Weekly Update #2

Bustling in discovery

This week meant the second week of intensive research into the use of social media by scholars. At this rate, I expect to be finished by the end of next week, hopefully developing a final report with recommendations by the start of the following week.

What did I find this week? Well here is a look at the general questions I was focused on and a few points on each:

-I continued last week’s formation of social media sites as more continue to emerge through my research and I add them to the ongoing list of popular sites (with descriptions on what they are used for)
-I began to fully engage in the use of social media by researchers, including general ideas about the rate of use by various researchers
-what type of social media sites are most used and the frequency of use of these services by scholars. Research showed that opposite to popular claims, most social media sites are not dominantly used by younger scholars, but in fact by those who are semi-established (mainly for the reason of being able to build up credibility and popularity more easily through formal, more traditional methods when you are an up-and-coming scholar)
-I found a really good study done by the Research Information Network which looked at scholars use of web applications and how these related to social media networks within the European community. I also found a similar report which coincided with this research but was focused on American scholars. Both reports were carefully analyzed and many great graphs were extracted to serve as a basis for my recommendations and general analysis of social media use by scholars
-next I focused on the goals and motivations of scholars who are using social media tools
-I focused in much more detail in extracting the benefits and the disadvantages of using social media for academic purposes. These list continue to grow and will offer a good understanding of reasons behind the use or lack of use of these services by academics
-I am just starting to delve into the differences in use between developed and developing country researchers. This information is much harder to find given that web applications are fairly recent and technology in less developed countries is still emerging
-in general, I have found information for the most popular social media and networking sites by continent and country, which will help to focus the research onto a specific service and how they are used
-factors facilitating the use of web 2.0 tools as well as barriers to their use is also being investigated, and a list tabulated which outline the factors influencing the adoption and use of online services
-next, I have tried to find studies that have looked at some of these issues (there are very few that I have found thus far) to see how the use of social media by scholars and by people of different regions of the world are analyzed. How is use of online tools measured and evaluated?
-and lastly, I began investigating the likelihood of traditional systems incorporating informal media into their databases and research tools. This also links to the notion of open and close access journals and online data, which plays into the choice to incorporate more open systems into formal, generally closed services

Voila, an outline of the basic things I have been investigating and focusing on this week. Throughout this investigation, I continue to find and jot down recommendations according to my findings of how we can encourage the use of social media by scholars and whether or not and how traditional systems should incorporate informal networks into their traditional operations in order to remain relevant.

Hopefully, next week’s update will be the last of the updates, including all of the information I researched throughout the last three weeks and providing good information to enable the formation of solid recommendations.

Weekly Update

The week that passed marked the first week of serious work into my research on the use of social media by scholars. I will try to do a weekly update as to what I have looked at and found, very briefly in order for you to follow my research.

This week I concentrated on a few things, mainly:
-general key terms
-important authors in the field and known for using/researching social media
-disadvantages of certain Internet tactics (ie. bookmarking or tagging)
-how links are shared and shortened
-popular bookmarking sites
-list of popular social networking and media sites used by scholars
-most popular citation sites
-most popular social media sites used by scholars

I looked at the concept of social bookmarking (method used by Internet users to organize, store, manage and search bookmarks of resources online), and tagging (the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content).

I looked at different authors that have come up as important scholars in the field of social media. I have also gone beyond just authors and scholars but also professionals and other social media experts in order to get an understanding of how different online tools are utilized and what they offer.

Next I looked at the disadvantages of informal bookmarking and how people can track sites that have been bookmarked. This includes direct bookmarking of the site as well as informal sharing of the site through sharing links. Online tools which shorten URLs were also looked at briefly in terms of the benefits of shortening website links (mainly to stay within or simplify when links are sent).

I then looked more closely at various bookmarking sites which are most popular. I gathered lists of these sites then went onto each one to generate a one line description of the type of service they offer.

Perhaps my most interesting research was looking at which social media sites are most popular amongst scholars. I once again scrounged online sources to find the most popular sites which focus on scholarly topics or have been most utilized by scholars. I wrote out an extensive list and began visiting each website to write a brief description of the service offered. This list is very important as it will help me delve further into how various social media sites attract scholars and how they are being utilized by them on a daily basis. This will no doubt be the source of much further analysis which will become the base of my research.

That’s all for last week, lots done and still lots to do!
Until next time.

Authors to look into more

Authors to Look Up:
-Bonnie Lawlor, NFAIS Executive Director
Slide Presentation
-Jeff Boily- CEO, BioWizard
-Lettie Onrad, Online publishing/product manager, SagePublications Inc.
Slide Presentation
-John Sullivan, Chief Information Officer, the American Chemical Society
Slide Presentation
-Dr. Bay Arinze, Prof of Management Info Systems, Drexel University
Slide Presentation
-Reynolds Guida, Director Product Developer Thomson Reuters
Slide Presentation
-Jill Hurst-Wahl, Instructor School of Information Studies, Syracuse University
Slide Presentation
-Wayne Hay, IT Manager, Westchester Library System, NY
Slide Presentation
-Jay Datema, founder Bookism.org
-Darin McBeath, Director of Disruptive Tech, Elsevier
Slide Presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/dreamingspires/how-to-use-social-media-in-scholarly-publishing
-Sara Kjellberg - I am a blogging researcher: Motivations for blogging in a scholarly contexthttp://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2962/2580
-Jason Priem, Bradely H. Hemminger -Scientometrics 2.0: New metrics of scholarly impact on the social Web http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2874/2570

Research Outline

How are social media tools being used by scholars to formulate discussions and share knowledge about their academic works?

Goals:
•Research the ways in which scholars are using/could use online social media for
academic purposes
•Outline the ways in which scholars are currently using social media and compare
(if possible) these uses from scholars in the developed vs. the developing world
•Make recommendations for how we can enhance existing traditional systems to
incorporate (or at least recognize) the use of informal online tools for
scientific purposes and academic knowledge sharing (focusing especially on
Bioline – how can we improve this basic and traditional system based on the use
of social media by scholars)
•Bioline as a traditional and basic system, how can we improve this service based
on the discovered use of social media? (could be that using social media for
researchers from the developing world is not an advantage, if that’s the case,
say so in the recommendations section)

Guiding Questions:
1.How are scholars using online social media tools?
a.What social media tools are being used?
b.What types of activities/goals do scholars have in using these tools?
c.What are the benefits/disadvantages of using social media tools for
academic purposes?
2.How are scholars from the developed world using social media tools? Does their
utility differ from that of scholars from the developing world?
a.Is there a way of tracking the use of social media tools by scholars from
different parts of the world/areas of development?
b.What factors play into these differences? (i.e. the digital divide, level
of education, availability of technology, etc.)
3.How is the use of social media by scholars captured and/or evaluated?
a.How do we track the use of online social media by scholars?
b.How can we enhance the tracing of this use within academic circles?
4.Looking at the Library of Congress’ recent decision to store all Twitter posts
as ‘historical data’, will this become the case for other social media content?
a.How legitimate is user-generated content?
b.Has the legitimacy of such content been on the rise or falling?
c.Will informal content eventually become increasingly integrated within
other more traditional types of systems?
d.How will this affect the notion of open vs. closed access online services
given that these tools are based on free use and content

DONE!!!

Wow, I have never worked so long on a paper in my life. This paper would give my thesis competition for sure. The only thing that got me through it was the fact that I found it interesting, so hopefully my analysis will be interesting to read.

Im glad it's done, but now I must concentrate on doing a lot more research on citations through informal media channels. Hopefully that'll go smooth and I'll find some results.

This is it!

I am hoping to have my essay complete by the end of the week.
So far I have everything done except for the G20 case and the Conclusion.

I have decided to not make a video to accompany it. I have given my essay to a few friends to edit and they have given me pretty good feedback, stating that all of the work I want to do would be PhD level, and that I am explaining myself well enough and in enough detail that I shouldn't worry about adding anything to it. This positive feedback has been great, and I'm hoping will help me finish everything off.

I began doing the G20 case, just researching more, on Friday, and all of the emotions I had originally about being involved with it came rushing back. It made me realize how easily we forget things that affect us. This made me kind of sad considering that if we want to see anything happen with the inquiries, that we must continue to care, and that we must continue to let it affect us in the same way that it did on the actual weekend in order to feel the desire to see change happen.

Working hard

I have most of my body done thus far. All of the content, theory, study sample/area, etc etc. It's all done!!! Well, it needs a bit of work, but the bulk is there and I am pretty happy with it.

I'm afraid Ill be going over the page limit though, story of my life. So hopefully the page limitation is just a suggestion. I will definitely try to keep in concise, I just have so much to say!

Im also debating doing something different for my case study section. As it will be mostly information taken from online sources, such as posts, videos, images, etc. I was thinking that instead of a long report on each case, I could do a little video montage. Besides, my whole paper is about media and visuals, it would be an interesting way of doing it. Something like doing all the research and write up on all the theory and background information, then a few pages on each of the cases to give a bit of background, but the bulk of the showcasing of different perspectives would be done visually through a video rather than talking about it. I'm still debating this idea, given that I have not fully delved into that section yet, I am not sure if Ill find a lot of visuals or whether they will mostly be reports. If the latter, then continuing on with writing an elaborated section would be best, but if most of the information I find is videos and images, it may be more relevant to present in that format. Just a thought, what do you think?

Done!

Proposal #2 is done done done!!!!
Finally!

After so much research, and trying to find the right philosopher to tie into my theoretical framework. I think I found a good one though, focusing on just a few of Foucault's theories on 'discourse' and 'power/knowledge'. Hopefully it will be good and form the basis for my actual paper.

Foucault

Still reading more and more about Foucault, specifically now where he has been used within new media literature. At first I had wanted to look at 3 elements of his work

1. The concept of discourse
2. Power/Knowledge
3. The question of the 'subject'

Foucault has seem to have written on every topic in the book! There is so much information and different ways of analyzing things that Foucault seems to have touched on, it is hard to narrow it down to a few specific themes. The more I read however, the more I think I will just stick with the 2 first themes (discourse and power/knowledge) in order to offer a more detailed and concise account of how Foucault's work fits into my analysis of Twitter.

Foucault

After having read so much about different theories and ideas, I think I have found the appropriate 'philosophy' or approach to my paper.

I have looked at cases of representation and power of privilege. I have looked at ideas of orientalism and 'the other', particularly with how they are representing another culture/people. In the end, I have stopped at looking at the concept of discourse, especially with how it is used to represent objects or subjects. For this, i have found the work of Michel Foucault to be most appropriate. He moves away from the concept of language (my original focus through Stuart Hall) and towards one about discourse and power/knowledge.

I have written out pages of notes on Foucault and competing theorist and am still sorting through it all to make sense of it, but I am going to drive my theoretical framework within Foucault's work.

The Tally

Okay, so I have finally reached the beginning of the end of my research segment, which is great. I tend to research excessively at the start of a research assignment and take notes as I go. I then colour code and divide all of the information into sections, which then creates the basis for my paper's paragraphs/sub-topics.

I've spent everyday at the library for the past 3 weeks, reading a lot and making lots of notes. So far I have read 115 sources (articles, books, documentaries, etc.) and have summarized them into 62 pages of single spaced notes. Today I finished colour coding and segmenting these notes into a more concise and relevant 31 pages of notes. From here, I will again re-sort my notes within each category and hopefully start writing. I will take the weekend to think about it all and come back fresh Monday morning to sort out the theory segment of the paper which will hopefully help me sort out how I will outline my assignment and content. Once I have this finalized, I can finally submit a new outline for what I intend to do, and hopefully write the bulk of it within the next few weeks thereafter.

Thanks!

Cool search tool for Tweets

I have come across something called the Web Ecology Project while reading an article and decided to check it out. Turns out, it's a project involving the creation of '140kit', a research tool for Twitter posts. I had read that Google was looking into developing something like this (the ability to search all past and present Twitter posts) but this seems to have done it before them, allowing users to search any term, then retrieve raw data sets which can then be graphed and analyzed. This will be of great use for finding information about my particular case studies.

In essence, 140kit allows you to: (taken from the www.140kit.com website):

Research
140kit is more than your personal stash of Tweets; when you signup, you have access to two powerful default scrape types: You can either search terms (with/without our similar term branching algorithm enabled) from this moment using the powerful Streaming API or soon access one of our Whitelisted machines for REST access to collect as many tweets as possible from any number of accounts.

Explore
Once your data collection is complete, you have access to an expanding list of analytical offerings to measure your data sets rapidly and in new ways. From there, you can quickly export data, view general charts, and soon have access to an experimental re-tweet network graph visualization. Use this data for academic research, one-off fact-checking blog posts, or anything else you can think of, really.

Collaborate
What if you wanted to combine multiple data sets and look at their sum value? Doing that is simple with a "Curation" scrape, where you pick and choose existing data sets in the system, and mash them together for epic win. Don't see an analytical job you need? Develop it and throw it at our Git Account, and, pending approval, it'll just be added in, with the proper attributions to your hard work.

Articles

I've been reading a lot about activism, politics, and image and representation all within the context of 'cyberspace'. Today however I began to look into Neda, the case of the Iranian woman whos death was caught on film and distributed widely around the world. Googling her name came up with a bunch of interesting articles about Neda's death and the role the media played in that. I have yet to read them, but have saved multiple articles around this theme and intend to read them in the following days. This may provide me with a good solid base as to how I want to organize my case study sections in my paper.

Toronto Star

This article came up on the Toronto Star over the weekend and it is very interesting that it coincides very much with what I am interested with for my report. Although it does not provide any very relevant or insightful information, the fact that this story was published in a widely distributed mainstream newspaper showcases the importance of Twitter and particularly it's role during the G20.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/834367--coverage-of-the-g20-proved-twitter-s-news-edge

TWITTER TO COUNTER MIS-REPRESENTATION

Some thoughts and questions leading my new direction...

-how groups have been often misrepresented in the past
-who has the right to represent or report on an event/person/situation?
-what are the power politics at play and responsibilities of those for representing others?

-how people are taking representation back into their own hands, dictating their side of the story and not letting someone else speak for them, or depict merely a biased side
-the need to understand power in a broader cultural or symbolic term (ie. the power to represent someone or something in a certain way, within a certain ‘regime of representation’)

Some authors:
- Hall’s argument is that 'representation is the way in which meaning is given to things depicted'. how then can twitter be used to provide people with a way to represent themselves? as an alternative to the media's (mis)representation of event during the g20? or the media underrepresentation/complete lack of representation in Iran?
-Coleman looks at representation mostly through politics, however offers a lot of interesting notions on photographic representation and blogging

-Iran – govt was the only actor who was ‘allowed’ to depict (or completely neglect the depiction of) the post-election protests since the media was banned. How did protesters take it into their own hands to get word out to the world on what was going on?
-Neda
-G20 – how was the media representing the protests? How does this differ from what protesters felt or dealt with? How did people use Twitter to spread the word on what was really going on?
-focus on specific case - TBD
-make the case for why these cases are used,
-look at the context, then justify the particular case, explain the case, compare both cases (Iran and G20) – what do the similarities and differences tell us about things

What I've read so far

Back at the library today, getting some more books as my direction seems to keep changing, so I want to stay on top of the new aspects of this research. Today, I've gotten a lot of books focusing on Cyberspace and how it may be used for political motivations, so hopefully this will give me some good theoretical information for which to ground my research in.

So far, I have read and taken notes on the following list of articles, books, newspaper articles, online videos, etc...

Afshari, A. (2009). “The Green Wave”. Journal of Democracy. 20:4, pp. 6-10

Applebaum, A. (2009). The Twitter Revolution That Wasn’t. The Washington Post. Retrieved on June 24, 2010 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042002817.html

Author. (2009). ‘Twitter Revolution How Iran is Tweeting the World’ [Internet] ITN Production. June 20, 2009

Author. (2009). ‘American Journalists Turn to Twitter in Iran’. CNN Broadcast. June 21, 2009

Author. (2009). “Moldova’s “Twitter Revolution””. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.rferl.org/content/moldovas_twitter_revolution/1605005.html

Author. (2009). Moldova’s ‘Twitter Revolutionary’ Speaks Out. BBC News. Retrieved on June 24, 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8018017.stm

Author. (2009). ‘Twitter Revolution’ Spread to Pentagon’. [Interne] CNN Broadcast. June 22, 2009

Author. (2009). ‘9/11 Twitter Revolution’. [Internet]. Youtube. October 8, 2009

Author. (2010). Should the Government Save Every Tweet? http://theweek.com/article/index/202032/Should_the_government_save_every_Tweet. Retrieved June 5, 2010

Author. “The Twitter Revolution”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_wl396

Badger, E. How to Hold a World of Tweets. http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/how-to-hold-a-world-of-tweets-14904/. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Barry, E. (2009). Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter. The New York Times. Retrieved on June 24, 2010 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08moldova.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Cambié, S. & Ooi, Y-M. (2009). International Communications Strategy Developments in Cross-Cultural Communications, PR and Social Media. Philadelphia, Kogan Page Limited

Chiesa, A., Kageyama, T. Sukarya, H. & Temes, L. (2008) ‘Iran: A Nation of Bloggers’. [Internet] Rocketboom Spotlight.

Cochran, S. Library of Congress Acquires Twitter Archive. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2909684/library_of_congress_acquires_twitter.html?cat=15. Retrieved on June 5, 2010
Compton, J. & Benedetti, P. (2010). “Labour, New Media and the Institutional Restructuring of Journalism”. Journalism Studies. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713393939

Creswell, J. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approach Second Edition. London: Sage Publications

Da Silveira, A. Library of Congress Arquivara e Preservara o Twitter. http://alexdasilveira.com/?p=584. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Esfandiari, G. (2010). “The Twitter Devolution”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/07/the_twitter_revolution_that_wasnt

Fabian, J. Library of Congress Tweets it Will Acquire All Twitter Messages. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/92189-library-of-congress-to-acquire-all-twitter-messages. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Flew, T. (2008). New Media An Introduction. New York. Oxford University Press.

Forte, M. (2009). “America’s Iranian Twitter Revolution”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://zeroanthropology.net/2009/06/17/americas-iranian-twitter-revolution/

Franzosi. R. (1987). “The Press as a Source of Socio-Historical Data: Issues in the Methodology of Data Collection from Newspapers”. Historical Methods. 20:1, pp. 5-16

Fuery, K. (2009). New Media Culture and Image. New York. Palgrave Macmillan

Gerhardt, G. (2009) “e-Participation & e-Democracy”. Presented at e-Government Symposium (Switzerland, Berne) November 17, 2009. Retrieved on May 31st from http://science.amazee.com/edemocracy.pdf

Gross, D. Library of Congress to Archive Your Tweets. http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/14/library.congress.twitter/index.htm. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Grosseck, G. & Holotescu, C. (2008). “Can We Use Twitter For Educational Activities?”. The 4th International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education, Burcharest, April 17-18, 2008.

HBO. (2010). ‘For Neda’. [Documentary] HBO Canada

Harrison, J. (2009). “User-Generated Content and Gatekeeping at the BBC Hub”. Journalism Studies. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ title~content=t713393939

Hermida, A. (2010). “Twittering the News”. Jouranlism Practice. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t762290976

Hesse, M. Twitter Archive at Library of Congress Could Help Redefine History’s Scope. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/05/AR2010050505309.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Hodge. N. Inside Moldova’s Twitter Revolution. Wired.com. Retrieved on June 24, 2010 from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/04/inside-moldovas/

Huberman, B., Romero, D., & Wu, F. (2008). “Social Networks That Matter: Twitter Under the Microscope”. Social Computing Lab, Cornell University. pp. 1-9

Journeyman Pictures. (2009). Twitter Revolution [Internet]. ABC Australia

Karlsson, M. (2009). “Freezing The Flow of Online News”. Journalism Studies. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713393939

Keller, J. (2009). “Evaluating Iran’s Twitter Revolution”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/06/evaluating-irans-twitter-revolution/58337/

Keller, J. Twitter is Forever. http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/04/twitter-is-forever/38975/. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Kessler, S. 5 Things the Library of Congress is Archiving Online. http://mashable.com/2010/05/30/library-of-congress-web-archive/. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Keren, M. (2010). “Blogging and Mass Politics”. Biography. 33:1, pp. 110-126

Kirkpatrick, M. Twitter’s Entire Archive Headed to the Library of Congress. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitters_entire_archive_headed_to_the_library_of_c.php. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Lenhart, A. & Fox, S. (2009). “Twitter and Status Updating”. Retrieved on May 31st, 2010 from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Twitter-and-status-updating.aspx

Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., & Zickuhr, K. “Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults”. Pew Research Centre. Retrieved on May 31st, 2010 from http://pew research.org/millennials /

Levinson, P. (2009) New New Media. Allyn & Bacon.

Lohr. S. Library of Congress Will Save Tweets. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/technology/15twitter.html. Retrieved June 5, 2010

Luoma-Aho, V. (2009). “Social Media Report Focus on Communication Research”. Report for HS-Foundation. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://jyu.academia.edu/documents/0065/1079/Social_Media_Report_2009_VL.pdf

Malone, M. (2009). “The Twitter Revolution”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124000817787330413.html

Miller, C. Twitter Makes Itself More Useful. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/twitter-makes-itself-more-useful/?ref=technology. Retrieved June 5, 2010

Morozov, E. (2009). “Iran Elections: A Twitter Revolution?”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/06/17/ DI2009061702232.html

Morozov. E. (2009). “Iran: Downside to the ‘Twitter Revolution’”. Dissent. 56:4, pp. 10-14

Morozov, E. (2009). “The Repercussions of a ‘Twitter Revolution’”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/06 /20/the_repercussions_of_a_twitter_revolution/

Mungiu-Pippidi. A. & Munteanu. I. (2009). Journal of Democracy. 20:3, pp. 136-142

Muthukumaraswamy, K. (2009). “Journalism Practice”. Journalism Practice. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t762290976

O’Connor, R. (2009). “Facebook and Twitter are Reshaping Journalism as we Know it”. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/121211/facebook_and_twitter_are_reshaping_journalism_as_we_know_it/

Raymond, M. How Tweet it Is!: Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive. http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/ . Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Raymond, M. Twitter Donates Entire Tweet Archive to Library of Congress. http://www.prweb.com/releases/Library_of_Congress/tweet_archive/prweb3881504.htm. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Rosenberg, S. (2009). Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters. New York City. Three Rivers Press

Sambrook, R. (2009). “Citizen Journalism and the BBC”. Nieman Reports. Retrieved on June 15, 2010 from http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100542

Schectman, J. (2009). “Iran’s Twitter Revolution? Maybe Not Yet”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2009/ tc20090617_803990.htm

Singel, R. Library of Congress Archives Twitter History, While Google Searches It. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/loc-google-twitter?utm_source=feedburner. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Stassen, W. (2010). “Your News in 140 Characters: Exploring the Role of Social Media in Journalism” Global Media Journal, African Edition, 4: 1, 1-16

Stevens, V. (2008). “Trial by Twitter: The Rise and Slide of the Year’s Most Viral Microblogging Platform”. Teaching English as Second or Foreign Language. 12: 1, Retrieved on March 31st, 2010 from http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume12 /ej45/ej45int/?wscr

Stone, B. Tweet Preservation. http://blog.twitter.com/2010/04/tweet-preservation.html. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Talwar, S. Twitter Tweets Will Be Preserved In The Library of Congress. http://www.bloggingjunction.com/twitter/twitter-tweets-will-be-preserved-in-the-library-of-congress/. Retrieved on June 5, 2010

Terry, A. (2009). “Tweets from Tehran: The Use of Twitter in Iran is a New Stage in the Evolution of Social Media”. Retrieved on June 22, 2010 from http://www.canada.com/news/ national/Tweets+from+Tehran/1698650/story.html

Uskali, T. (2009). “Weak Signals in Innovation Journalism – Cases Google, Facebook and Twitter”. Innovation Journalism, 6: 6, pp. 1-24

Van der Zee, B. (2009). “Twitter Triumphs”. Canadian Research Knowledge Network.. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t714592856

Van der Zee, B. (2009). “Twitter Triumphs”. Index on Censorship. Retrieved on June 2, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t714592856

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It's started

I have been really touched (and frustrated) by the weekend's events, which has coincidentally motivated me to include the G20 in Toronto and the use of Twitter in my report. Perhaps this will provide me the inspiration I need to start the writing process. Yesterday I wrote out an introduction. I have decided to use my experience in the G20 as a good starting point and introduction of my own use and experience with Twitter, then go into 3 case studies. One in a developed country (Canada), an industrializing country (Iran) and a developing country (TBD). All of which will focus on the use of Twitter during political events, whether it was for political mobilization, or the spreading of knowledge. Perhaps I will find that in each country case, the tool is used for a different outcome, so it would be interesting to look at the barriers and advances which allow for that level of use, and why it is used for one particular purpose over another.

G20

All weekend I felt myself wanting to be glued to a blackberry or iphone in order to get the latest on where the protests where happening, what was happening, and where things were headed. The speed and potential of services such as Twitter, especially over a G20 weekend had turned me away from my usual anti-latest technology into a person who feels they would really benefit from such an application on a new phone. Luckily so many around me were Tweeting that I was able to catch up on the latest occurrences through others.

This weekend's events were some of the most disgraceful I have ever witnessed in this country. And as a therapeutic measure, I felt the desire to write down my thoughts of my experiences and hopefully share them with others who are still out of the loop or have been mislead by biased media coverage. And so, although this doesn't have much to do with my actual topic (although it will tie in because of my strong desires and 'need' to stay updated over Twitter over this entire process), I would like to post up a note that I have written about my G20 experience. Here it is....

The past 72 hours have represented one of the most disgraceful scenes our city has ever witnessed. Toronto, Ontario was host to the latest G20 gathering, an event that was already gathering mass criticism for the over $1.2 billion that was spent to ensure the ‘safety’ of the world’s leaders and of our city’s people. What resulted was the full use of those hired forces, to the most disgraceful measures I have ever witnessed or ever want to witness on Canadian soil. We are a country of peaceful citizens, mobilizing on rare occasions to protest any given cause. We are not a nation of unruly, violent people, seeking to instigate violence in any form.





What happened this weekend was horrendous. What started as a peaceful march with upwards of 25,000 protestors depicting various causes, soon turned into what police and the media have claimed to be ‘anarchy’ and ‘chaos’. What was this referring to? A group of radicalists called the ‘Black Bloc’ which tore through Queen and Younge street smashing up windows of large corporations. Amongst them, and following in curiosity were other protesters and bystanders who although kept a safe distance, did not appear to feel any threat of human violence from this group’s members. Police cruisers were also targeted (and some say planted) as they were set on fire and smashed along the way. This scene would become the justification the government and security forces needed for the security bill our country would soon face after all this was over.

Protestors continued to gather in all parts of the city, surprised at the violence displayed in the city centre, yet standing in solidarity for the causes they came out to support. Hearing of pockets of violence and police confrontations around the city core, many decided to make their way back to the designated protesting and free speech zone at Queen’s Park. What appeared to be a safe option had soon turned for the worse. Riot police formed lines together with those on horses in front of a small group of protesters. Most were sitting on the lawn, eating sandwiches, some even sleeping on the edge. Yet, we seemed threatening to police. Suddenly, crowds of people were running for their lives, and so were we. Riot police had decided to charge into the crowds including those on horses, not afraid to knock people over as they strode. People reacted and fell back to the further end of the park. Yet, that wasn’t sufficient enough for police, who brought in bus loads of reinforcements to thicken the lines facing the now severely outnumbered protesters. And with sudden bursts, they charged, and we retreated. Every time, spotting our next point of refuge, a tree, or perhaps a stone statue that could block an incoming rubber bullet or baton from the line. We were scared, yet wanted to stand strong with the others since it was our democratic right to protest. After all, we were in the officially designed ‘protest zone’. I don’t know what triggered them to want us to leave, but few by few, more riot police pushed back the small crowds to side streets and around the other side of the park, forming a blockade around entire Queen’s Park. Where did they want us to go? We were told to stay in this zone, yet we were now being forced out of it.

That night came word that a large crowd of staff and supporters sat peacefully outside Novotel hotel, quietly, holding out peace signs towards police. Soon, they were surrounded, cops on all corners telling them to leave or they would be arrested. But there was no way out. Those that tried to leave would be mistaken as making an attack on the officials and would surely be taken down forcefully. So they sat. And one by one were pulled out of the crowd to be questioned and arrested. Hundreds of peaceful protesters would join the detention centre’s prisoners that night.

The next morning, a small group of protesters gathered in a park nearby the Detention Centre. We would march peacefully to the centre, and stand outside the facility, cheering on the release of those who had been detained for no apparent reason the night before. Our goal was to support freed detainees and provide them with water and food once they had been let out. And so was the case. Police escorted us to the site and blocked off streets so we could get by. We stood with a man playing base guitar, singing songs and cheering loudly when a new ‘prisoner’ had been released. But suddenly something changed. Two vans emerged from behind the line of police and we were being charged at. I dropped my bike amidst the crowd, feeling bad that it had become an obstacle for protesters trying to flee forceful police attacks, but I was too fearful to retrieve it. The cops began yelling and telling us to go back, yet had blocked our path in that direction. I saw my bike being thrown by a cop and hoped that it would still be there when I decided it would be safe enough to go back later in the day. We began chanting ‘peaceful protest’ and ‘we are peaceful, how ‘bout you’ to the line of police intimidatingly starring us down. And soon, reinforcements came (what exactly they were reinforcing was unclear). Some even sat on the ground, we joined. We held out our hands in peace signs to showcase that we were not there to cause trouble, but to support those who were being released. Yet something triggered another rampage of police force and we were pushed further up the street. The crowd dispersed, yet saddened organizers pleaded for us to stick together as they watched their peaceful protest falling apart. We fell back and continued to observe the line encroaching on us. Then, the artillery emerged. Two cops stepped in front of line, holding up large guns and fired shots into the crowds. We continued running. Looking ahead, a squat team had formed a line ahead. I was fearful that we’d all be surrounded and arrested one by one, as had been the case a few times in the past 12 hours. We held up our hands in a showcase of peace and stepped off onto the road, where we all dispersed.

We ducked into a convenience store to wait it out, so that we could go back to retrieve our bikes. Half hour later, we figured the area should be safe and made our way back. Luckily our bikes were there. Parts missing and a little scratched up, but still present none the less. We were happy that major news stations had been there with us, filming the attacks. Hopefully viewers would recognize that the level of force police were using was completely unnecessary.

Unfortunately I had to go to work and so left early. Yet I continued to play back the images in my mind. I was and am still so frustrated about the accounts of the weekend and continued to hear about new attacks and police encroachments as I served customers. That night, I was happy to see that many people had posted videos of what had happened. Pedestrian accounts of uncalled violence by police who were hired to ‘protect us’. Perhaps one of the most striking videos was one taken by an onlooker at birds eye view of protestors singing Oh Canada to a group of riot police. When they finished, a few began to sit down, backs facing the police, and for no apparent reason, the police charged. It is videos like these that make me more frustrated about the weekend’s events. How can police say that their use of force and tactics were appropriate and called for when we see videos that showcase attacks on peaceful protesters? It is despicable and insulting. I hope that people will continue to press for answers in the reasoning behind these attacks and use of unnecessary force by police officers. Justifying $1.2 billion of security was not worth making those calls to instigate and carry out acts police brutality.

As I sleep at night, all I dream about are those attacks on peaceful protesters. We must not let this go. We must hold officers and those who made the calls to attack accountable for their actions. It maddens me further to watch interviews of police chiefs and government officials saluting the work of security forces over the weekend. Madder still to hear citizens commemorate police officers for ensuring the protection of our streets and its people. But where were these forces when the real damage and violence was being committed? Perhaps letting this violence occur provided them with a good excuse for justifying police brutality and unlawful arrests in the proceeding days. These were not ‘calculated’ uses of force. They were undeserved showcases of police brutality. We must continue to stand together in solidarity and to fight for our democratic rights. This is not a country of war, violence, or dictatorship. Over the past 72 hours however, it has become a country of shame and disgrace.

More updates

I just finished watching 'For Neda', an HBO documentary about Neda, a young Iranian woman that was killed during the Iranian election protests. It was a very touching movie. I was surprised as the level of oppression faced by women in Iran yet happy to see that millions of people came out to protest together in what they believed in.

I also talked more today with friends about the topic and am thinking that I can do case studies where Twitter has gotten a lot of publicity for being successful (in such cases as spreading information on the Iranian 'revolution' protests). In this way, I can see if there are any commonalities which allowed the use of this social networking site to get word out to the international community. I may then choose to look at the western world as well as the Third World to look at both cases and why perhaps this type of information spreading is not or is occurring. For example, in the poorer context, what are the barriers to using this type of service and if they weren't there would they still be used? Then looking at the western world. These barriers do not exist really (at least not as much as they do elsewhere) yet perhaps this service is not being used in the same context, why or why not is this occurring? It may turn out that most cases where Twitter has seen success have been in industrializing countries, thus looking at the other two extremes, may offer an interesting insight.

Changing Directions

I've been talking out my topic with a few friends in hope of really getting to know how I can tie in Twitter and the sharing of information, and history (my original idea) to development. It seems as though the more I think about it, the more I could potentially tie it in, but not really directly and I fear that the need to include development into my topic may just lead me to include a paragraph or so and try to loosely tie everything together.

So I talked again about it last night with a friend and went back to my original inspiration, the Iranian Twitter Revolution. We talked about how in its core, this revolution was about giving voice to the oppressed.

Thinking again about development, there is little that Twitter can do in countries of extreme poverty where there exist so many barriers to the use of the technology. Internet is available to most at a small cost at an internet cafe, but the reliability of this service is not always there. And the use of Twitter is spectacular where people have access to it through their phones, so they can Tweet the action as it is happening. This would seem merely impossible in places such as sub-Saharan Africa where an internet connection via cellphone still seems far off the development path. Most people in developed countries still do not have this application on their phones, so it would be remarkable to see such a strive in countries where there are so many other development issues that take precedences.

All in all, I thought that maybe the direction of my paper should thus be on a case study and an analysis of these barriers. Something like looking at the Iranian case and how Twitter was made possible there, then to another case where Twitter was not possible and why. Then look at all of the barriers to this type of technology. Next, I could look at how these barriers could be removed, and if they were, would this be any better? Would the removal of these barriers give social media a bigger role? We assume that it is the barriers to these types of technologies that are preventing its use, but if these barriers were removed, would they be used in such ways as it was in Iran? This would tie to the theme of development in terms of improving information technology as well as analyzing Twitter as 'giving voice to the oppressed'. It would not be an analysis of development in terms of health or education, but rather in terms of political oppression and individual rights.

Thoughts?

Notes from the meeting

Met with my supervisor to discuss some issues and topic ideas. Here is a brief summary of the points taken away from that meeting:

1. Are the particular cases (i.e. Iranian Revolution) just hype? Are these actually giving 'word' to the poorest? Or are they just secluded cases which gives false hope to the idea that Twitter can be revolutionary?

2. How does this connect to development and could it be used by the development world?

3. More theoretical work - look at memory, how is institutional memory or general memory changing the way we do or see things? Has the concept of memory and what it entails changed over time? Has Social Media been the driver behind this change, if one does exists?

4. Pre-social media and post-social media: look at how history is privileged and is history in social media going to be any less privileged than past histories? Look at the demographics of Twitter users. Does this reflect a 'voice from below' or are most users still representational of the upper-middle elitist white class?

5. NEDA - documentary on HBO

6. Wired.com - check it out for interesting look at the wired world we live in.



Voila, just a few key points I took away from that meeting. I will particularly look at #4 for the focus of this project, but all the other points do provide some interesting insight as to what the social media world has become.

Tweaking

My subject has got to be tweaked a bit. The whole Media and Development theme was the initial inspiration for a project, however after a lot of research, the subject was just too overwhelming to be able to narrow it down to a concise and relevant topic. Information and stories were pulling me in all directions and I could not come up with a specific enough project that would allow me to be focused in one aspect of these themes.

So my solution was to focus on one aspect of media (Twitter) and loosely tie it to development (in the way that it is being used in a revolutionary fashion to bring light to the rest of the world on issues or events that are happening where there is political oppression or development barriers). But this again may be too vague after some discussion on the topic yesterday.

So in an attempt to solve this issue, I think I will re-focus my topic on the concept of 'who writes history', and 'memory', in the way in which memory and history is being written by the masses rather than the white elitist. Or is it? There in lies the question. We assume that by using such social media sites that it is giving voice to the masses and the minority and those who are oppressed, but has anyone looked at the demographics of these sites? Do they really represent the minorities? Or are they still ruled by white, intellectual, upper-middle class citizens?

That's what I hope to discover...

The latest

Proposal is in. I decided to look at this new phenomenon (or rather decision) by the Library of Congress to save all past and future Tweets from the popular Twitter website as 'historical data'.

Who decided that everyday tweets held any historical relevance? My first perceptions of Twitter was that the user was the average 'joe' who tweeted about their next meal or which movie they were contemplating seeing next. As I researched though, I found it fascinating how it is being used by people for more academic use. I was particularly interested in how it is being used by the marginalized as a tool to project information. In this case, the use of these tweets may be the only historical telling that we have of certain events. Perhaps tweets will be the source of information for the next chapter in our history books.

At first, the idea seems a bit ridiculous and a sort of farce, however if we really think about it, perhaps our history will now have greater knowledge of what's going on in the world, especially in important events where the formal source of reporting is not permitted. Will this lead to more or a new kind of history? All of those histories that were ignored (or suppressed) in the past by powerful actors. Perhaps Twitter will offer us the tool we need to get history 'from the ground', a history written by the people who are living on the marginalized side of things, rather than a history written by the 'white colonizing elitist'.

That is what I tend to discover...

There's so much stuff to know

I have been researching full heatedly for the past few days, reading a lot of articles written by academics and the general public on their experiences with Twitter. In most cases, a lot of them were skeptics of the 'Twitter revolution' and what it had to offer, but as I read on they seem to have changed their opinions on the benefits of using such microblogging sites.

I would consider myself, not a skeptic per se, but someone who just doesn't feel the need to sign up to another social networking site that I may just sign on for the sake of it being 'the in thing' and then not use it. However the more I read on about this site, the more I too become a believer that this is not just a site where the general population may update us on what they are eating or thinking at the moment. I suppose my doubts have derived from what I have heard being exposed from Twitter. These precise 'tweets', where people feel the need to tell the public what they are doing, eating, etc. at every moment of the day, no matter how 'ir'relevant it may be to most of us. However, I was surprised to see that the young population are not the #1 'tweeters' on the site, in fact the most popular users are those who are older, those in their 30s. This gives me hope that those who use Twitter are not just using it as their own personal venting space, but that intellectuals and professionals are increasingly finding it important and very useful to use this site to network and get the word out on relevant events and information.

I have yet to sign on to Twitter however, but am going to so in the next few days to check out what all this fuss is about. I am more intrigued and willing to sign up now that I know that there are so many intellectuals who make use of the site. I went on last night for the first time, and spent 5 minutes watching the homepage fill up with random tweets coming in and disappearing seconds later. It was making me dizzy watching posts come in and out so fast. If television or facebook wasn't ADD enough, this site sure seems like it is taking it to the next level. Which leaves me to be concerned over whether we are becoming so regulated to these instant services, that anything that takes longer than 1 minute makes us antsy or impatient. I feel as though the intellectual insight that I will gain from the site from just subscribing to tweeters who I find have something relevant to say will hopefully avoid these feelings of impatient immediacy.

Until my official sign up to the site, I will read on in hopes of discovering what the Twitter world is all about.

Thoughts on last night's talk...

I went to a talk yesterday which looked at the media's responsibility to inform the public. These are some of my reflections on what was said/discussed....

Topic: Democracy and an Informed Populace
Speaker: Antonia Zerbisias (Toronto Star columnist)

•Fear of the media and social networking sites (by large media suppliers- ie. newspapers)
•They are afraid bc they are not monitored
•But they don’t understand the power and potential of using these sites to diffuse information

•Online hits are the only way that newspapers can get an understanding of their demographics (how many people read online news stories). Things that get the most hits however are the stories that have the least substance (contain main words such as ‘facebook’, ‘breast’, etc. which pull in people’s curiosity). Bc it is getting the most hits, these are the kinds of stories that papers will continue to create, so that they can remain popular, but this is perpetuating the circulation and creation of ‘crap’ stories that are unsubstantial and/or not very important
•There is a need to bring these important, substantial stories and events to the editor’s boardrooms BUT if the public is not interested in this stuff, how do we get people to care about the substantial stories, and subsequently support the writing of such stories within these media?

•We don’t need to watch tv anymore bc Twitter will ‘tell you’ whether there is anything worth watching. Don’t want to watch the news for latest events, bc you can get important event information within seconds through people Tweeting it. But doesn’t this limit someone’s scope or knowledge of what’s going on if they are only waiting for the most important information to be Tweeted? Do news broadcasts still have the importance of spreading information on the general events going on locally and nationally? Or is this information too ‘dumbed down’ (to attract the general viewer to watch) to provide any meaningful information on what’s really going on?

•Print vs. online newspapers – are they complimentary or do they have different roles? Print paper demographics are older crowds, whereas younger generations are finding it easier and more convenient (and cheaper) to get information online. Will this cause the death of print media? If we do not pay for this information (through paying to have a paper delivered, or even for an online subscription) newspapers will have decreasing funds to put out the stories that are the most important. Less resources also means that journalists and reporters are stretched to cover too many stories, so the quality of articles written may also suffer.

•There are some website that reprints articles from around the web in full. This is good for viewers since it brings together a lot of stories from a bunch of different sources to one location, so it’s easier to get the information. This is bad from the author/journalist’s point of view since (although it is spreading and popularizing their stories), the newspapers they are working for are not seeing the popularity of these stories. Where papers can monitor hits to a given story on their own website, when these stories are diffused to other sites, newspapers (and employers) can no longer monitor the hits to that same story. Therefore a story may only get 1000 hits on the newspaper’s website but another 50,000 on these other sites that reprint their stories. This means that the journalist may not receive the credit they deserve or recognition that the stories they write are important and need to continue being published. This further leads to ‘crap’ being produced as those are the stories that get the most hits on the newspaper’s official website.
•This is also an issue when you consider that information sought out online is taken from niche sources. For example, if you are interested in the oil spill, you may not go to a large newspaper’s website to get the latest information, but you may choose to look at a specialized oil website to get information that pertains more specifically to your interest. Therefore, these important stories (the substantial ones) are getting even less hits since people may be going to these niche sites to get this type of information (even though this information is very popular and the general population may want to be kept up to date with what’s going on)

ideas are still flowing

I am heading out to a talk at UofT titled "Democracy and the Media's Role in Keeping the Populace Informed" and am hoping it will inspire me to solidify a topic in the coming week so that I can get going on a proposal and the final project.

In the mean time, through some other research, I came across these interesting organizations:
http://www.mediafordevelopment.org.uk/?path=about_us
http://gfmd.info/index.php/news/
http://www.mdlf.org/
http://www.gfmd-athensconference.com/en/node/55
http://allafrica.com/stories/201003180326.html

This research and tonight's talk makes me think of a potential project looking at the same issue through the lens of different countries. For example how does the most popular US station project an event differently than does Canada's or Britain's most popular news station? This would be an interesting look at how the same issue can be manipulated to achieve a hidden agenda. Just a thought, but hopefully tonights talk will give me a better understanding of this and some potential direction.

Thanks
Tiana

Links

Just some links of some interesting use of media for microcredit development work.
Kiva.org (the 3rd link) is a particular focus, as it links people from developed countries to
those in developing countries through the use of media - Internet.

http://www.microcreditsummit.org/mcs_in_the_media_summaries/

http://www.wanttoknow.info/microcreditmicroloansmediaarticles

http://www.kiva.org/

Brainstorming

I've been thinking about some ideas for my research assignment, and here are some thoughts that I have been considering:

-looking at the projecting of media through time. Perhaps this could be done through a video, looking at the chronological changes taking part in how development is projected through the media as a response to 'donor fatigue' and changes in donor attitudes.

-looking at how media is used in development today, perhaps with a focus on one type of media being used for one particular type of development. For i.e. looking at micro credit and how media (through Internet) has linked people in the Western world with those in the developing world to offer microcredit loans to those in need

-doing some type of visual art project which showcases either how media is used to gain support for a cause, or how realities are hidden behind these visual displays (i.e. war comes to mind; how the government may project war as a heroic and necessary thing, even instilling fear to gain support for going to war, and on the other hand how war should be projected or is projected by activist or NGO groups to show the true side of war which is often hidden to the mass population)

-make a video that attempts to pull out different emotions. This would be used to showcase how powerful sound and images are in projecting emotion. 2 ideas come to mind for this:
1. Make a ~10 min video where every few minutes a different emotion is projected. For i.e.
the first few minutes could showcase 'fear', with the projecting of fearful images and
sounds; then it switches to 'happiness', at which point the sound and imagery changes
accordingly to try to evoke that message/emotion. Then to a third, and fourth emotion.
Overall, the concept would be to show how powerful images and sounds are in projecting
emotions. Moving from emotion to emotion would show how simply the media can alter
our perceptions and feelings about certain things.
2. Same as above, except focused on a particular subject. War again comes to mind. This
could be first to showcase fear (to gain support for going to war), then pride (in taking
part), then reality (through what is really happening in conflict zones). This would
present how the same concept (war) could be viewed so differently, thus is projected by
various actors to get people to side with them in order to achieve their agenda.

Those are just a few things that I have been thinking about lately as potential topics. I will keep thinking and researching and adding as I go along.

Tiana