Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age

210 Pages·2013·1.47 MB·English

by  Dhiraj Murthy

Twitter
Digital Media and Society
Nancy Baym: Personal Connections in the Digital Age
Jean Burgess and Joshua Green: YouTube 2nd edition
Mark Deuze: Media Work
Charles Ess: Digital Media Ethics
Alexander Halavais: Search Engine Society
Martin Hand: Ubiquitous Photography
Robert Hassan: The Information Society
Tim Jordan: Hacking
Leah Lievrouw: Alternative and Activist New Media
Rich Ling and Jonathan Donner: Mobile Communication
Donald Matheson and Stuart Allan: Digital War Reporting
Dhiraj Murthy: Twitter
Zizi Papacharissi: A Private Sphere
Jill Walker Rettberg: Blogging
Patrik Wikström: The Music Industry
Twitter
Social Communication in the Twitter Age
Dhiraj Murthy
polity
Copyright © Dhiraj Murthy 2013
The right of Dhiraj Murthy to be identifi ed as Author of this Work has been
asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2013 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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Malden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
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permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5238-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5239-9(pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Group Limited, Bodmin,
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For Kalpana, Deya Anjali, and Akash
Dedicated in loving memory of Nagavenamma
and Venkatachala Shetty
You’re not reducing face-to-face time . . . You don’t choose to
stay in and do Twitter. It’s like those spare moments on the
Web when I’m doing another task I switch over to Twitter for
literally 15 seconds. There is no fewer face-to-face, no fewer
phone calls, there’s more awareness of other people in my
life and maybe that even leads to further conversation with
some people.
Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter
(cited in Niedzviecki 2009: 132)
Contents
Figures and Tables viii
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
1 What is Twitter? 1
2 Contextualizing Twitter 14
3 Theorizing Twitter 24
4 Twitter and Journalism 51
5 Twitter and Disasters 70
6 Twitter and Activism 92
7 Twitter and Health 115
8 Conclusion 144
Notes 154
Glossary 159
References 162
Index 184
vii
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Runner’s Strip 5
2.1 The Notifi cator 18
3.1 Twitter attribution 45
4.1 Miracle on the Hudson 57
5.1 Top 100 domain categories which #Pakistan
tweets linked to 82
5.2 Frequency of tweets per user with Pakistan
trending topic tag 84
5.3 Frequency of at-mentions per user with
Pakistan trending topic hashtag 86
6.1 Internet, Facebook, and Twitter users in Egypt 95
6.2 Egyptian population using Twitter (January
and March 2011) 107
6.3 Use of communication media during the 25
January Revolution 110
7.1 @ALSUntangled Twitter Stream (usernames
redacted) 122
7.2 Frequency of tweets by cancer-related
keywords 132
7.3 Frequency of tweets across all cancer-related
keywords 136
8.1 Interactions of themes discussed in this book 146
Table
5.1 Top 15 retweets with identifi able users 88
viii