Aaaah, Twitter
Check Columbia Journalism Review’s open thread on Twittering. Though not closed to its benefits, I’m not a Twitter fan, primarily for the bolded reason below. Thread highlights:
“I’ve found out the following from twitter: that my neighborhood in West Hollywood was in lockdown, being searched for an armed gunman; that the earthquake I felt was powerful but doing little damage, and that the NoOnProp8 protests in my neighborhood were peaceful but growing exponentially. I got this info minutes – and in some other cases, hours – before it was available from other news sources online.”
“What does get lost with this tool is it is missing a specific socioeconomic class of people that journalists should not ignore. It just requires them to go out and talk to them face to face – and that isn’t as instant as the group of people on Twitter.”
I’d go further than UMiz new media prof, Jen Reeves, above, and say that Twitter excludes most of the world’s people and what’s happening to them in their neighborhoods. I care less about the platform, more about whom I’m talking to. So far, Twitter is breaking news/running commentary from the college-educated, technofiles and the upper middle class. Our media is already an echo chamber for the privileged so I’m cautious of any technology making it easier to remain that way. It’d be very cool though, if people in Brownsville, Bed-Stuy, Upper Harlem, the South Bronx and Jamaica, Queens could Twitter with each other and the privileged. Who wants to help me invent that platform?
“I don’t know, John. Should journalists use the telephone? The fact that you cannot see the other person is only the most obvious of that platform’s limitations. What do others think? Join the conversation: is “telephone” just a stupid audio trick?”
“Twitter takes nothing, it’s only a fragment of the whole that makes a news story.
In a 24/7 news cycle it is probably one of the greatest (and cheapest) ways to gather and distribute information. That is, if journalists are open to learn how to use Twitter, and listen. Without ever forgetting the basics of the trade.”“Maybe one of the Tweet Revolutionaries can explain how Twitter helps with the much more crucial tasks of connecting dots, situating events in their proper context, explaining and analyzing complex issues, etc. If our information culture did a better job at the latter, I suppose I would be a lot less concerned about all the hype devoted to the former.”
“And these “Tweet Revolutionaries” you refer to, who are supposed to unfold the awesomeness of Twitter for explanation, background, context, as well as breaking news, of course… who are they? Or are these simply the people you really, really, really want to argue with, whether or not they exist?”
“I think journalists should follow people relevant to their beat in order to get some sense of the what people are talking about and to cultivate sources. Twitter may not connect the dots, but it does an awesome job of letting you subscribe to lots and lots of important ones.”
Read more (and comment!) on CJR’s page.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I never considered the socio-economic aspect of Twitter, but the fact that the majority of users are college educated and tech savvy does limit the tool’s utility in some respects, but if you know that going in, you know better how to use it (finding experts is something that see cited as a use for Twitter frequently).
That said, I am still not a big fan of Twitter and rarely use it, mostly because I forget about it. There was a good NY Times article from last Friday about some folks used Twitter to keep abreast of the situation in Mumbai after the attacks, though (I blogged about it last week).
December 6th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I’d peeped the NYT article and your Mumbai post. That NYT article about technology’s ability to advance citizen journalism, at this point, is old news, regurgitated for the tool du jour: Twitter.
Fact is, there’re a million ways to find experts, to connect, to link up, in, out, through, under, over. The revolution though, is what human beings do with that ability. If we’re using it to continue the status quo of human relations, that is a choice, but one unworthy of the froth being written about Twitter and technology and citizen journalism.
Show me usages that’re changing business as usual–and I trust those examples exist–and I’ll be a lot more interested.
I guess, what I’m trying to say is: it’s not about the tool, it’s how you use it.