News of Jackson’s Death Flies Through Cyberspace

The online community has been among the quickest to respond to news of Michael Jackson’s death. Instead of receiving this information via more traditional media such as news television, newspapers, and the radio, many people discovered the news through social networking sites such as Twitter.

According to The Los Angeles Times one avid Twitter-user quickly “tweeted”:

“… Michael Jackson Hospitalized...wow. If he dies too, OMG (Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett...lets hope it's not MJ, cause death does happen in 3s).”

With the ability to quickly update statuses, sites like Twitter are extremely conducive to keeping track of news even before it is officially reported.

YouTube has posted tribute videos to Michael Jackson on their homepage and users have been posting their own videos and memories of the singer as well.

Websites have been rapidly emerging all over the Internet, some in tribute and some in jest towards the self-proclaimed King of Pop. On one website, Ismichaeljacksondead.com, the author jokes “Michael's family is not planning on having a funeral, they are simply leaving him out for recycling pick up next Tuesday night.”

Fans have created a multitude of groups and fan pages on Facebook dedicated to the deceased singer: “RIP Michael (We Miss You)” is just one of the many examples.

Even most newspapers published the story on their websites, once again proving the quickness of online media versus its print predecessor.