Adam Earnheardt
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What "Raid Area 51" Taught Us About Facebook Events

9/29/2019

 
PictureSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Area51_gate.JPG
This column first appeared in the September 29, 2019 edition of The Vindicator:

Promoters of a plan to raid Area 51 in Nevada must be scratching their heads today.

Their plan was to get millions of people to show up at the military base, storm the gates, and uncover the truth about hidden alien technology.

More than 2 million people checked the “going” box on the “Raid Area 51” social media event page.

Imagine that number: more than 2 million people. According to a 2017 U.S. Defense Department report, that’s roughly the same size as our active and reserve military forces.

On the day of the scheduled Area 51 raid, however, only a few dozen people actually showed up at the gate.

So, what went wrong? What happened to the other millions of people who said they’d show up? Could it be they were abducted by — wait for it — oh, never mind.

The “truth” is, like most things we try to plan and promote on social media, it’s easy to slap some information and a picture or video on an event page. It’s not as easy to get people to actually show up for the event, even if they tell us they’re “going...”

Read the rest of this column in The Vindicator at https://www.vindy.com/life/lifestyles/2019/09/facebook-events-dont-mean-much/



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    Author

    Dr. Adam C. Earnheardt is special assistant to the provost and professor of communication in the department of communication at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, OH, USA where he also directs the graduate program in professional communication.  He researches and writes on a variety of topics including communication technologies, relationships, and sports (with an emphasis on fandom). His work has appeared in Mahoning Matters as well as The Vindicator and Tribune-Chronicle newspapers.

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