The Twitter Debate

Will Twitter change the way we live? Social networking has certainly revolutionised the way we interact with one another, the way we procrastinate, and indeed the way we learn about and discuss news issues. With 200 million followers Twitter has shaken up traditional modes of journalism. The hashtag # and @ phenomenon have become a central part of the Twitter experience (Johnson), making it effortless for any user to follow a live feed concerning events and news worthy issues, while providing a platform to add to the discussion.

So, I think we can unquestionably agree that Twitter and other social networking sites are changing the traditional journalism landscape, but what does this mean? Is this beneficial to society or are we gradually destroying the respected art of the qualified journalist?

Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for the US Secretary of State, says that Twitter, and citizen journalism in general, heralds democratisation, however, also brings the threat of misinformation.

For example, citizen journalists used social media to organize protests and spread assurances of safety during the Arab Spring throughout the Middle East and northern Africa. Ted mentioned that "tiny chunks of content can form a coherent and dynamic narrative." When numerous users begin to Tweet about the same incidents, a “dynamic story” evolves from a variety of angles. Citizen journalism diminishes the power that traditional news sources used to have over the approach of a story.

However, social media can also spread misinformation just as rapidly. Fake tweets about a bombing in Mexico led to car crashes as thousands of panicked parents raced to their children's school. Examples like these highlight the problem of some users' inability to distinguish true from false journalistic posts, especially given the prevalence of anonymity on social media networks. It also underscores social media's potency, but more established practices may have to be developed around Twitter and Facebook to better gauge veracity.

From my micro world perspective? I am the first to admit, I am not a huge fan of the single sentence updates that Twitter is so well known for. Johnson says that “we don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.” I am actually a huge advocate against social networking sites for this exact reason, but it drives home the point that Twitter is changing the way we live.

I believe that Twitter and social networks have both valuable and harmful aspects to the way we increasingly digitalise our lives. So I leave you with a debate. Twitter is changing the way we live. That’s a fact, not a question. The question is… for better or worse?

Anyone Can Edit... so?

Recent decades have seen the dual trend of increasing digitisation of content, and of growing access to tools that allow us to produce, manipulate, publish and distribute that content.

Advertising campaigns, like the iTunes ad below, openly encourage users to 'Rip. Mix. Burn.' and it has become part of our culture to share our thoughts and creations with the rest of cyberspace. The Internet has completely transformed the way we consume information, and the dominance of the traditional producer > publisher > distributor value chain has weakened. Marshall McLuhan's dictum 'everyone's a publisher' (McLuhan 1964) is on the verge of becoming a reality - and more to the point, as the Wikipedia proudly proclaims, 'anyone can edit.'

The effect of these changes is that users are becoming active producers of content in a variety of open and collaborative environments. Whether it be audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras), full-fledged participatory news sites like OhmyNews, or collaborative and contributory media sites like Slashdot and Newsvine, internet users are now no longer producers or consumers, publishers or audiences, but both at the same time.

This ability to create content so easily has created an environment of abundance, although the ‘abundance of information leads to scarcity of attention’ (Kelly 2008). The internet offers free and easy access, no quality filters and little risk, creating a wealth of user generated information. Does this type of information-heavy community benefit users or does it just become a major problem for those wishing to gain attention and break through the clutter?

This conundrum is encapsulated well in Kelly’s statement, ‘when copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable’ (Kelly 2008). So should we spend more time valuing the scarce- also known as the traditional media, the shop fronts, and the content which can’t be made up by a twelve year old girl posing as a professor on Wikipedia? Or should we embrace the produser and the clutter that derives from it?

My personal view is that if we don’t embrace the produser we will never get the truths, creations and revolutions that do not get exposed through the typical publishing route. I say this with the thought of Asmaa Mahfouz fresh in my mind. Let me know your thoughts!

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964.

Kelly, K. (2008). Better Than Free.[URL: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html]