All the News that is NOT fit to print.

The audience which were previously the passive consumers of traditional media have now become the manufacturers of user generated content. With platforms such as WordPress and Twitter anyone can become part of the global conversation. Twitter although limited to less than 140 characters has had a profound impact on communication. Although one tweet in isolation has little impact, in combined with thousands of other tweets it becomes extremely powerful, a “suspension bridge made of pebbles.” (Johnson 2013)

Twitter has changed the way content was commonly consumed, disseminated and gathered.The NSA leaks broke first on twitter with the central media outlets only becoming aware hours later. As Steven Johnson discusses in his work “How twitter will change the way we live” although the basics of how we use twitter are relatively simple websites who once saw their traffic dominated by Google search inquires are seeing a number of new visitors coming from “passed links” from social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook. In areas where their is no edition in print twitter has been integral in driving traffic to The guardian sites. When Edward Snowden revealed his identity on The Guardian website the site received its greatest traffic ever with 6.97 browsers. Twitter then futher enables global expansion for traditional media in that it facilitates access to previously unattainable markets.

In his article Johnson discusses a conference concerning education reform a large majority of participants created and responded to tweets, creating a lateral stream of coordinate commentary. Johnson discusses this particular example extending over five paragraphs to make his central point that twitter is substantially expanding the conversation.

Early in the article Johnson describes how, at a day-long conference held in Manhattan on the subject of education reform, a large cohort of participants sereptitiously wrote and responded to tweets, creating a parallel stream of interactive commentary.  Johnson uses this example, which he describes in five paragraphs, to support as argument that Twitter significantly enlarged the conversation:

“And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web.  Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of these tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles.”

He states that twitter is a suspension bridge that links society, transports its users to the future through its cabling system: the sweep of cables suspended between towers and the vertical suspender the sweep of cables suspended between towers and the vertical suspender cables. It carries the weight of the deck below

In Axel Burns paper “News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism” he discusses the transition from previous traditional media to new forms of journalism, a transition from gatekeeping to gatewatching. “This gradual decline of industrial journalism as the dominant force in the public sphere can be linked directly with a broader shift from industrial to post- industrial paradigms”

Interestingly Al Jazeera’s coverage of unrest in the Arabic world, employs citizen journalism in its coverage of uprisings. It cultivates relationships  with important bloggers and citizen reporters on the ground. Riyaad Minty, Al Jazeera’s head of social media stated that “The key to getting in early is verifying information before the noise gets out,”identifyThey identify key internet contributors so that before the protests began they have access to information later and can act as citizen reporters on the ground. Essentially employing new media to engage with citizens in a more integral way.

References

Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live. Time, http://individual.utoronto.ca/kreemy/proposal/04.pdf

Bruns, A. (2009) ‘News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism’,

Click to access News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf