Tuesday 23 October 2012

Thing 7: Birdie Song


Thing 7: Twitter

I have a lot of preconceptions about Twitter and its function in society so am hoping to be surprised by it, hope it has some relevance to me and my development as well as holding my interest.

In my view there are two sides to Twitter and its followings.

One - You hear of Twitter and Tweets being used in everyday media with talk of she said this and he said that and of photos that someone has posted drunk, and I have been left thinking who really cares what flavour of pie Jason Biggs thinks is the most wholesome or why why Cameron Diaz chooses that type of hair gel? Does Twitter open us up to criticism and expose us to embarrassment and even harm? Through following our favourite celebrities and hanging on their every word (or 140 characters of type) are we encouraging online stalking? I have read recently of a thing such as a 'Twitter Troll' and found that this was a term used for some sort of online bully. I am not sure if this is something that I want to be part of or involved in. 

The second - In the not so distant future Twitter and Twitter posts will become a great source of knowledge and study for social sciences and cultural studies, and it has already been used as a means for some to document 'real time' events such as riots and looting. It may even serve as a means of representation for the time period. This is something that I can see has potential and value to the academic society but also poses the question on how institutions such as libraries can collect the information and preserve it for future use.

I will take Twitter with an open mind and use the 23 Things programme to explore the many avenues of use that are suggested to me.

Getting started:

On creating a Twitter account I was a little dubious of the terms and conditions, particularly the abstract below:
'You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).'
It is always a worry to me that the ownership of my online content becomes someone elses after publication and this statement does not comfort me.

Still I in the name of progress I have flittered on, hindered shortly only by the current issues with Tweets and IE8. I am now available to stalk at your pleasure. @jwitter_bug.

1 comment:

  1. Glad you're on Twitter! I've added you to a participants list for 23 Things.

    There are definitely an uncomfortable number of people talking about Cameron Diaz's hair gel on Twitter. But Twitter's brilliance is that you choose who to follow, and I've found that the information in my feed is generally relevant to me/my interests and avoids the silliness (at least the silliness I don't want to see).

    As for Twitter as a record of society, I think you're absolutely right. The Library of Congress is now archiving all tweets, although it's yet to be determined exactly how they'll be accessed or made useful. But that amount of data is gold to researchers in a variety of disciplines...

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