youtube
Linkedin
twitter
Facebook
Facebook Wipes Up BPJune 14, 2010 – 12:17 pm |
 Abdul Fattah Ismail |
|||
The BP oil spill has been another controversy filling this calendar year, alongside earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. Not unlike those disasters, social media marketing has been a tool for opening up dialogue on several levels. Government officials have been monitoring Facebook, along with other sites, to spread public awareness about the federal position. Forum users have also debated the initiatives taken to mitigate the damage along the Gulf Coast. According to a wire report on McClatchy, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr Jim Hoeft created an application on Facebook named the Deepwater Horizon Response Team. The team’s mission is to coordinate the oil giant’s effort to stop and clean up the millions of gallons of crude oil that have killed 11 people up to date. The response online has been strong, with 32,000 users liking the organization and over 2 million views on YouTube. Users have also left comments on Facebook for the administration to respond with accurate feedback. YouTube users were asked to upload their thoughts on the situation while providing solutions to clean up the spill. Some have volunteered their services for a price in videos, while users have posted status updates with a hotline number for those wishing to assist with the disaster.
All of this again demonstrates the power of social media in terms of integrating discourse. Solutions arise with the focus of a light beam, but conflicts can be taken to a whole other level that dissipates from the main objective. Some dialogue in the Deepwater application veered into political discourse on fossil fuels and whether the administration should further their initiatives on discovering alternative energy sources. A few users can’t imagine a world without fossil fuels, thinking that we will revert to the Mesozoic era without its presence. Environmentalists say that the ice caps are evaporating from fossil fuels by the nanosecond, but the truth remains elusive. The discussion spreads online, though, without an end in sight.
