{"id":8823,"date":"2011-03-21T08:52:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T13:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=8823"},"modified":"2011-03-21T08:58:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T13:58:29","slug":"hot-topics-the-age-of-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/03\/hot-topics-the-age-of-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Topics: The age of Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Scott

Scott Henderson discusses Twitter<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s created overnight stars. It\u2019s helped guide revolutions. This month, as Twitter turns five, what can\u2019t be denied is the social network\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

When Twitter<\/a> celebrated an anniversary on March 15, it boasted more than 200 million registered users and an average of 140 million tweets sent per day.<\/p>\n

The medium has had some fine moments, like uniting protesters in the Egyptian revolution or letting Japanese earthquake victims reach out to loved ones. It\u2019s also had some not-so-fine moments, like giving a larger-than-ever voice to embattled actor Charlie Sheen.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s certain is that Twitter is changing the way we think, speak and relate to each other, said Scott Henderson<\/a>, associate professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Twitter, he said, the medium gets as much attention as the message it delivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Charlie Sheen thing, for example, the fact that he got a million followers in 24 hours was more newsworthy than anything he happened to tweet,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cOn Twitter, there\u2019s more focus on the medium than anything that\u2019s ever said on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henderson shared some of his thoughts about the medium with The Brock News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What impact has Twitter had on our culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s taken off a lot more just in the last little while. We see it in things like what went on in Egypt. The revolution was tied very much with social networking and the ability it gave people to network with each other. It really gave us a sense of what Twitter can do. It\u2019s interesting to watch any newscast now when a major event is going on. It used to be that crews would be out in the streets doing interviews. Now they pick up tweets to find out what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

With the Japanese earthquake and tsunami as well, we saw the power in the ability to get immediate, largely unmediated information from multiple users in multiple locations. When Twitter started, there was a lot of joking about people using it to say what they had for breakfast or that kind of mundane, day-to-day information. But they changed the question (that users answer when tweeting) from \u201cwhat are you doing\u201d to \u201cwhat\u2019s going on?\u201d That slight variation changed people\u2019s perceptions of what Twitter means and what it can do.<\/p>\n

What have been some of Twitter\u2019s finest moments?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What went on in Egypt is probably one of the most notable in terms of the positive action Twitter can create. Some of its other notable moments have often been less fine in a sense, like Charlie Sheen getting a million followers right after he signed up. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a crowning achievement from a pop culture perspective, but it\u2019s a notable moment.<\/p>\n

Another recent Twitter event involved a social media company hired by Chrysler. One of its workers swore about Detroit traffic and complained about Detroit drivers, and accidentally, he says, posted it to the Chrysler site instead of his personal site. His company lost the contract as a result. I don\u2019t think these are shining moments, but they\u2019re very telling in terms of the kind of power Twitter has.<\/p>\n

Has the Charlie Sheen phenomenon on Twitter changed the game at all from a pop culture perspective?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twitter has given us the ability to get little tweets and little bits of information as it happens. When someone like Sheen comes along and his little outbursts that can be so quickly repeated and don\u2019t need a great deal of explanation, it becomes fascinating for people. What is he going to say next? Presumably that\u2019s why a million people instantly signed up. It\u2019s not because they thought they were going to learn more about Charlie Sheen\u2019s life or get great information from him. It\u2019s because they wanted to be there the moment some other ridiculous phrase was uttered. It was about being there in the moment.<\/p>\n

Where do you see the future of it going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. It seems to be moving across devices right now. I\u2019m surprised by the longevity. In this era, five years is longevity. Twitter and Facebook have been game changers more than anything that came before them. They\u2019ve found the right formula.<\/p>\n

Twitter isn\u2019t going away because it\u2019s finding ways to adapt. The more mobile we\u2019re becoming, the more useful that 140-character limit has been. Whether it has a long-term impact on language is one of the more interesting aspects. I get essays and emails that have Twitter-esque and MSN short forms in them. That\u2019s how the English language has always changed \u2013 that social kind of usage.<\/p>\n

Related articles:<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Man fired over obscene Chrysler tweet apologizes<\/a>
\n\u2022 Egyptian tweeter, first to use ‘#Jan25,’ says Twitter was ‘invaluable’ during protests<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Henderson discusses how Twitter has changed the way we communicate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[153,175,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8823"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8826,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8823\/revisions\/8826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}