News of Asia's devastating tsunami reached the living rooms of most Americans in a matter of hours, through dramatic video taken by tourists, Internet postings and cell phones. The catastrophe has tugged at heartstrings in a way few international disasters have.

``Globalization is really bringing us together,'' said Geneva Overholser, a former newspaper editor and journalism professor at the University of Missouri. ``The world is really closer. We've been talking about that for a long time, but it seems that this disaster is evidence that it has happened.''

The tsunami is hardly a distant event for the thousands of Asian-Americans anxious to learn the fate of relatives, or tourists whose sunny escapes turned into unimaginable horror.

But for many Americans without a personal stake, the tsunami is being experienced in ways not possible as little as a decade ago.

Journalists began rushing to the scene immediately after hearing about it. Through videophones that can be packed into a suitcase and portable satellite dishes that are set up in a flash, television journalists can transmit pictures virtually as soon as they arrive.

They were already beaten.

Any tourist with a video camera is now a reporter, and vacationers quickly provided arresting images of huge waves swamping the shoreline. More video has come forward each day to keep the story alive; NBC's ``Today'' show led one day last week with pictures from Malaysia on Thursday of the wave knocking down children.

Contrast that with 30 years ago, when the handy technology did not exist. Not only would reporters have to get there, they needed to find a way to get stories to their home office.

The new technology is making the old journalistic saw about one tragic death at home being worth as much coverage as hundreds of deaths overseas increasingly obsolete, said Louis Boccardi, former chief executive of The Associated Press.

If the tsunami had struck 20 years ago, ``we would have reported it, it would have been seen as a huge disaster, and we would have gone on to the Super Bowl,'' said Ben Bagdikian, veteran media critic and author of ``The New Media Monopoly.''

``Satellite transmission of video means that anybody who has pictures of a dramatic event anywhere in the world can get them into the United States immediately,'' he said.

Many Americans scarcely remember the earthquake that struck Tangshan, China, in 1976, killing an estimated 240,000 people, said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University expert on television and pop culture.

This time, some survivors able to get to a computer immediately posted personal stories of what they had gone through, adding to the sense of closeness.

Rick Von Feldt, a computer industry worker from Topeka, Kan., wrote in a Weblog about watching the waves - safely, from a hill - while on vacation in Thailand.

``If you were far enough down the beach, you didn't realize how quickly the receded water would come back,'' he wrote. ``Some got caught, and we sat and watched [in] horror as the waves rushed back, grabbing the feet of people and throwing them up in the air like little rubber ducks. Most survived. A few did not.''

Cell phones and text messaging allowed instant contact with people at the scene, although the disaster knocked out phone service for many victims. Some lucky people got reassuring calls from their loved ones in the disaster zone before they even knew what had happened.

The impact of the story and the speed with which it spread are also reflected in the questions raised by some critics who say the Bush administration has been too slow to react to the disaster. Charities have also seen a huge outpouring.

Media coverage ``encourages and drives people to take action immediately,'' said Kara Bunte, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross. ``I do think it ... makes them truly want to help in some way.''