Twitter Evolution

A  way in which twitter is used outside of socializing and marketing is through the spread of news due to human’s need to be involved and a part of the conversation. In the article, “How the Boston Marathon explosions reveal the two sides of Twitter” by Simon Ricketts, Ricketts explores Twitter through a journalists lense. Often times as a journalist Ricketts would use Twitter to gather information about breaking stories, such as the Boston Marathon bombing. He explains that Twitter allows for witness accounts, first hand evidence, pictures, soundbites and videos that haven’t already been filtered by journalists or public relations practitioners. However, it is often the case that a lot of the “facts” being tweeted are not proven to be factual. While a tweet may later be proved a fact, that isn’t always the case. Now a days twitter is an upside down funnel. In order to get the true and good information journalists need to be quick to find their information before too many unverified facts seep in.

Twitter can also be used a political and organizational tool. In today’s world every politician has a twitter. Most of the time politicians use twitter as a tool stay active among their constituents and fellow politicians, react to news, and give updates. It is arguably the easiest and most accessible form of contact between a politician and their public. Twitter can also be used by anyone to spread their own political ideas and agendas. In the article, “Here’s what we can learn from how Twitter responded to Paris” by Alexandra Siegel, Siegel explores the use of pro-, ant-, and neutral ISIS terms. Siegel analyzed data during times immediately following attacks and times when ISIS wasn’t active. Many times Siegel found that the majority of pro-ISIS terminology was actually being used by anti-ISIS tweeters, mainly used to denounce the acts and usage of certain hashtags.

In the past twelve months there has been a plethora of events that took social media by storm. One of the most recent was the Harvey Weinstein scandal. In October of 2017 the New York Times broke the Weinstein story. In the article was all the sordid details of sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein. Naturally the news spread like wildfire and it didn’t take long for Twitter to get involved in the actions. Many people shared their feelings of shock, sadness, support, and even denial. Twitter also played a main role because it gave survivors and victims the platform to share their stories and come forward with their own allegations. Celebrities and others alike came forward with their own stories of abuse. Not just about Weinstein, but other powerful people in Hollywood. Twitter allowed for this all to be so public, something that has never been done before. Often you will hear stories about actresses reporting abuse but being told to be quiet or not being believed. However, that all happened behind closed doors, Twitter is anything but a closed door. These women (and men) can no longer be silenced as they were before. They can’t be told they are lying when they have a number of other people backing up their stories with their own. This scandal even spurred the entire ‘#MeToo’ movement.

Another, very, recent event where Twitter was a main communicator was the Stoneman Douglas shootings. As unfortunate as this event was, Twitter was a main communicator while the event was taking place as well as after. Many students took to Twitter to express their fear and spread awareness of what was happening, while they were locked in their classrooms fearing for their lives. After, the students took to Twitter to express their frustrations on gun control. They too started their own movement called, ‘#NeverAgain’. Through their continued use of Twitter to spread their ideas and thoughts on gun control, the students of Stoneman Douglas organized the March For Our Lives campaign. They also continue to tweet their support to victims of similar tragedies and chronicle their fight for gun control.

A third event was the Larry Nassar trial. Recently it came out that U.S Gymnastics Doctor Larry Nassar was being accused of rape by former gymnasts. Twitter was once again the platform for fellow gymnasts to share their stories and allegations. It soon came to light that Nassar was being accused of rape by upwards of 100+ gymnasts. Twitter constantly had moments, featured on their trending page, following the Nassar trial through live clips from inside the courtroom, verified news tweets, and people’s reactions. Twitter provided, basically, an all access pass to all Twitter users to the happenings of the trial.This is useful especially because many different news outlets have their own Twitter pages. This allows users to access news from whichever news source they prefer (not always depending on how reliable certain tweets are, but rather the convenience to the user).

The subjects that I chose to follow for the Twitter project were: Alt Buffalo 107.7, @Altbuffalo, Cage the Elephant, @Cagetheelephant, and Melania Trump, @FLOTUS. The first two I chose because I enjoy music. Music is such a wide topic, even within its subtopics, I knew it would be an easy choice, but also one that I enjoyed. I followed Melania Trump as it was a requirement for the project that we follow someone that, otherwise, we never would. I considered following Donald Trump, but I felt that was going too far for me, so I settled with Melania. Using Twitter as a means of spreading information about, or in response our chosen topics was very different for me. Often I use Twitter to socialize or to just tweet my random thoughts and musings. We also were required to use as close to 280 characters, but not less than 140 characters, as we could. This was also challenging for me as when I tweet on my personal account, it is very rare for my tweets to be that long.

In response to Twitter versus blogging, I found I liked tweeting more. Even though I usually tweet shorter tweets on my personal twitter, the 280 character requirement is still far shorter than a normal blog post. Tweeting forces you to efficiently shorten what you’re trying to say so that it fits into the character count. Blogging is often drawn out, but Twitter shows that it isn’t always necessary.