Twitter is a one to ICT that is normally criticized as a meaningless and narcissistic way for people to express mundane details about their lives. In some cases however, this communication medium excels in compiling information from different sources in real time. Because many people have access on their mobile devices, news from Twitter often comes out much faster than updates from any other news source. For example, Twitter has served as one of the primary sources of information in the bombings in Mumbai. A mix of amateurs and professionals used Twitter as a medium to broadcast news bits, images and video; the information was even used to find the locations of hostages. Due to the nature of the attacks which were in multiple locations simultaneously, the aggregated news feed of Twitter was more effective in getting information to the rest of the world than any news channel. Twitter could be further improved as a collective intelligence forming ICT is the ability to embed media such as pictures/videos/sound recordings as well as the ability to form subgroups within the larger collective population in order to reach or filter particular audiences.
Vieweg, et al. discusses how a geographically distributed group of people participated in information dissemination activities that were more organized and accurate than “rumor mongering”. Because of the accuracy required by the list of VT victims and also the Mumbai hostages, participants were “self policed” and self motivated. Twitter has also been used to find missing people such as a missing skier in the Swiss Alps who did not have radio contact but used twitter and the GPS coordinates of her iPhone to pinpoint her location. In all of these cases, users are “working within a kind of ‘discourse around death’ – where respect for the victims and their families demanded accuracy”. Compared to Facebook, Twitter feeds are more open in that most users are not required to be friends in order to view another user’s updates. Thus the aggregated collective intelligence of the user base can compile a live stream of events around the world at any point in time. Facebook excels in that users can form communities around groups and events such as the “I’m ok at VT” group; it also provides more awareness in that a user’s leaves a digital trace when they log into the site, post messages or update their profile.
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I agreed with your points. I definitely didn't see the point of Twitter when it first came out. And although I still don't use it, I can see the advantages of it in these situations. I remember reading or hearing about how people had informed their loved ones that they were okay faster than more traditional methods by using just a status update! Of course this information would be more accurate because the people involved are actually providing the information instead of third parties.
ReplyDeleteI really just signed up for Twitter a month ago, and I truly haven't seen the purpose of it. You definitely do bring to light all the possibilities. Allowing people to know how you are doing, and what your doing, definitely can bring comfort to loved ones in a hectic situation. There are limitations to it in the sense that you will only know what the person wants you to know. The accuracy of the information depends on the truthfulness of the person posting. There are "status stalkers" and the user may want to create statuses that are misleading. It all comes with the territory of computer mediated interaction.
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ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Twitter is widespread in that it is easily accessed by millions of people around the world. An important aspect of the Vieweg article, however was that the people who provided information about the VT crisis formed a conformity expectation. Because you don't have to be someone's friend on Twitter to see their updates, are you more or less likely to believe their comments and accept them as fact? How are you supposed to know if they are joking around or if what they are saying is true? I know you take this risk with almost any technology but I'm not sure Twitter was created for such sensitive information to be distributed. It's great that it has expanded to that purpose but I still think users need to be concerned about this trust factor.
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