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.

Debt is a badge of honour

Apparently, “young people seem to view debt mostly in just positive terms rather than as a potential burden.” Uh. It’s definitely a burden. I am going to have at least £24,000 worth of debt when I leave University. I am 22, at the beginning of my career and the rest of my life. As far as I’m concerned, that’s no way to start your life. That is more than I am expecting to earn in a year, for several years. University debt is, of course, slightly different to credit cards etc – and I am aware that the student loan is probably the best deal I will get in terms of borrowing – but debt is still debt. For what it’s worth, I don’t have any credit cards in my own name. But the ridiculous thing is that as far as I know, credit checks are more positive if you have credit cards (and are, you know, reasonably careful).

I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that without a semi-decent credit rating, you can’t rent certain places, and you certainly can’t get a mortgage. So at some point in my life – even though I am the sort of person who is careful with money, is phobic about borrowing anything (very forgetful; have always hated libraries), and I save as I go – I will be forced into getting a credit card for the sake of trying to make my credit rating better.

I have a less-than-desirable credit rating because I asked for an extension of my overdraft and someone didn’t do their job properly and rejected it. I’m not even being rude here; they genuinely messed up because they didn’t take into account that I had a student account and they didn’t ask their superior for advice. Being rejected, for some ridiculous reason, made my credit rating go down. Which meant the next time I asked for an extension, I had a lower credit rating – and was rejected. Which made it go down even more. I am not financially desirable, let’s say.

So how am I supposed to get a good credit rating without forcing myself into debt?! As far as I see it – and I’ll admit I don’t know too much about it; just what I know from talking to people – the system penalises people who save, and people who are careful with money. The banks seem to want people to be dependent on borrowing – because that’s how they make their money. Debt is a money-spinner for banks.

To say that debt is seen as a positive thing among young people is ridiculous and quite offensive, actually. Because all young people have no sense of responsibility whatsoever. Right.

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.

Twidentity Crises

I tweeted about this a lot during late December/early January, and I keep thinking about it, but I’m yet to find a solution.

The Twitter identity crisis is a common phenomenon found amongst twitter users that, as the number of followers on twitter increases, you feel under pressure to write a certain way, or cover certain topics. The relationship between follower and followee has not yet been determined – are your followers your guests, or are you theirs, for taking up valuable pixels?

I’ve experienced my own kind of Twidentity Crisis. At one point after I tweeted a lot about the UCL Occupation, live-tweeted from the November protest and posted links to my blog, I had a few journalists following me. I felt under pressure to be ‘professional’; to write a certain way – even though I had never intended to immerse myself in work or any kind of professional life through social media. I had never envisioned in December that 500 people would find my thoughts interesting, let alone journalists that I greatly respect.

Like any other news outlet

I think the answer to this crisis lies in your perception of the follower-followee relationship. The way I see it, I have a ‘readership’, like a newspaper. I have noticed that there are patterns when I get new followers – they follow people I follow, or people who already follow me, who in turn follow others that follow me. It’s an ever-expanding informal network of likeminded people. I know that they are likely to be interested in politics, I know that they are likely to not be fans of the current government – because that’s what I’ve been tweeting about.

The reason I say ‘readership’ is that I realised quite recently, I often see potentially interesting links and viewpoints in my timeline, but I don’t always have the time to dedicate to reading, ‘vetting’ links and then retweeting. (Because essentially retweeting is a way of filtering out information, of pointing out ‘this is worth reading’) So sometimes I think, ‘Does this sound like what my followers would be interested in? Would they be confused if I didn’t tweet about it or offer a comment? What is everyone else tweeting about?’ – in exactly the same way a newspaper would compare themselves to a rival newspaper. Sometimes I don’t even read links, but I retweet based on a trust network I’ve built up over the past two months – if it passes my little test of relevance to those who follow me.

Professionalism vs Personality

The key to Twitter is the social aspect of it – little bite-sized chunks of information that tell us something about the person. Accounts without personality on Twitter are ineffective. In my dissertation I am offering the theory that people respond much better to news when there is personality involved. In a way, my twitter account is my little experiment. I’ve noticed myself that though I follow news outlets directly, I never retweet them, but will retweet or comment on links that ‘ordinary’ tweeters point out. It makes a difference that I know the person behind the account. I can get a good idea of the response to articles by what people write before the link. Headlines no longer pull me in because it doesn’t give me an idea of whether I will approve or not. I want to know, what do the people I follow think?

So, there needs to be a balance between news and personality. I personally intended my account to be my own thoughts when I started it in January 2009. I rarely used it until late-November last year when I started live-tweeting from protests, and started gaining followers from that. But now I have reached the 500 mark (a very small percentage of accounts have >500 followers) – how OK is it for me to just be me? This is my crisis. I think it’s important for me to feel that I have a safe space to be myself in. I’m observant and I like sharing things that make me laugh – but it feels like it’s directly at odds with being a source of news or commentating on current events. It feels like I am breaking some kind of unspoken social rule: ‘Whenever you start getting big numbers of followers, you should probably keep your musings to yourself’.

I appreciate not everyone likes the combination of personal and news to the extent that I combine them, and I would say that people are free to unfollow, as much as they are free to follow. I appreciate that others will reveal far less about themselves than I do. But I like giving people an insight into my life, an insight into the way that I see the world.

Otherwise where’s the ‘social’ in ‘social media’?

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.