Evaluation of Social Media Sources

The website Storify is a great tool for finding social media sources related to specific topics. In this post I will be closely analyzing a couple of the authors of articles that can be found in my own story.

Although the primary purpose of using Storify was to find social media posts on sites like Twitter and Facebook, it was not feasible to find any. Geoengineering is still fresh out of the bag, being heavily evaluated by many scientists, and as such, most social media displays topical articles.

Henry Fountain
In the New York Times article written by Henry Fountain, he relays what a panel of individuals thinks about using geoengineering as a tool against climate change. The article explains the different approaches being considered for climate change, and what the risks might be.

In order to analyze the validity of the post, some research was made on Henry Fountain. He is a science writer for the New York Times and is currently residing in New York, where much of the discussion on geoengineering is occurring. His twitter account, @henryfountain, has been active since December of 2008 and majority of his tweets are hyperlinks to news articles he feels is important.

Henry Fountain holds a significant amount of credibility, with his primary focus being on engineering, but he also quite frequently dabbles in the sciences. Most of his followings on social site Twitter are individuals who are either journalists or inspired scientists-to-be. Since Henry Fountain appears to be a fairly credible man, his article about geoengineering has also been deemed credible.

Altmann, Gerd. "Hook, Check Mark, Check Off, Confirm, Confirmation" Two months ago via pixabay.

Public Domain License

Brian Kahn
The second article, found on Mashable, gives a foundation for the dos and don'ts of geoengineering. Much like the scholarly articles found, it analyzes the costs and risks of implementing geoengineering. Author Brian Kahn relays valuable information in order inform the masses of what climate engineering entails.

Screenshot from "Mashable". September 5,2015 via Mashable

A closer look into Kahn's background, it was found that he is a senior science writer for Climate Central. Along with being a senior writer there, he has collaborated with the Wallstreet Journal, Yale forums, and has had many relations with website climate.gov.

His twitter handle, @blkahn, was created back in January of 2010 and shows that he is also currently residing in New York. Upon closer inspection, majority of Kahn's tweets have something to do with the changing climate and weather conditions, and can be validated through the hyperlinks he provides with his tweets. He is associated with his place of work, Climate Central, on twitter, along with Climate and Society, and the Society of Environmental Journalists, indicating that he is well versed in events related to climate change.