Meagher, a 29-year-old radio staffer originally from Ireland, disappeared in the early hours of Saturday morning on a short walk back to her Melbourne home after drinks with colleagues.[break]
The mystery has since exploded via Australian and international headlines, in part due to the collective efforts of the missing woman´s friends and loved ones on Facebook and Twitter.
As local investigations began on Saturday, a Facebook page titled ´Help us find Jill Meagher´ was created detailing her last known whereabouts, clothing, photographs, and police contacts.
Heartfelt testimonies -- such as "praying for Jill and her family" -- soon started flowing onto the page. Yet it wasn´t until a Twitter campaign was also launched on Sunday that the social media networks really started to go crazy.
Isabelle Oderberg, social media editor at Melbourne-based metro newspaper, The Herald Sun, was one of those who helped push the momentum along via the instantaneous modern-day medium, Twitter.
"It was all within 24 hours, really," she said to Republica of the campaign´s virality, which led to Oderberg´s name trending on Twitter across Australia by mid-afternoon Sunday.As news networks -- including the national broadcaster, ABC, which Meagher works for -- became increasingly interested in the missing person, so too did anonymous people, including those back in her birthplace of Ireland.
By Sunday night, the Facebook page had gathered just a few thousand fans. Less than 24 hours later, however, it exploded, with over 35,000 fans and hundreds of posts praying for her safe return.
The campaign aims to drive witnesses via mass exposure in a very modern way. Yet it has also interestingly proved crucial for mobilizing more traditional methods of finding missing persons, like signposting.
"We have placed at all train stations and some cafes and supermarkets in Footscray, Yarraville, [and] Seddon," posted one Facebook user, Susanne Macys, on Sunday about a missing person´s flyer she downloaded off the page.
It´s a remarkable response from humanity, but also one that´s increasingly commonplace as social media changes the way individuals and groups interact with one another.
Oderberg said Meagher´s campaign is "not even close to being the first case of its kind in Australia", citing that of another Melbourne resident, Bung Siriboon, who vanished in June last year.
This teenager´s disappearance also led to a viral Twitter campaign via the hashtag #FindBung. In July 2011, the family of a missing Australian man, Daniel O´Keeffe, also mobilized a Facebook campaign similar to Meagher´s page.
The trend has also been widely reported in other Internet-savvy countries. Just last weekend, the body of a retired firefighter, Charlie Dowd, was found in the US following his family´s Facebook campaign gathering almost 4,000 likes.
Despite the trend, Oderberg said that social media hasn´t replaced traditional methods of mobilizing witnesses, like signpost flyers or police hotlines.
"They´re still important. There are lots of people not on social media or who aren´t necessarily reached by a digital campaign or they miss it," said Oderberg.
"Why not poster the area to target people who may have been [in the area where somebody disappeared] and put the picture up…It might jog a memory."
The newspaper editor, who uses data collation methods to pinpoint and analyze social media trends, also said that Facebook and Twitter haven´t replaced the roles of police or media.
For instance, when Meagher´s handbag was found abandoned beside a car on Monday, it was first known to people because the media reported it, said Oderberg.
"People still desperately want a ´verified´ media organization to confirm the facts before they believe them. There´s too much on social media that simply is unverified or unchecked," she said.
"But it´s great for spreading the word faster," she added of social media´s role in missing persons cases, where the issue of time is so crucial to finding loved ones while they´re still alive.
Meanwhile, the search for Australia´s currently most well-known missing woman continues. With the discovery of her belongings, however, the search has now turned into a homicide squad investigation.
The missing woman´s distraught husband, Tom Meagher, has told Australian media that he´s living in "hell" but is holding out hope that his wife will walk through the front door.
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