A study has cast doubt on the innovative role that some claim Twitter, the 'microblogging' social media tool, can play in generating new information during disasters, although it did find that 'tweets' speed up the exchange of existing information. An analysis of tweets sent by people in the United States following the emergency at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant found that most linked to traditional news outlets, such as the New York Times and CNN, for updates.