I joined a travel online through Zoom.A victim of Great East Japan earthquake in 2011 shared his experience with live broadcast from the stricken area.I initially thought this would be a heavy event. Contrary to expectation, I spent a very fruitful time with many inspiring thoughts.
This is the second piece of the two stories: About the strength of Online Communication.
Communicable than said
As being discussed over Work at Home and online education, generally speaking, having empathy and emotion is said to be difficult.
However, the Online Travel in this time was utterly different, which conveyed the empathy and emotion that the lecturer meant to deliver. You may imagine the emotion would be something to do with sorrow as the topic is earthquake disaster though, it was not. The message I received was more forward-looking and worthwhile to address while challenging (See the No.1 of this).
I would have probably felt this experience differently if I received this in in-person situation. However, it is likely to believe that online was the right choice in this case. Online communication did not drive me too emotionally; it created another type of reality with the combination of live broadcast and objective information.
What were the differences?
Frankness delivered from live broadcasting without excessive manipulation
The live broadcasting from the disaster-stricken area and the lecturer’s story telling was so powerful that it gave me a feeling of real presence on the site. TV programs would do this sort of delivery in a more artful manner though, less manipulation of often clumsy presentation gave me a new sense of reality, which resemble to that of YouTube.
Objective information of charts, photos, and videos
Before joining, I was suspicious whether live broadcasting can maintain viewers’ attention in the whole program though, use of charts, photos, and videos in-between the live broadcastings helped a lot. Objective information made viewers drive excessively emotional, balanced, and eventually persuasive. Thorough preparations and coordination would have been required though, this mixed style of different media would be useful for online meetings and education.
Real and in-person may not tell the truth
The lecturer told that people who looked at the real site may misunderstand if appropriate information is not provided. We tend to believe that meeting in-person or seeing a real object leads to correct understanding. However, it is not always so. I think we should change our mindset of real and in-person are sole correct way of understanding things.
Different reality of online communication
On looking back, we have been pursuing how online communication can get closer to real one. However, they are different in nature; cannot become the same. Online communication provides unique way of delivering reality in another way.
This experience was a slightly different from so-called travel. At least it was not sight-seeing like; something beyond mere entertainment. I do not deny commercial tourism though, at times this sort of opportunity of creating insights and thoughts through travel would be good. Travelers who want this sort of new opportunity would increase especially in Japan, I believe. ■