Beyond social networking

Social Media & Informal Networks

Last year, I carried out research into Twitter for my dissertation. It was based on the question, “How do people use Twitter to get news?” I’ve been a heavy user of Twitter since around November 2010, when I started tweeting about student protests and found that actually, people wanted to listen and engage on those topics – and this inspired the dissertation. I remember looking down a list of new followers and retweets, thinking “How did this happen? I don’t understand. What did I do?!” When the answer is: I was me.

The beauty of Twitter is that it’s the epitome of the ‘new-age’ way of interacting with people and a new way of looking at how society works. No longer are we restricted to geographical communities; no longer are we restricted to the people that we see everyday. We can see the thoughts of, and speak to, thousands of people across the world – people from all walks of life. It is the best example of personalised networking that I’ve come across. We form loose groups and associations – where we see our friends talking to our other friends from a different group – but primarily its function in terms of socialisation is geared towards one-on-one interaction and growth of informal relationships based upon those. Interestingly, too – and crucially – Twitter functions as both a broadcasting tool, and an easy way of interacting with individuals/small groups away from everybody else. This is something I note that Facebook never quite managed to do in such an efficient way, and goes some way to explaining why its popularity has grown among journalists and news gatherers.

My research, incidentally, found that people were attracted to/likely to interact with people who felt the same as them to some degree (hence the creation of associated network bubbles), and they formed implicit ‘trusted’ networks when it came to clicking links and looking at news stories. Commercial or media accounts on Twitter were not of interest to most people – but individual journalists were. They could relate to individual journalists, as opposed to one entire media organisation – this should come as little surprise to anyone, but even when it comes to news, the context in which that news is found is almost entirely social.

In the year and a bit I’ve used it a lot, I have been using it in the following ways:

• Crowd-sourcing information/straw polling views.
• Sharing links and news.
• Broadcasting opinions.
• Publicising things I agree with or am involved with. I publicise this blog on Twitter, for example.
• Thinking out loud: I think through experiences and processes in a public way – I get feedback where I find that I am generally not alone in having experienced whatever it is, and it makes me feel better. It’s quite a cathartic process.
• Asserting myself: Discussing things online tends to make me bolder in my approach to that issue. I argue/disagree with people on Twitter, which is a relatively safe space for me – and this arms me to deal with situations better in the future.
• Of course, I also use it in other trivial and less meaningful ways, too.

The Fifth Estate?

What is interesting is how the perception to Twitter has been changing. There was not a lot of academic research or indeed media coverage of Twitter, or the goings-on of Twitter, such a short time ago. Academic research found prior to my dissertation (2010-early 2011) mainly focused on how journalists used Twitter to disseminate news and reach new audiences. My dissertation focused on the consumer’s unique news experience, and how Twitter enabled this. And now we are seeing that Twitter has infiltrated the news itself – The Sun recently splashed on a story straight from Twitter, where Ed Miliband mistakenly typed “Blackbusters” instead of “Blockbusters”. It is no longer dismissed as something that irrelevant, voiceless people do: MPs use it to engage with ‘ordinary people’ on everyday topics. Its perceived importance is gaining traction.

This means we, the users of Twitter, are in a great position whereby we seem to have some – albeit very small – influence over: a) the news agenda; b) the political class; c) political discourse. Possibly.

From my point of view, I have always been fairly open and talkative on issues, but now I feel it is more important than ever to keep being vocal on those things which are pressing to you. Although what trends on Twitter is not always going to create front-page news, or make the television news channels, it is being observed by those that work in the media. They can see what sort of issues are being talked about, and the more we talk about it – the more that they feel people are concerned about, for example, the welfare reform bill – the more difficult it will become to ignore. Twitter trends take thousands of people to work. Perhaps I am being far more optimistic than I should be, but I think there’s hope yet. I think there is some serious potential to change the frame of debate through the medium of Twitter. Together, thousands – if not millions – of people put pressure on advertisers in the NotW, which resulted in the paper closing down. There is power in the hands of the people, if only we can articulate ourselves well enough.

Changing frames of discourse…? Well, we can try!

This blog post was borne out of a realisation that I do sometimes (often!) repeat myself when I talk about certain issues. I often state them in different ways so that they are easier (I hope) to understand. I have come under criticism for this from some people in the past – I am far too open, and I am far too willing to explain things to people. I see my openness/lack of privacy or squeamishness about describing events in my own life as a useful tool when it comes to getting people to talk about things that I think should be talked about more. Yes, it’s awful to read things so private. Yes, sometimes I push at the boundaries – but I sacrifice my privacy and my life (in that sense) in the hope that: a) someone reads, goes “Wow, I never thought of it that way! She’s right!” and changes their life, attitude or behaviour in some way; or b) it creates a debate that several people can participate in, pass on to their followers, and we can all contribute to an online discussion. A discussion which I feel is necessary to have out in the open, and something about which we absolutely should not be squeamish or embarrassed. I hope, too, that it in some way contributes to a wider debate in the real world.

For my part, I’m going to keep discussing and tweeting about issues I think are important, and I think you should too.

Some SocMed Updates

Just to let you know, if you missed my tweets, I’ve now got my survey about Twitter finished to a point that I’m happy with. The link is here. Please pass it on to anyone you think may be interested – people who use Twitter or consume news regularly, would be preferable. I am looking to get 100-200 responses so I’d be really grateful if you could help me out.

In semi-related news, one of my tutors at University led a study, ‘Unplugged’ – where students were asked to participate in a ‘media blackout’ (no phones, ipods, computers etc) – and here are some of the results. I find it particularly interesting that there appears to be no differentiation in young people between a genuine news outlet like the BBC and, for example, a blog or something written on Facebook. So news is becoming more and more integrated into our lives without us really acknowledging consciously that it is news. We see it, we hear it, we live it. And we don’t really think too much about where it’s coming from – which leads me to believe there’s a potential danger here, of taking everything at face value.

The other point I wanted to pick up on – though not to do with news – is the idea of being ‘digital natives’. My generation have grown up around technology, and with the evolution of the internet and connectivity, there is no sense of geographical boundaries in day-to-day life. I have friends in Australia, America, Ireland… Some I’ve never met, some I never will – but there’s rarely any sense of them being ‘far away’. I know what they’re doing and I don’t feel like there is a huge distance between us; in fact, there’s a (perhaps false?) sense of closeness that comes from being freely contactable 24/7 through social media, email, etc. And where we generally regarded other continents like Africa or Asia – countries we would consider 2nd or 3rd world countries – to be ‘far behind’ technologically; to be ‘offline’ or out of the loop – they really aren’t. In fact, in their developments they have often skipped over really important phases that we went through to get where we are now.

The best example I can think of is mobile banking in Africa, because I know more about it – whereas we consider mobile banking to be in the sense that you ring up and organise your finances on the phone, theirs is different. From what I understand, the idea of mobile banking in Africa – which is rapidly taking off and will no doubt be huge soon – is that instead of walking to your local bank, which may be miles away, you can do your banking through your local newsagent in the village, through your phone. Almost like phone credit. You can transfer phone credit to your bank and get credit out etc, all through one person in your village. I’m not sure if I’ve understood it entirely but that’s what I see to be the case. It’s an amazing idea, and all the phone companies over there are beginning to adopt that now. We have nothing like that here – they totally leapfrogged our developments in phone lines etc and created entirely new ways of dealing with their problems.

Thanks to the internet and other technology that we can’t bear to be parted with, the world is well and truly a “global village”. We’re no longer ‘British’ – we are global citizens.

Twitter as a public sphere

I often tweet about my dissertation (full proposal here) and what I’m planning to do with it, and ask for help and suggestions on how to improve it. I am in somewhat of a quandary over it and find it easier to write out exactly what it is that I am doing; it helps me to focus. And I think, given the responses I’ve had on Twitter, people are interested about what I’m doing and want to help (and also are curious about my findings), so I thought I’d write it up here to clarify it to myself and to others. [I will add to this post, or repost extra information as I go along and narrow down my aims]

The broad scope of the dissertation is how people use twitter to get news. Note: not how journalists or news outlets disseminate and spread news (ie what can twitter do for those working in the news), but the other way round (how engaging on twitter helps people to understand the world around them).

Why?

Well, I’ve had a Twitter account since January 2009 and I never saw the point of it. Around November 2010 I started using it to talk about my activism project on Twitter, and I started getting followers. I followed people who are/were heavily involved in NUS (Aaron Porter, Wes Streeting, other NUS officials) as I had originally planned on only writing about the issue of raising tuition fees. I then changed this to activism in general and… I don’t know quite how, but Twitter followers and interest in what I’m doing has expanded beyond anything I thought it would.

I personally often use Twitter to get news and find out about what’s going on. I tend to follow journalists or people I think are interesting or funny. People who I read and think “they have a point”; people I can debate with or whose tweets in some way resonate with my views and experiences.

Of course, Twitter is what you make of it and this is one of the issues I will come up against and need to allow leeway for… If you follow pop stars, you are tailoring your experience of the broader world to ‘soft’ news, gossip and (in my opinion) irrelevance. If you follow journalists, then you’re more likely to know what is going on in the world.

One of the limitations of Twitter is that although there are limitless opportunities for expanding your horizons but the experience is tailored and you pick and choose to follow people or participate in discussions. How do I know that there isn’t somebody out there who will agree with everything I think? I don’t. Twitter enables for connections between people and in small, loosely formed communities – but even then it is limited to who your friend’s friends know, or who is insightful enough to be retweeted by people you follow.

It’s the nearest thing that I can think of to a ‘Public Sphere‘ on the internet, though – a free space where citizens can interact with other citizens they might never have met in real life. Interestingly, to me it seems like Habermas’ dream – so it’s somewhat disappointing that he isn’t on Twitter himself.

What I want to find out:

How people define news. What do they want to know about? What is important to them?
Why people started using Twitter.
Do people use Twitter alongside traditional news or are they reliant on Twitter?
Are people likely to read things posted by trusted followees (but strangers), friends, journalists, or media companies?
Is there a correlation between how they use twitter and how much of an ‘active citizen‘ they are?
Is there a difference in the way that different demographics use Twitter? Is there a distinct age group that use Twitter, for example?
What do people think the future of Twitter is?

I believe that:

- The key to twitter lies in making interpersonal connections. People warm to people, not to companies or products.
- To this end, people will respond more to links that are posted by ‘trusted’ tweeters – journalists, friends, or highly-esteemed peers … Rather than relying on news outlet feeds on Twitter.
- People build up networks of ‘trusted’ tweeters. Certain people will inevitably have more influence when tweeting links or retweeting people.
- Retweeting plays a key part in the expansion of these personal networks. (Which leads to engagement in wider circles and thus the opportunity to gather more/varied information)
- People who use Twitter actively are exposed to more links and information, and therefore very clued up (active citizens). The problem lies in determining whether this is a result of using Twitter, or whether they are actively searching for news already and simply use Twitter to seek out extra information or to spread it to others themselves.

Is there anything that you can think of that might be worthwhile me investigating?

Remember, it has to be about how readers use twitter. Not how journalists/the media use twitter.

Reporting the protests

In the wake of the student protest earlier this month there have been journalists left and right (quite literally) condemning, agreeing with, or just analysing the student movement.

A post on New Left Project (NLP) about left-wing journalists potentially undermining the movement got me thinking. It is important for people to understand about why the protests are going ahead, and there will clearly be divides in how it is reported (as well as divisions threatening the development of the movement itself – but that’s another issue for another day). The main point of the argument set out in the post above was that in attempting to “add an extra layer of horror” to the actions of the police, left-wing press classifying the protestors as ‘kids’ suggests that they are naive as to what they are protesting about – lending more power to right-wing groups who dismiss protests as juvenile and borne out of boredom, not political awareness.

It’s a point well-made, and one I happen to agree with, although I couldn’t offer a satisfactory solution. What we’re seeing is that reporting of protests is being polarised into two factions. Firstly, to the left, who portray protestors as children – in the sense that it is emboldening and indicative of the times that people so young are now beginning to care – and then the right, who portray protestors as children who have no idea of why they are protesting, are politically illiterate and just out to cause trouble.

More left-wing journalists tended to take the approach of embedding themselves in the protest – most notably New Statesman writer Laurie Penny – whereas other not-so-left journalists chose to stand outside the kettling area and remark on what they could see from the edges. Hardly in-depth and thorough. It’s worth noting here that core members of the movement do not feel helpless or voiceless in the slightest – they are busy writing blog entries, networking on twitter, getting other groups involved. But they lack the audience that mainstream press can automatically count on.

However, in seeking to tell the protestors’ story in a way directly opposed to traditional press who have turned a blind eye or railed against the students, Penny perhaps risks infantalising them (although of course the term ‘children’ or ‘kids’ was used in an observational sense – children are taking part in protests; it’s a surprising and powerful thing to see) as the NLP article argues so articulately.

There are limitations and dangers as a journalist, of assuming that just because you have been there you know the ins and outs of the movement and can accurately pinpoint and describe the feelings behind it. I myself attempted this earlier, as a supporter of the movement and as a journalist – it’s extremely difficult to gauge motives of thousands of people, and speak for them all without pigeon-holing and patronising them by assuming that you understand their motives. Journalists have the greatest freedom of being able to weave in and out of organisations; to try and get to the ‘bottom of things’ and report back  on what they’ve seen – but it’s important to remember that they are ultimately outsiders. Even those who share the same beliefs as core members of movements will likely be left out of some of the proceedings, or treated with suspicion, lest they attempt to discredit the movement or interpret things entirely differently.

Of course, this shouldn’t deter journalists from attempting to discover motives and meanings of these events. After all, the demonstrators cannot do it so effectively to a broad audience themselves – though access to twitter, facebook and collective blogs is gradually changing that. However, activists still rely a large amount on journalists’ interpretations of a movement they are removed from – however close they perceive themselves to be – and whilst it can add authenticity and a credible voice, it has the potential to be the undoing of a movement.