharing and monumentalizing
events
• Moving across online and offline worlds
into geosocial terrain
• Taking much credit for mobilizing action
e.g. YouTube, Facebook
Hjorth, L & Kim, KY (2011), ‘The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11
Earthquake Disaster in Japan’, Television & New Media, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 552-559
The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

5. In what ways social media had
impact on the public?
The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

6. In general:
• Provide various modes of visual, textual, oral
communication with greater affective
personalization
• Provide new spaces for networked, effective civic
responses and affective interpersonal responses
• Make the public feel more connected dues to a new
sense of collective affective power
The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

7. In the situation of natural disasters:
• Collecting and disseminate horrific events
• Shaping the affective nature of the event
Hjorth, L & Kim, KY (2011), ‘The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in
the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan’, Television & New Media, vol. 12, no. 6,
pp. 552-559
The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

8. The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social
Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in
Japan

9. Social Media creates Intimacy
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=BVb1RRMHZjs&feature=related
Social Media Intimacy

10. • According to Anthropologist Stefana Broadbent
(2009), communications to some extent are
strengthening our most important relationships.
• “Mobile phones, instant messaging and social
networking actually creates new channels for
establishing core relationships.”
Broadbent, S (2009), TED Global 2009, Oxford
Social Media Intimacy

11. How these impact on the public in terms of
building relationships?
Social Media Intimacy

12. Twitter
• a cocktail party of
social media
• relationships start and
are sustained, but not
go further
• but your approach is
limited with140
characters
Social Media Intimacy

13. Blogs
• usually start with
commenting on one’s blog
• seek both interests and
similarities
Social Media Intimacy

14. Emails
• quite intimate in the
context of the online
world
• offer beyond other
types one-to-one
conversation without
content restriction
Social Media Intimacy

15. Facebook
• both bloggers and
readers seem to be
evolving
• very visual glimpse
into who you really
are as someone
• probably one day
that people will not
use their email
address anymore
Social Media Intimacy

16. Social Media Intimacy

17. • The number of “inboxes”
we possess is staggering,
e.g. Twitter, Facebook,
Linkedin, Google +
messages, Blog comments,
Skype, Instagram, etc.
Social Media Intimacy

18. • The common belief in
interacting with more
people is inherently
better than interacting
with fewer people,
sometimes no longer
convinced.
Social Media Intimacy

19. • A feeling of intimacy
and closeness that
doesn’t actually exist.
Social Media Intimacy

20. • Giving each channel an intimacy rating on a scale of 1 to
10, with 10 the most intimate, how you rate these forms,
including Twitter, Blog, Facebook, Skype/Online Chat.
• And then, discuss where have your deepest connections in
the online and mobile world been formed?
Discussion Activity