It took me two-and-a-half hours to get home yesterday, well above the barely-sane 45 minutes it normally takes. As I slowly trundled down the highway, I considered with a fair amount of ire the cause of the congestion.
For once, the backup was not caused by one of those tragic yet common road accidents. Instead, the mad dash for Gauteng`s highways - at 4pm I must point out - was the result of a multimedia campaign gone mad.
I was not excluded from the campaign, receiving my first e-mail warning of expected storms at about midmorning. Noting the information, I continued my work without giving it a second thought.
By the time I resurfaced from various interviews a few hours later, the fairly standard alert had turned into widespread panic - a tornado was approaching fast; people were advised to lie low; tie up belongings and be home by at least 4pm.
I surfed to my favourite news site, noted the alarms had been labelled "grossly exaggerated" and returned to my work.
Mass (media) hysteria
To all accounts, the origin of the frenzy was a simple mail and SMS alert sent out by the SA Weather Service.
Kimberly Guest, senior journalist, ITWeb
To all accounts, the origin of the frenzy was a simple mail and SMS alert sent out by the SA Weather Service.
Within hours, the alert had turned into a wide-scale threat alarm. Interestingly, this rapid escalation was not because of the Weather Service`s content, or even the Netcare employee who thought a handful of friends might be interested.
Instead, the unfounded panic was caused by people`s natural tendency to embellish information and spread fear. As they say, bad news travels fast.
Creating viruses
This phenomenon of spreading information via public communities is termed "viral marketing" by the world`s communication executives.
Like the flu virus, the message is distributed to a select group of people who then forward it to others they are in contact with. As is found with pyramid schemes, the numbers escalate exponentially as each recipient buys into the message and becomes its proponent.
The viral marketing`s similarity to the flu virus does not end there. By the very nature of their distribution networks, viral campaigns and viruses are impossible to control. They change along the way, becoming a distant cousin to their original states.
Intellectual firewall
Luckily, there are many ways in which people can establish the verity of the information that they receive. I strongly urge that people use these channels before succumbing to the impulse to forward to friends and family.
The first way to do this is to head to the Internet. Sites like Snopes.com, Hoaxbusters, Hoax-slayer and Truth or Fiction will probably help you wipe a good 99% of warning messages from your inbox.
For the remaining 1%, contact the person quoted, or your favourite news agency, to verify that the information is in fact completely accurate.
Whatever you do, don`t forward the information on until you are absolutely certain it is the truth.
Of course, some may have banked on the idea that a threat warning would result in an early departure from work - it was Monday after all. Nevertheless, I would have preferred sitting at my desk enjoying a hot cup of coffee to the eternity of being trapped in my car.
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