Today on The Punch we are running a special package on social media with a focus on Twitter.
At the moment news outlets are red hot with stories about Twitter and other social media platforms.
From reflective pieces about why Twitter is slowly sucking away our ability to communicate with each other in real life, news stories about its role in the Iranian post-election protests to authors looking to use the platform as a gimmick to publish their bad novel about “a San Francisco family forging its place in history”.
Despite being part of the Gen Y (is that how we say it?) I’ve never taken to new technology quickly or had any desire to do so.
The thing that I never got about Twitter was this: why simply because there now exists a new platform to share information about myself, or anything else for that matter, should I care to use it?
With several email accounts, a Facebook page and a mobile phone already overwhelming me, I was puzzled as to why there needed to be another platform to tell people about my life.
Twitter was going to be an unnecessary distraction that I didn’t need.
But after joining The Punch I was given a Twitter feed like the rest of the editorial staff.
Initially it was an entertaining way to break up a morning but I failed to see its worthiness as a tool of social interaction - other than knowing @officedude “really needs another coffee!!!”.
But it dawned on me that Twitter does serve a professional purpose in that it gives you a chance to interact with a large number of people who are, by definition of being your followers, interested in the work you are doing.
Further it gives readers the opportunity to interact with you in a more accessible and less intimidating way.
Last Friday, when news broke of the Jakarta bombings, The Punch was looking to publish something from the Indonesian capital.
After being unable to get in touch with a few contacts in the city I put out a message on Twitter looking for Aussies in Jakarta – like a shortwave radio message in 140 characters or less.
Within two hours we had a piece live on the site written by travel journalist Natasha Dragun in Jakarta on being caught up in the bombing.
In this instance Twitter served as the vehicle for attracting a piece of writing rather than working as a piece of journalism itself. There would be no other network that would have allowed us to contact as many people as quickly as we did on that afternoon.
The Australian newspaper (also published by The Punch publisher News Limited) have written editorials dismissing Twitter as a superficial fad that can’t be compared to and will not replace traditional news outlets like newspapers.
While it may or may not be right about Twitter being a fad – only time will tell - its argument about it not be comparable to regular professional news outlets is correct.
However the problem with this argument is that is sets up a false dichotomy between professional news organisations as primary news sources on the one hand and Twitter and co on the other.
It fails to recognise that professional news organisation can use technology like Twitter to both inform and improve their professional coverage of news.
The presence of a journalist from a real news organisation on Twitter will only add to the legitimacy of their feed and works to promote their longer format coverage in either online or the newspaper.
The fact that Twitter doesn’t make any money shouldn’t really bother big news organisations either; as the creators of a mass of content that is regularly exploited by online free-riders they should be happy to be getting their own back for once.
But professional applications aside, to what extent does Twitter actually serve to make people’s lives any more “social”? Are we actually gaining anything outside of work by engaging in Twitter?
The Punch put this to Dr Chris Chesher who is director of the digital technology program at the University of Sydney.
He said that Twitter’s format breeds a different kind of social media interaction than Facebook because of its open feed structure.
“Perhaps the most interesting question about social media is not necessarily whether it makes our lives more sociable the extent to which different social media are sociable in different ways.
“On Twitter you can come across people that you don’t know a lot more easily. And most people leave there public timelines open and it enables you to make a connection with people who perhaps you wouldn’t have otherwise made a connection with. So it’s quite a different model of sociality,” he said.
According to Dr Chesher it is this performance element in Twitter than means less young people are interested.
“Twitter is more demanding of its users than Facebook because you need a higher level of confidence and capacity to perform on Twitter that Facebook does not demand as much.
“In a public space there are expectations in that people will be judging you in a different way than they are on Facebook. Fewer 15-year-olds have the confidence to have a voice than 25 or above,” Dr Chesher said.
Whatever you think enjoy today’s coverage of the issue and please share your views on social media with us.
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