Hello all! I'm new here and need to have my research paper (draft) peer reviewed for an English class. Specifically I am looking for three areas of weakness through out the paper. The research paper is to consist of the following:
Run between 8-10 pages
Will integrate sources from a diverse array of resources using MLA style
Will have a clear thesis/research question as the backbone of the paper
Will avoid fallacious rhetoric
Will construct logical arguments to advance the ideas in the paper
FYI: It is exactly seven pages right now, but I have additional information from a survey I've conducted that should extend the paper a bit.
Thank you in advance for any help!!
Twitter: The Future of News Dissemination
In March of 2006 the world became a little smaller with the launch of a new social media site: Twitter. Although not everyone has gotten on board with the social media giant, it has shaped how people around the world communicate with one another. Entities that were once considered off limits and inaccessible by an "average" person are now one "tweet" away. Because Twitter is easily accessible to millions of people globally, it is an effective platform to disseminate headline news to a mass audience. Not requiring that friendships between users be mutual, limiting posts to 140 characters, and using an SMS based phone application Twitter separates itself from other social media sites. These qualities are what make Twitter a viable and effective means to disperse news on a national and global scale.
Understanding how Twitter works is an important component to understanding why Twitter works for news dissemination. Separating itself from other sites Twitter allows its users only 140 characters per post, more commonly known as "tweets". This keeps posts relevant and to the point, an important characteristic of headline news. Users can "follow" whomever they want to follow, that person does not have to follow them back; unlike other social media sites where the "friendships" must be mutual in nature. Following a person simply means you will receive their tweets. This lack of reciprocity encourages following among users. Twitter is easy to access, a user can use their computer or cell phone to receive and send tweets. Because Twitter's phone application is based in SMS they do not need a smart phone to participate, tweets can be sent and received via simple text messaging. Because of its simplicity millions of people use Twitter on a daily basis, and the numbers are growing every day.
Twitter has an established audience and is accessed by millions of people around the world on a daily basis with new users being added daily. Twitter has roughly 554,750,000 accounts ("Twitter Statistics"), of those about 232 million are considered "active" or accessed at least once a month (Schaefer). According to the Population Reference Bureau the total world's population is around 7.1 billion with 1.2 billion in "highly developed" countries as of September 2013. By these numbers about 9% of the world's total population or 46% of highly developed countries has a Twitter account (PRB). While the overall percentage of users on a global scale might not seem very significant, the increase in active users shows growth in users of Twitter. The number of active users has increased by 39% from September 2012 to September 2013 (Schaefer). Every day there are about 135,000 new accounts registered on Twitter ("Twitter Statistics"). The inference can be made, based on this yearly growth of new users and user activity that Twitter is not only expanding but establishing a loyal following as well. This increase in users could be in part due to the ease of access, making it a desirable social media site to use.
Twitter can be accessed across both desktop and mobile platforms making it easy to use while on-the-go. It is compatible with both Apple and Microsoft computers as well as Apple, Microsoft, and Android phones. Perhaps most important a user does not need a "smartphone" to access Twitter on their phone. Because twitter uses an SMS (short message service) based phone application tweets can be posted and received through text messages (Twitter). This allows for instant updates while on-the-go to users regardless of their device preference. Other social media sites require users to have smartphones to meaningfully access their sites. It is this easy access to real time updates that makes Twitter a competitor in the news industry. Just as important as being able to receive news updates is the accessibility of delivering news on Twitter.
Even in instances where Twitter or internet access might be blocked or limited users are still able to update the world on headline news with Twitter. It is through third party applications and VPNs (virtual private networks) that users are able to have unabridged access to Twitter. A VPN is a virtual private network, it acts as a backdoor to Twitter where it might be banned or internet access is limited by the government. A VPN provides its user with an IP address that is located in a country where the site is not banned. Virtual private networks could be considered the post office boxes of the internet. If a user does not want their actual physical location known they use a post office box, a Twitter user in a country were the service is banned can use a VPN to cover their true physical location.
If during an uprising a government shuts down or limits access to the internet Twitter can still be accessed through a VPN (Papacharissi). This was shown true during the uprising in Egypt in the summer of 2011. Even though the government limited internet access, they were unable to block VPNs that allowed users to login and use Twitter (Papacharissi). Because the people are given a voice through Twitter, corrupt governments are unable to conceal confrontations under a façade of verisimilitude. Without these VPNs true news updates would have been impossible during the Egyptian uprising.
The other option available is the use of a third party application. A third party application is a program or website unaffiliated with Twitter that allows a person to login and use Twitter remotely. There are over one million third party applications that allow access to Twitter; this is helpful if Twitter is blocked but internet access is not (Lipman). This tactic is used in China where social media sites have been blocked by the government. While the government can block most social media sites, it is impossible to block all of the third party applications and websites that are available to use Twitter (Lipman). This is seen with recent statistics in Twitter use, China currently has the most active users of Twitter and it is due to the use of these third party applications (Lipman). Oppressed countries are provided the opportunity to connect veraciously with the rest of the world. With these virtual private networks and third party applications news updates can happen from anywhere in the world, during any type of confrontation, on a global scale. Highlighting and discovering these news topics and events is simple with Twitter's use of hashtags.
Twitter's use of hashtags for topics makes it easy to track trending topics, such as headline news (Papacharissi). Topics on Twitter are marked with a hashtag (#) in front of them. When someone wishes to search a topic (or event) a search is performed with a hashtag in front of that topic or event and any matching statement is displayed in the search results with the most recent tweets displaying first (Papacharissi). Because events and trends take on certain "hashtags" they are easy to follow using this system. For instance, during the Egyptian uprising in 2011 the hashtag #Egypt was used when tweeting about the events in the uprising (Papacharissi). This increases the accessibility to specific news and events that have been tweeted about. Even through the 58 million tweets daily a person can find meaningful updates and does not have to "dig" to discover the information they seeking ("Twitter Statistics").
In the reverse, using hashtags means a person can very simply direct their tweets to the correct audience. An important quality to news dissemination is ensuring your target audience is reached, this is done through hashtags and trending topics. A trending topic refers to an event that is popular based on hashtags. Twitter determines "trending" topics based on how many tweets were sent out with are particular hashtag or how many searches were done for a specific hashtag in a period of time (Miles). These trending topics are updated and provided on Twitter's homepage, making them accessible to all Twitter users (Twitter). If a user is unaware of an event in progress the trending topics on Twitter's homepage is able to update the user. Users do not have to search for breaking news and events, it is already provided to them on the homepage. Yet another easily accessible means to receive headline news. Why is it that this works well on Twitter, why not use Facebook or Myspace or any other number of social media sites? The key lies in the lack of reciprocity on Twitter.
Because Twitter does not require reciprocity in order to be connected to someone it encourages "following" others (Haewon et al.). Unlike other social media sites, a Twitter user is not required to reciprocate a friendship in order to be "followed" by other users (and vice versa). This lack of symbiotic relationships encourages users to follow others because it is not required that the "following" be mutual (Haewon et al.). There is no rejection as there might be on traditional social media sites. This increased instance of following others means there is also an increase of news dissemination among more users. Within this lack of reciprocity there is seen very few degrees of separation with information sharing. Meaning, from one user sharing to another user there averages less than five "hops" or degrees of separation. It lies in the basis of Stanley Milgrim's "Six Degrees of Separation" experiment, where everyone is separated by six degrees or less (Haewon et al.). This low separation and reciprocity in comparison to other social media sites suggests that users are following others on Twitter for both social and informational purposes. The increase in following also increases the chances that news might be retweeted, also known as a "RT".
Retweeting easily increases information dissemination among Twitter users (Haewon et al.). To "retweet" something means to take another users post and tweet it yourself, a sort of digital quote. It acts as another means of spreading news and information to users that might not have otherwise received it. What is most important to understand about retweets is that regardless of the amount of followers a user has, on average a tweet will receive an additional 1,000 recipients via retweeting (Haewon et al.). Users retweeting causes a spread information across Twitter at an exponential rate. This spread is both consistent in the amount of users it will reach and the time it takes to get there. The time lag between original tweets and retweets is very short; about half of all retweets will happen in under an hour with 75% occurring in less than a day (Haewon et al.). News is able to travel quickly among many users through retweeting particularly because of the lack of reciprocal friendships discussed earlier. Because other social media sites cannot offer this they are not able to reach the same potential in this time span. Another facet separating Twitter from other social media sites as an outlet for news is its increased use among major and local news networks to disperse headlining news.
Twitter is becoming more popular among both national and local news networks as ways to interact with and update their viewers (Miller). On cable news networks such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and HLN Twitter is used not only to update their viewers but to interact, collect opinions, and conduct polls among a national and global audience. CNN used Twitter to follow qualitative trends in tweets as election results were coming in state-by-state in the 2008 election (CNN). Fox News recently released that they would be using television sized tablets in their newsroom to peruse and post on social media sites. Local news has taken to using Twitter as well, holding polls, reviewing comments, and updating viewers on breaking news all via the social media giant. Some local news stations are even making it a requirement that their reporters send out at least one tweet daily (Stevens). The trend carries over to how consumers receive news from social media sites.
While Twitter is not replacing any sources of news media it has increased in popularity since 2009 as an additional news source. The Pew Research Center shows that digital news and online media are the only sources that have had growth in usage since their inclusion in the annual State of the Media report in 2004 (Sassen et al.: "Digital: By the Numbers"). This means that more people are turning away from "traditional" means such as print, radio, and television and turning to digital media as their primary source for news. In particular the use of social media as a news source since 2010 has doubled among users (Sassen et al.: "Digital: As Mobile Grows Rapidly..."). What is particularly important among the statistics is that 27% of Twitter users receive news from news organizations on Twitter where only 9% of Facebook users receive their news from a news organization on Facebook (Sassen et al.: "Digital: By the Numbers"). Yet another statistic that separates Twitter from the competition as a source of headline news.
It has been said that the last decade has changed how people get news from the media, while the next decade will bring changes with how news is reported (Mitchell). Twitter does both. It provides for a platform that encourages global sharing of headline news, crossing international borders. By allowing users to follow without fear of rejection and be followed without having to reciprocate the friendship Twitter creates an environment where unambiguous information exchange can occur. In only 140 characters its users are able to update the world on what is going in their own world. Being used daily by millions and growing just as fast Twitter has a well established audience. International news spreads via retweets across this vast audience within a matter of hours, not days, instantly updating its users from what might otherwise be considered a world away. Twitter's platform, layout, and usage separates the social media site from its counter parts making it an effective means to disseminate headline news.
