To young teens and college
students, Twitter is a social media site used to keep up with the latest trends
in their area. For older users, it’s a site used to promote their business or connect
with others in their field. Nonetheless, Twitter serves as a platform to
connect millions across the world instantaneously. It’s our generation’s news
outlet, we don’t use newspapers and TV sets to find out current events, we go
on Twitter. For example, Boston Marathon Bombing highlighted the different side of Twitter that was
able to report tragic information such as the Boston Marathon Bombing in rapid
manor that was also factual. Many people didn’t have a clue that the Bombing
occurred until they logged on Twitter and clicked on the trending hashtag. News
journalist used to be our “funnel” or way of finding out current events, however
social media sites such as Twitter has changed how we stay updated. An hour
after the bombings took place, Twitter did the job of sending out the most
important information accurately through various news outlets such as CNN, and
Fox. Without Twitter, millions of civilians would have been unaware of such a
tragedy.
As an avid
user, I know from personal experience that Twitter can be used in multiple ways
depending on what you’re trying to do. Twitter can be used as a journalistic
tool along with other social media sites like Facebook that report current
events. Each day, Twitter is updating itself to be more reliable for its users
so it is the only place where people get their news. Twitter is known to be
first with any type of news before any other social media site. As a
journalist, it is your job to report the news in an orderly prompt fashion.
Twitter has eliminated the middle man known as news anchors and connects to
users that have no time to sit and watch TV. It can also be used as a political
tool and the 2016 Presidential Election is a prime example. Throughout the
entire election, both candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were very
active on Twitter to “connect” with voters and hear their concerns (which they
both ignored). Each debate was the #1 trending topic on Twitter for hours while
it was in session and the next day. From Trump’s one liners to Hillary’s
confusing rebuttals, the Presidential Election was the most anticipated event in
2016 thanks to Twitter. Bernie Sanders connected with many of his supporters
through Twitter by having conversations with them during the Presidential
primaries.
In April
2016, an Amtrak train heading from New York City towards Savannah, Ga struck a
backhoe in Pennsylvania causing a derailment. Two Amtrak workers were killed
and 35 others suffered from injuries. When the news broke about a deadly Amtrak
derailment many people were frantic. Twitter was successful in relaying
information to the world about the tragedy. News sources such as CNN, were
prompt in keeping users updated with the individuals affected by the crash. In
October, the deadly Hurricane Matthew came in contact with Haiti at the highest
level which is level five. Reporting over 1,000 deaths throughout the course of
the week, Twitter users across the world watched and waited for the death toll
to stop rising. #HurricaneMatthew was a recurring trending topic on the site
for over a week for people to stay in contact with family members affected by
the deadly storm. Twitter was successful in terms of staying active with users
during Hurricane Matthew, and updating information for evacuation purposes in
the southeast coast. An event that Twitter failed at communicating effectively was
the 2016 Presidential Election results. Since the results were delayed due to “missed
votes”, and technicalities the world didn’t find out the winner until the
middle of the night. There was a lot of confusion the first hour when the
results were announced because many states voting ballots were not counted,
leaving many voters frustrated. No one wanted to believe that Donald Trump was
the new president and Twitter made it worse by having different news station
accounts reporting different results. Since Twitter is so rapid, many tweets
may seem factual when they may not even be true. Most of the world received
confirmation of the Election results the next morning by watching the real news
for the first time in a long time.
The subjects
I decided to follow on Twitter were @ComplexMagazine, @ThisFoodTho, and
@TomiLahren. I decided to follow Complex Magazine because they tweet about different
types of artist and they highlight important events in hip hop music past and
present. Music is my biggest love and I love all types of music, Complex
Magazine mainly focuses on hip hop and R&B but it is not limited to those genres.
They interview artist, tweet facts in hip hop, and always leave their followers
wanting more. I wanted to follow a food page such as @ThisFoodTho because I
follow them on my personal Twitter page and it usually makes my day better. By
looking at the various foods featured on the page, it gives me recipe ideas to
try and allows me to see foods from different cultures. The food page always makes me hungry but I
love seeing the different variations of common dishes like spaghetti with a
twist on it. I chose to follow Tomi Lahren on Twitter as my third subject
because she even though I don’t follow her on my personal account, she always
spoken about on my newsfeed. I don’t agree with any of her political views and
the way she conducts interviews irritates me.
Using
Twitter is so much different than blogging. It’s way faster, less words, and
gets straight to the point. I can tell a story on Twitter in a series of eight separate
tweets, although it may seem like a lot, it’s the length of a normal blog post.
Twitter allows users to be in control of everything with the touch of a finger.
This project was a personal favorite for me because we could follow accounts we
like and able to converse with them by mentioning them. This project was fast which
proves effective Twitter is as a social media site.
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