Twitter as Medium and Message - 0 views
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anonymous on 11 Apr 11Savage, N. (2011). Twitter as Medium and Message. Communication of the ACM, 54(3), 18-20. Researchers say the Twitter data may help answer sociological questions that are otherwise difficult to approach. Their research documents the Twitter in means of social media that gives people opportunities for tracking what people are saying about everything. The Twitter opens access to tweets with range of incredible number of topics and subjects that people tweet about. For example a scientist at the Louisiana University used the Twitter for a simple search using a few influenza related keywords. This simple search enabled him to predict future influenza outbreaks. The Twitter's data assisted in another professional field called Air Twitter project at the Washington University in St Louis. The Twitter was engaged for additional provision of information or tweets about events like dust storms, fires, air quality and similar. A similar approach was explored by US Geological Survey (USGS). The Twitter was used for messages in means of a supplement to USGS network of seismographic monitors that alert the federal agencies about occurring earthquakes. Another good example is from psychology field where the Twitter was used for the sentiment analysis of tweets. Researchers used 'Affective Norms for English' tool used in psychology that rates the emotional value of words. The analysed tweets revealed data about particular group happiness levels. The real examples above reveal how data from the Twitter can assist in gaining valuable information either for the medicine, natural disasters or just about happiness levels. The Twitter has been recognised as extremely useful tool for gathering data that would be otherwise difficult to search. Twitter's fast and cost free access to information is very useful for the sociological purpose. Of course, there is always potential for spread of unfiltered information that can invite a possibility of abuse, incorrectness and other negati -
Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11Paula, an excellent and timely article which shows how Twitter has become a collaborative tool for research and data collection purposes. A leading researcher in this area is academic Dr Steve Wheeler at the University of Plymouth in the UK. He quotes a teacher on Steve's blog who states that he uses Twitter 'is because his community - those he wishes to connect with - are best contacted using it' (Wheeler, 2011a). Indeed Steve argues that connections of both research information and data can be found simply by following academics in your field on Twitter. Although such communications can often be one-way but as your article states, the potential for both medium and message, i.e. this can be interpreted as data and research, as leads to what you want can be invaluable if protocols are followed (Wheeler, 2011b; Savage, 2011). For example, people do collaborate simple nights out with friends on Twitter, so therefore why is collaborating on a large project by using contacts on a professional an ideal? Sometimes it depends on Twitter's image as a social media nattering device (Wheeler, 2011b). I agree that Twitter has had an image problem to overcome. But your article does prove it is being used for research advancement. The dust storm data for example shows what is possible to collect and how getting data transcends time and physical borders. However, it is vital that etiquette be followed, perhaps even making Twitter networks private, and the information is check for credibility. These are the challenges Twitter users face; yet to have this collaboration tool is vital for broadening access to research data and findings. References Savage, N. Twitter as Medium and Message. Communication of the ACM, 54(3), 18-20. Wheeler, S. (2011a). Twitter: It's still about the connections. Learning with 'e's, Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/04/twitter-its-still-about-connections.html Wheeler, S. (2011b). Twitter: Le triple -
Kellie Ramm on 30 Apr 11As BOINC is being used to further research projects through public-resource computing, so too is Twitter, another form of online collaboration, now being used for research. "Researchers are finding they can measure public sentiment, follow political activity, even spot earthquakes and flu outbreaks, just by running the chatter through algorithms that search for particular words and pinpoint message origins" (Savage, 2011). Due to the real time nature of "tweets", researchers can get early warning signs of events like earthquakes by searching twitter for key words like "OMG earthquake" and other related words. Programs can also be written to exclude unrelated words, for instance when looking for flu outbreaks, comments like "Beiber Fever" can be instantly excluded. Although at this stage this form of research can not be 100% accurate it can give a picture of what is happening. Twitter can also give researchers a more subjective point of view. It can look at how the people are affected by an earthquake, instead of just giving statistics on building damage and repair costs. As with anything there can be some problems related to using twitter this way. The first is "sample bias". Information gained in this way relies on the users having a computer, internet access and a twitter account. Although in the western world percentages of this would be high, in poorer nations this usage would drop significantly. However this problem can be addressed. Researchers wanting "to glean insights from tweets can apply corrections to the sample, just as traditional pollsters do" (Savage, 2011). The other problem is that of spam, or users hoping to improve the chance of their tweet gaining high rating by re-tweeting on the same topic. For example in an American election a conservative group sent out "929 tweets in just over two hours" (Savage, 2011) with a link that attacked a representative. This can then affect the data bias. There are so ma
