During the event of the Boston Marathon Bombing, news coverage took off, thus police, journalist, and the public used social media as their main source of coverage for quick and easy access

In Massachusetts the third Monday of April is known as Patriots Day or more fondly called "Marathon Monday".  This is the day that the Boston Marathon happens every year.  Patriots Day is also a state holiday during which multiple reenactments of the first battles of revolutionary war take place throughout the area and the Boston Red Sox play just a unique morning game so that fans can watch the end of the Marathon after the baseball game. The whole community of Boston rallies around the marathon and supports all the runners that are participating in the race. People come to watch the marathon and cheer on the many runners that are participating even if the people do not know anyone in the marathon. However, on April 15, 2013 a major tragedy occurred.  First, a bomb exploded at the finish line and then just 12 seconds later a second bomb exploded just a few blocks from the first explosion.  Three people were killed including an 8-year-old boy and an estimated 264 others were injured.  Due to this surprise unexpected terrorist attack, the quickest way to get the news/information out to the public was through social media outlets such as Twitter or Facebook.

Much of the public uses social media within the United States, as it can be a large part of spreading information.

In the society that we live in today it is estimated that there is about 75% of adults that use social media, and of this segment about 70% use Facebook and 25% use Twitter from the research of the "Pew Research Center". Thus, since much of society today uses social media, one of the quickest ways to receive news coverage is through Twitter or Facebook.  From this UMD survey the results were able to show that more than 50% of the students would rather view news from social media rather than the actual news coverage sites such as CNN or Fox News.  For example, here are two students that would choose to use social media as their main source of news coverage rather than major news outlets. 

In order for the public to get the information as quickly as they could about what is happening during the Boston Marathon Bombing, they rallied around the social media outlets.  As stated in the article “Twitter as a Sentinel in Emergency Situations: Lessons from the Boston Marathon Explosions" the authors discuss how news and public safety officials were able to disseminate information related to both public safety and general informational news as quickly and accurately as possible. For example, during the bombing incident the amount of people who started following the Boston Globe Twitter account increased and the mentions to the @BostonGlobe increased by a large amount. 

During the Boston Marathon live tweeting became the main source of how information would get out to the public as quickly as possible.

Once the attacks occurred the main source of giving out information and news to the public was through social media.  The main objective was to get news out as quickly as possible to the public and as accurately as possible.  The Boston Globe usually tweets about 40 times a day, however, during the day of the attacks the Boston Globe tweeted about 150 times roughly four times greater than normal.  This shows that reporters were told to make sure that they were live tweeting and using social media in order to get the information out as quickly as possible to the public, since it was the most efficient method given the speed with which the events were occurring in and around the City of Boston.   Social media communications were now being used as a two-way communication with the public. The public was actually using social media accounts to receive live up to the minute vital communications from public and private sources and was also communicating directly back to these agencies creating this two way communication path.

During the Boston Marathon attacks, David Mazza from Harvard University, explains in the following interview how he was able to follow the news reports through twitter and that it was the easiest way to track what was going on and to receive relevant information.  He also explains exactly where he was at the time, which was very close to the incident that occurred within Boston and also the resulting manhunt for the terrorists.

Due to the increase of tweets and social media information being spewed out into the public, many people started to follow more and more news coverage accounts through Twitter. Also, this behavior again shows that social media is the easiest and quickest way for people to access and get information from breaking news. For example, from the graphs depicted you can see the difference in the amount of people who follow the Boston Globe before, during, and after the terrorist attacks.  Also, there is a graph that shows the amount of @BostonGlobe mentions there are before, during, and after the attacks.  This data clearly outlines the increased use and efficiency of social media outlets to distribute news and public safety information. 

Social media played a huge part in the "manhunt" of the terrorist for the Boston Police Department.

As soon as 10 minutes after the bombing, the Boston Police Department (BPD) Commissioner Edward Davis told his department to start using social media and to let people know what had occurred", as noted in the article "Social Media: Big Lessons from the Boston Marathon Bombing".  It became quickly apparent that Facebook and Twitter were the best source of information about the "manhunt" due to the use by the Boston Police Department of its twitter account.  Stated by Lt Zachary Perron a public information officer from Palo Alto, Californian, "The BPD twitter account became the news source during the crisis. It was a watershed moment for law enforcement and social media."

The two-way communication with the police enforcement twitter accounts is a prime example of two-way communication between public safety agencies and its constituents – the citizens.  Social media accounts of Police departments are an excellent example of how this process should work with various police agencies communicating directing with the public through its social media accounts. The public was able to directly contact and ask questions to the BPD, and the BPD was able to quickly and efficiently respond to various inquiries. Given the highly connected nature of social media, the public was also able to quickly propagate the authoritative news and messages of the BPD through retweets.    

False reads from some of the news coverage sites also occurred due to the volume of use of social media and the speed with which this material was being distributed by all parties.  For example, in the article, "Social Media and Police Leadership: Lessons From Boston" the authors explain how there were some instances when sites such as CNN were giving out false information.  In the early afternoon of April 17, 2013 CNN reported that the arrests were made on the terrorist and within minutes that news was prompted nationally.  Thus, the BPD replied in the matter of minutes back to CNN to let them know that "through Twitter, that no arrest had been made. CNN retracted its report almost immediately, and the BPD tweet was amplified by nearly 11,000 retweets."  This is a stunning example of the two-way communication benefit of social media outlets.   

The over arching theme that is expressed is that social media can play a huge part in peoples lives today as it will help the public receive and disseminate information from major news sources and provide important and accurate information about the most current news and events happening in society.