Video Blogging the Tsunami
Tsunami disaster spurs video blogs By Clark Boyd Technology correspondentSome of the most striking video of the tsunami was taken not by professionals, but by amateurs.
They used relatively-cheap, relatively-simple digital video cameras to shoot the footage. They then put their video images up on the internet. It is called video-weblogging, or vlogging.
The clips are short, grainy and jumpy, and the sound is marginal. But there is no mistaking the impact of the amateur videos of the tsunami. In clip after clip, waves slam into shorelines, and people run screaming for their lives.
It took only hours for videos like this to make it from Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia to the internet.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of culture and communication at New York University, says that much of the historical record of the tsunami is based on these videos.
"In this case, it seems that we could not do without the amateur images and amateur accounts," Prof Vaidhyanathan says.
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