Seems Stupid Until You Try It: Press Coverage of Twitter
Noah Arceneaux and Amy Schmitz Weiss
Noah Arceneaux and Amy Schmitz Weiss
New Media Society May 18, 2010
DOI: 10.1177/1461444809360773
Abstract
While critics of Twitter, the most popular microblogging application, dismiss the service as frivolous, proponents tout a variety of educational, political and commercial uses.
Drawing from social construction theories of technology, this research uses the grounded theory approach to analyze press coverage of this emerging echnology from 2006 through the first months of 2009.
While the specifics of Twitter may be new, this research demonstrates that the public response to this web tool is similar to the public reaction to earlier communication technologies including the telegraph, radio and the internet.
Despite vocal skepticism from some, the research shows newspapers, magazines and blogs have promoted and actively encouraged Twitter’s diffusion.
Conclusion
Every major form of electronic communication, from the telegraph to the internet, has been greeted with ambivalence, though the preponderance of positive press coverage revealed by this research suggests that the skepticism over Twitter will not slow its diffusion and commercial adoption.
The concurrent growth of mobile media applications, for which Twitter is particularly suited, is also likely to contribute to the application’s growth.
If Twitter’s proposed plans for generating revenue should fail (and we are by no means suggesting that they will), the void will no doubt be filled by some rival service that offers a similar capability.
For those Americans for whom email itself is an overly casual and impersonal means for communication, and for whom the entire phenomenon of social networking is something of a mystery, microblogging will likely remain a maligned activity.
For other Americans, though, particularly those accustomed to sharing personal information and interacting through such Web 2.0 platforms as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and MySpace, microblogs like Twitter will become just one of the many communication tools at their disposal. In sharp contrast to the quote that begins this article, Twitter users would have us believe that the application is indeed about something.
This study does have limitations.
First, this study only focused on the media that could be measured in text form, such as magazines, newspapers and weblogs. Other forms of media such as radio, television and digital media are also potential measures of public response to Twitter, but were not the focus of this study.
The sampling method was also reliant upon the publications that LexisNexis includes within its database, and the ‘newspaper’ category of this database includes trade publications and material geared toward the business community. Given that many companies have already begun to use microblogging as part of the marketing and advertising efforts, it is possible that this portion of the sample overrepresented positive discussions of the application.
First, this study only focused on the media that could be measured in text form, such as magazines, newspapers and weblogs. Other forms of media such as radio, television and digital media are also potential measures of public response to Twitter, but were not the focus of this study.
The sampling method was also reliant upon the publications that LexisNexis includes within its database, and the ‘newspaper’ category of this database includes trade publications and material geared toward the business community. Given that many companies have already begun to use microblogging as part of the marketing and advertising efforts, it is possible that this portion of the sample overrepresented positive discussions of the application.
The study was also limited by the timeframe in which the content was sampled. The sample end date of March 2009 omitted the protests in Iran pertaining to the disputed election results of June 2009, with Twitter providing one of primary tools used by protestors to disseminate information
Future research into this topic could address these identified limitations.
Non-textual sources, such as online videos and the jokes of late-night comedians, could be analyzed to uncover how Twitter is characterized by these sources. Additional research could also be done to discover if the coverage of the dramatic events after the Iranian election was an anomaly or if these events did lead to an identifiable shift in the press coverage of Twitter. By separating Twitter-users from non-Twitter-users, future research could also test the veracity of one of the notable claims uncovered during this current research, namely that the value of microblogging is not apparent until one tries it out first-hand. Do users actually have different perceptions of this service compared to non-users? A related research project could focus specifically on media practitioners and journalists. Since these individuals are devoted to acquiring and disseminating information, is it possible that they have a ‘pro-microblogging’ bias that is not truly representative of the larger public perception?
Stepping away from the perceptions of Twitter and into the arena of actual practice, other research could explore the various ways in which different industries and different outlets have utilized the service.
Network analysis could be conducted with specific media professionals that could provide insight into what types of conversations are occurring on this platform, how often, and what networks it is creating and developing.
Additional methodologies could be employed to explore these topics further through focus groups, in-depth interviews, surveys and content analysis of tweets themselves. The possibilities to explore the phenomenon of microblogs and their use is a fruitful and beneficial area to study for understanding another part of today’s changing new media landscape.
NOTES (ed GGA)
This is like the Seinfeld of the internet - a website about nothing. (Stone, 2006)
This statement typifies the dismissive attitude that many individuals have upon first encountering Twitter, the Web 2.0 phenomenon that combines elements of blogging, text messaging and broadcasting.
Users write short messages of 140 characters or less, known as ‘tweets’, which are distributed to everyone who has elected to receive them.
This relatively new communication practice is known as ‘microblogging’, and Twitter is the most popular (though not the only) application capitalizing on this growing trend (Red Herring, 2009).
Twitter can be accessed from any device with internet access, including laptop and desktop computers, though the brevity of tweets makes the application particularly suited to mobile devices, with users providing a running commentary on their daily routines.
Twitter can be accessed from any device with internet access, including laptop and desktop computers, though the brevity of tweets makes the application particularly suited to mobile devices, with users providing a running commentary on their daily routines.
Despite the continued growth of Twitter, many critics scoff at the value of such an application. ‘
How many ways do you really need to tell people what you ate for breakfast?’ cry the nay-sayers.
Despite the skepticism that surrounds Twitter, evidenced by comical online videos and sneers from comedians, the application has attracted a significant number of users and the attention of major media outlets. Many companies and government agencies have also embraced the technology, using it for various marketing, publicity and customer service tasks. So many companies have already started using Twitter that academic studies of its use in this respect have already appeared (Jansen et al., 2009). Given its deceptively simple and inherently flexible nature, the service will no doubt be adapted to other uses in the future.
Drawing from theories of social construction (Bijker et al., 1987) and the diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1995), this article explores the public response to this new form of communication by critically analyzing the press coverage of Twitter.
The assumption of this research, as well as studies that have looked at public response to previous communication technologies, is that press coverage is not simply a transparent method to distribute information but can function as a force of change itself, influencing the ways these technologies are diffused, utilized and regulated. As famously stated by Marvin (1988: 8), media have ‘no natural edges’, and their function within society is not determined by inherent technical issues, but instead dependent upon a range of cultural, social, economic and political factors.
This current research into Twitter offers a chance to explore the social construction of a media technology as it occurs.
It may very well be that Twitter turns out to be the app du jour that will fade from the limelight, or it could become a staple of daily life.
How many ways do you really need to tell people what you ate for breakfast?’ cry the nay-sayers.
Despite the skepticism that surrounds Twitter, evidenced by comical online videos and sneers from comedians, the application has attracted a significant number of users and the attention of major media outlets. Many companies and government agencies have also embraced the technology, using it for various marketing, publicity and customer service tasks. So many companies have already started using Twitter that academic studies of its use in this respect have already appeared (Jansen et al., 2009). Given its deceptively simple and inherently flexible nature, the service will no doubt be adapted to other uses in the future.
Drawing from theories of social construction (Bijker et al., 1987) and the diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1995), this article explores the public response to this new form of communication by critically analyzing the press coverage of Twitter.
The assumption of this research, as well as studies that have looked at public response to previous communication technologies, is that press coverage is not simply a transparent method to distribute information but can function as a force of change itself, influencing the ways these technologies are diffused, utilized and regulated. As famously stated by Marvin (1988: 8), media have ‘no natural edges’, and their function within society is not determined by inherent technical issues, but instead dependent upon a range of cultural, social, economic and political factors.
This current research into Twitter offers a chance to explore the social construction of a media technology as it occurs.
It may very well be that Twitter turns out to be the app du jour that will fade from the limelight, or it could become a staple of daily life.
Whatever may transpire, though, does not detract from the value of the present research.
Analyzing press coverage of Twitter can tell us specifically about how the phenomenon of microblogging is being currently presented to the public, and more generally, it offers insight into the euphoria, confusion, skepticism and contested process of technological adoption that greet all new forms of media.
This current research into one particular communications technology thus offers insight that may be generalizable to other technical and social practices, including blogs, social networks and forms of electronically mediated communication unforeseen at the time of this writing.
This research also supplements prior work by Castells (2000) regarding the growth of the network society, or what Wellman (2001) has labeled the rise of ‘networked individualism’. The growth of the network society predates the growth of the internet and the concomitant development of online communities, though such developments exemplify the web of overlapping, specialized, non-geographic communities that now govern our daily lives. Wellman (1999) and Rheingold (1993) have studied how the internet encourages the formation of new types of communities, while others have researched the potential benefits and uses of online social networks (Schneider and Huber, 2008). No matter what the potential benefits of electronically mediated communication might be, such uses may never be realized if society perceives the accompanying technology in a negative light.
While this current research is not specifically focused on how new forms of communications technology (such as Twitter) are actually being used, the research does shed light on what the public thinks about these new forms of communication and their associated social practices.
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου