Blogs, Tweets, and YouTube Videos are all about Japan

From March 14-18, 2011 the earthquake in Japan and the aftermath was the number one topic on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This is the second time that one story has dominated in these three new media platforms; the first story to do this was the unrest that followed the Iranian elections in June 2009. According to the Pew's New Media Index, 64% of news links on blogs, 32% of news links on Twitter, and all of the top 20 videos on YouTube were about the earthquake in Japan. What's interesting about these findings, as well as the article that accompanies them, is that it discusses how each social media platform functions using different techniques. Blogs were able to pull on the emotional content of the event, Twitter kept followers updated about headlines and new events as they happened, and YouTube provided the dramatic video footage that allowed a viewer to see what the tsunami looked like as it barreled into Japan's coast. In order for a story to be so widely reported on across all three platforms it must possess elements that each new media outlet can build on and intrigue readers, followers, and viewers with. The fact that this has only happened once before speaks to the unique combination of qualities that a story must possess in order to dominate all three outlets.