Twitter

Pretty sure this is 'shopped. Original artist, as far as I can tell, can be found here.

Recently, I started following a new podcast from Slate.com called Lexicon Valley. The half hour-long, weekly podcast by Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo covers a variety of topics but all of the episodes center around changes in language and the power of words. Their June 4th episode was devoted to Abraham Lincoln and his Gettysburg Address and I highly recommend giving it a listen. While Vuolo and Garfield conclude that the Gettysburg Address closely follows the structure of an ancient Greek funeral oration, they also note that the brevity of the address was both rhetorically deft and politically pragmatic. The address was reprinted verbatim on the front page of most major newspapers and was easily reproducible in every format imaginable– from pamphlets to marble plaques. Today, we can share huge amounts of information with little-to-no effort, yet the art of keeping it brief seems to hold sway. What are some of the unique properties of brevity that makes it so alluring and what can we expect to achieve with it? more...

dont read all of the tweets

There is often the assumption that the information economy expects us to consume more and more, leading us to process more but concentrate less. Some have called this a “fear of missing out” (or FOMO), a “blend of anxiety, inadequacy and irritation that can flare up while skimming social media.” However, most of these arguments about FOMO make the false assumption that the information economy wants and expects us to always process more. This isn’t true; we need to accept the reality that the information economy as well as our own preferences actually value, even need, missing out.

Many do feel in over their heads when scrolling social media streams. Especially those of us who make a hobby or career in the attention/information economy, always reading, sharing, commenting and writing; tweeting, blogging, retweeting and reblogging. Many of us do feel positioned directly in the path of a growing avalanche of information, scared of missing out and afraid of losing our ability to slow down, concentrate, connect and daydream, too distracted by that growing list of unread tweets. While it seemed fun and harmless (Tribble-like?) at first, have we found ourselves drowning in the information streams we signed up for and participate in? more...

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Just a quick post this Saturday about Twitter partnering with NASCAR to cover the Pocono 400. Via Mashable:

The Pocono 400 partnership will revolve around the #NASCAR hashtag, according to a joint press conference Twitter and NASCAR held Friday.

“During the race, we’ll curate accounts from the NASCAR universe and surface the best Tweets and photos from the drivers, their families, commentators, celebrities and other fans when you search #NASCAR on Twitter.com,” reads a post to the official company blog. more...

Doing Journalism in the Social Media Age

Discussion with Andy Carvin (@acarvin) & Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc)

Introduction: Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) & PJ Rey (@pjrey)

 

The Twitter backchannel in action. Photo by Rob Wanenchak.

Last weekend, I had the double pleasure of presiding over an excellent panel on technology and protest, and having David Banks as my extremely capable Twitter backchannel moderator and Livestream assistant. Both the Twitter backchannel and the Livestream were getting their first serious run as an institutional part of Theorizing the Web, and despite some minor difficulties with mics and cameras, I think they were a clear success.

But the experience of presiding on a panel and then serving as the backchannel moderator for the panel immediately after delivered some interesting revelations regarding what these kinds of technology actually mean for how our conferences work, and for how we engage with and in our spaces of knowledge production.

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This is part of a series of posts highlighting the Theorizing the Web conference, April 14th, 2012 at the University of Maryland (inside the D.C. beltway). See the conference website for information as well as event registration.

Experiencing global events through social media has become increasingly common. For those in the West, the uprisings over the past few years in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere were especially striking because social media filled an information void created by the lack of traditional journalists to cover the dramatic events. By simply following a hashtag on Twitter, we tuned into those on the scene, shouting messages of revolution, hope, despair, carnage, persistence, misinformation, debate, sadness, terror, shock, togetherness; text and photos bring us seemingly closer to the events themselves.

But of course the Twitter medium is not neutral. It has shaped what we see and what we do not. Where is the truth in all of this? The intersection of knowledge, power, struggle and the radically new and transformative power of social media begs for intense theorizing. How we conceptualize, understand, define and talk about this new reality lays the path forward to better utilizing social media for journalistic and political purposes.

This is why the keynote for Theorizing the Web 2012 conference (College Park, MD, April 14th) features Andy Carvin (NPR News) and Zeynep Tufekci (UNC) in conversation. Carvin (@acarvin) has become well known for his innovative use of Twitter as a journalistic tool. Tufekci (@techsoc) has emerged as one of the strongest academic voices on social movements and social media and brings a theoretical lens to help us understand this new reality. Together, insights will be made that have impact beyond just journalism but to all researchers of technology as well as those outside of academic circles.

Who is Andy Carvin; and What Do We Call Him?

Without a deep background in professional journalism, Carvin’s actual title at NPR is “Senior Strategist.” However,  more...

Image from Zeynep Tufecki/Technosociology.org

In the previous installment of this series, I set up what I characterize as the two primary areas of argument that stand against my primary claim: that social media technology and other forms of ICT, far from constraining emotional connections and the emotional power of solidarity-creating rituals, actually serve to facilitate emotions and the powerful connective work that emotional interaction does.

There are a number of ways that one could argue this is done, and Jenny Davis makes an especially pertinent argument in her post about the social cost of abstaining from digitally augmented forms of interaction. For the purposes of this piece, I want to focus my attention on the capacity of ICTs to facilitate the generation of emotional energy around contentious political action – especially contentious political action in a context of violent repression.

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Rush Limbaugh is experiencing an advertiser exodus, and social media is playing a big part.

It’s the kind of story that writes itself. A popular media entity, on one of the oldest forms of electronic mass media, bears the brunt of activists’ Facebook wrath. It combines two old rivalries: liberals and conservatives and new media versus old media. In case you missed it, here’s the brief synopsis of events from ABC news:

Rush Limbaugh remains in big trouble. Advertisers – 11 at last count – are pulling spots off his radio talk show because of the reaction to his calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Opponents are mobilizing on social media for a long campaign to try to convince even more sponsors to drop his program. Ms. Fluke herself has rejected as insufficient Mr. Limbaugh’s attempts at apology

Fluke had testified before congress about the importance of “the pill” for medical uses beyond birth control. Rush concluded that she was having so much sex that she needed the American tax payer to help defer the cost of her contraceptives. (This has led to some speculation that conservatives don’t know how hormonal birth control works.) Thousands of people are organizing to get advertisers to pull their money out of Rush Limbaugh’s show, and many of them are organizing via Twitter and Facebook. Will we be subjected to another round of technologically deterministic news stories about “cyber revolution,” or are we going to have a more nuanced conversation? More precisely, does Rush have a social media problem or has he -all things being equal- just gone too far this time? more...

Is this an Oxymoron?

Most of our interactions with technology are rather mundane. We flip a light switch, buckle our seat belts, or place a phone call. We have a tacit knowledge of how these devices work. In other words, we have relatively standard, institutionalized, ways of interacting with familiar technologies. For example: if I were to drive someone else’s car, even if it is an unfamiliar model, I do not immediately consult the user manual. I look around for the familiar controls, maybe flick the blinkers on while the car is still in the drive way, and off I go. Removal of these technologies (or even significant alterations) can cause confusion. This is immediately evident if you are trying to meet a friend who does not own a cell phone. Typical conventions for finding the person in a crowded public space (“Yeah, I’m here. Near the stage? Yeah I see you waving.”) are not available to you. In years prior to widespread cell phone adoption, you might have made more detailed plans before heading out (“We’ll meet by the stage at 11PM.”) but now we work out the details on the fly. Operating cars and using cell phones are just a few mundane examples of how technologies shape social behavior beyond the actions needed to operate and maintain them. The widespread adoption of technologies, and the decisions by individual groups to utilize technologies can have a profound impact on the social order of communities. This second part of the Tactical Survey will help academics, activists, and activist academics assess the roll of information technology in a movement and make better decisions on when and how to use tools like social media, live video, and other forms of computer-mediated communication. more...

What is an identity worth? According to PhoneDog, a ‘personality-driven’ tech-review site, Noah Kravitz’s identity is valued at $42,500 per month. A former employee of PhoneDog, Kravitz successfully acquired a large following on the microblogging site Twitter—17,000 at the time of his leaving. In an attention economy, each follower becomes a valuable and tangible asset. The legal dispute between Kravitz and PhoneDog is over ownership of these 17,000 assets.

When Kravitz left the company, he changed his Twitter handle from @PhoneDog_noah to @noahkravitz and took his growing list of followers with him (I became his 24,390th follower/asset today). Complicating the issue further, he now writes  for TechnoBuffalo, a competing tech news site which presumably benefits from Kravitz’s vast following. Last week, a federal judge granted permission for the case to move forward. The existence of such a case, as well as its outcome (which remains yet unseen) both demonstrates and further constructs the shifting relationship between identity, labor, private rights, and worker obligations.

PhoneDog argues that Kravitz’s extensive network was built on the company’s foundation—and on the company’s dime. The notoriety of the site and the legitimacy of the name (i.e. the attachment of PhoneDog to his Twitter handle) facilitated the growth of Noah’s online persona. Moreover, they invested in a sizeable PR campaign to grow PhoneDog’s social media presence, and promoted Noah as the representative. Not only did this help raise Noah to micro-celebrity status, but made him an influencer—or someone who has enough influence to sell ad space. In short, PhoneDog argues that Kravitz gained his followers under the PhoneDog name and under the PhoneDog payroll, making these followers the property of the company. They estimate that each of his followers is worth $2.50 per month, and they seek reparations. In a message to readers dated January 3rd 2012, PhoneDog describes Noah’s rise to fame as follows: more...