How valuable can social networking/micro-blogging service/platform like “Twitter” way of communication, that too restricted to 140 characters be for crucial journalism?
[Image Credit: http://www.richmondmagazine.com/]
In Twitter, gone are the “What are you doing?” days. It is asking “What’s happening?” these days, well… at least for almost a year. It’s the clear impression that the “Me” in “Social Media” must emerge into the “We” in the “Social Web” in order to trigger progress. Whether it’s professional journalism (community/civic/collaborative) or citizen journalism, twitter already made it’s impact loud and clear.
Following pictures (infographics from Burson-Marsteller, Europe – PR Agency) depict the event’s happening, news/information creation, circulation (distribution/exposition) – time-line before and after twitter. (Please click on the images to enlarge)
1. Journalism – Reach Before Twitter
[Image Credits to: http://burson-marsteller.eu/]
The scheme shows that time is necessary for the information to spread (before Twitter):
Time for the reporter/journalist to check out the event/information and to authenticate it > Time to transfer it to his/her office > Time for the office to publish it (PA – Press Agency) > Time for the media to edit and check it out again > Time for the media to publish it ( time obviously depends on the nature of the considered media, the least favored one being the traditional press).
In this “traditional” system, the chief editor decides the significance he want to give to the information examining it with other information he has and wants to publish, depending on readers too. He/she creates “his/her” own information chain of command.
Thus the information reaches the public after 2 hours of event’s happening through Online publishing (reputed news websites/blogs), after 2 and 1/2 hour through Radio broadcast, after 3 hours through TV broadcast and finally… after 8 hours through Press (Newspapers, Magazines). Press exposition comes late due to printing, and can not be updated before the following edition – obviously!
2. Journalism – Reach After Twitter
[Image Credits to: http://burson-marsteller.eu/]
With the evolution of the use of Twitter, the “Fresh/unadorned” information (rarely false, for that matter) can be updated directly on Twitter by an user/eyewitness, as by a journalist, before it goes through the editing process described above and the event’s happening reaches the public with in minutes.
Need a quick example? One of my close buddies, few weeks ago (On June 13, to be exact), tweeted that he felt mild tremors in his apartment at Chennai, India and only after few hours later I found the news on the leading Indian news website – earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck the west coast of Nicobar Islands and its effects were felt in some parts of Chennai as well. Needless to say, I was stunned by the “journalism” power of Twitter at that very moment.
Through the Re-Tweet (RT) functionality, an information published on Twitter can easily “saturate” the system and reach a extremely large number of people with in a very short span of time. Whether it’s natural calamities, political developments or breaking tech news etc, it’s common to find items of appeal first on Twitter.
Thanks to it’s remarkably easy way of posting tweets (you don’t even need to be at your computer, mobile/cell phone is enough), open conversation model, brilliant in-built search engine and to the new “Trending Topics” algorithm which finds topics that are right away popular, rather than outdated (at times, even some nonsense) topics, to help people discover the “most breaking” news stories from across the world. Apparently, journalists “follow” Twitter too and it assists them to see new published information very quickly and to publish them even more quickly: to a certain extent, it favors their reactivity in front of events.
Conclusion:
Presto, and in a world where legacy media is curtailing and closing bureaus worldwide, Twitter has become a reliable source of news you can use when and where you desire and need it — often when and where the legacy media cannot yet or no longer supplies it.
Twitter can”t be titled “Social Network” anymore, it’s more of a “Social Media/Social Web” that connecting 100+ million users worldwide. As more ace news organizations (CNN, BBC, Reuters.. to name a few) began to utilize Twitter to its entirety, I am sure – it won’t be a “Micro-blogging platform” anymore. It will be a pioneer of the future “Micro-journalism platform.”
By the way, I am not stating that the traditional news media/journalism became obsolete. It is there and always will be. Good thing is that, most News organizations are realized the power of “Twitter” reach and adopting it as a nice distribution/circulation tool in this fast paced World. That’s all!
Now, it’s time to have your valuable say: Does Twitter turn Journalism on its Head (or) Not? Need more improvements? How? I love to hear from you.
P.S. Milestone : My 50th Post in this blog.
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Tags: Retweet, RT, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, twitter journalism, twitter social networking, twitter trending topics, twitter What's happening?
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Your note is exactly on target. We test this every day on Twitter and it mirrors BM’s charts and your conclusions. However, be careful on tweets being “true” – especially from the ultras and radicals. For instance Tea Party tweeters mostly tweet lies about things like the Founding Father myths, Obama, Commies in the closet, Hitler was a socialist – yes as a beard for becoming a tyrant – they also leave large parts of history out of their Patriot whining and witch hunts – for instance that Democrats loved slavery.
In short ex, Dems propped up slavery yes, but our present day Dems – the reverse has been true for some 60 years or more – Republicans cheer racism on twitter.
Sounds like a fascinating and quite plausible model for Twitter’s effect on the evolution of journalism. The only problem is–
–it’s not happening. News stories IRL aren’t taking up much space on Twitter. The exception is web-related news: who’s publishing what where, concepts, theories, expositions, arguments that originate on the Web. For this category of news, Twitter is absolutely smoking the traditional journalists. For all the rest–the assassinations and coups, wars declared, battles won and lost, plagues and famine, natural disasters, and which celeb is bangin’ whose Mom–we tend to be mostly retweeting.
It’s a great theory, though. Who knows, someday soon, it could happen.
Nice report buddy
Even I have experienced in my city, where there was a fire incident and people near by that place had tweeted about it and just after 10 mins the fire incident was flashing on the TV9.
Very soon India will be having Trending Algorithm , then I would love to see How these media channels utilize them and make a news out of it
What do you think about it buddy ?? 