War in 140 Characters or Less

The war in Gaza is the first to be broadcast in 140 characters or less, writes Social Entrepreneurship.

In the late 1960s, Walter Cronkite and the television news broadcast the horror of the Vietnam war, American servicemen's coffins and all. At the same time, the Nigeria-Biafra civil war became the first televised humanitarian crisis. The moving pictures of starving children launched a wave of citizen-driven relief efforts and kick-started the era of media humanitarianism. Television was a powerful medium for inspiring humanitarian compassion and revulsion. In the late 1960s, there weren't a hundred different channels you could switch to if you wanted to keep yourself oblivious.

... The war in Gaza is the first modern conflict to be carried out across the social media-sphere. The Israel Defense Force and Hamas both have Youtube Channels (or equivalent), and the Twitter chatter from voices both formal and informal has been nonstop.

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emily | 4:09 PM | Twitter |
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