Category: Twitter

Has Twitter Replaced The Newspaper Editor As The New Gate Keeper?

Introduction

This essay aims to track the developments in media gatekeeping through the emergence of the digital era and the boom in adoption of social media sites for news gathering, distribution and consumption. It begins with a history of the gatekeeping theory and how it has developed before going on to determine who, in the social media era, are the gatekeepers? It looks at how traditional media outlets like newspapers have adapted and how Twitter have encroached and given the public the platform to become journalists, provide feedback and become gatekeepers themselves.

The media gatekeeper

The practice of gatekeeping is, put simply, the method of diluting billions of available messages into a more digestible amount. (Shoemaker, 1991, p 1). The idea of a gatekeeper was not coined with communications in mind. The German-born American social psychologist Kurt Lewin is widely recognized with first devising the theory in 1947. He used it to determine that not everyone in the family was equal in determining what meal would be consumed at home and that the best way to implement social change was to focus on influencing the power brokers in the model. In this case the wife/mother (Lewin, 1947, p. 146).

The journalism professor David White is widely credited with the first employment of Lewin’s gatekeeper theory in the world of media and communications. However, discussion about the role of a filterer of messages can be traced far earlier. In his 1922 book, ‘The Immigrant Press And Its Control, Robert Ezra Park said: “There is an enormous amount of news “killed” every day (Park, 1922, p. 328). This was in relation to editors of immigrant newspapers in the United States and the decisions they make to fill newspapers.

While the term gate keeping may not have entered the media vernacular until the works of Lewin and White, the process of the role of filtering selections for communication, it is argued, has been around since the start of communication. For example, the size of a newspaper has routinely been printed with cost implications in mind, advertisers traditionally determined how many pages editors would have to fill and therefore how much space there was for news (Shoemaker and Reese 2014, p. 181). That space could never accommodate all the items of news each day, as Park said, so decisions have to be made. This method of working could be applied to the other main forms of mass media, be it television, radio, magazine etc. (Artwick, 2004, p. 16) said a producer can drop a story and therefore close the gate should he/she decided to that they were running out of airtime in the broadcast. (Shoemaker, 1991, p. 3) points out that even the town crier had to decide which messages to broadcast and which to leave.

White’s seminal study, ‘the Gate Keeper: A case study in the selection of news’, looked at one gatekeeper, Mr Gates, and the reasons behind why he, a news editor for a local American newspaper, selected and rejected certain wire agency stories. Perhaps the most telling statistic from it was that 640 of the 1297 news wire items that Mr Gates rejected were done so simply because of a lack of space. (White, 1950, p. 386).

But space is not the only consideration for a gate keeper/editor. (White, 1950)’s study also revealed that the editor discounted wire stories for reasons such as poor writing, a lack of interest in the event and the location of event (White, 1950, p. 386). These events are all determined by the gate keeper, demonstrating the power they have in their role. However, who is driving who? Readership and sales keep the editors in paid employment so offering a media that proved enticing to the consumer was vital. (Park, 1922, p. 330) argued that the editor would select the news that they thought would interest the consumer. (Gans, 1980, p. 678) argued that the common view had been that journalists provide consumers with the information required for self-governance. It could be argued, this method of providing what a news consumer wants, as appose to what they need, would suggest the consumer was actually in charge. In contrast, a study looking at the workflows of 16 wire editors across different news outlets showed editors had no perception of their audience. (Gieber, 1956, p. 432), in his article, “News is What Newspapermen Make It”, said the newspaper editors/gate keepers were too fixated on their work to factor in the effect on the audience. When analysing the two theories, it is important to remember the pre-digital era they were written. From my own experiences as an editor and having explored these two theories, the editor/gatekeeper would have had little regard for their reader. As (Vos and Heinderyckx, 2016, p. 30) describe, the pre digital media world was one where the consumer accepted with little fuss the decisions of the editors. The editors were the sole gatekeepers.

The digital era

The invention of the digital publishing era has changed that, however. Newspapers began publishing online. Space was not the pressing concern anymore, instead finding the journalists to fill it (Singer et al., 2011, p. 4). The online platform became a viable alternative if the paper was full and no more could be afforded by advertisers (Shoemaker and Reese, 2014, p. 181). The internet turned the tables on the traditional role of the journalist gate keeper. No longer could the gate keeper determine the information the public could see. (Singer, 2006, p.275). If the consumer was unable to find the news item they wanted in their regular tabloid, broadsheet, radio or TV station they could go online and search through google to find a different media outlet that was publishing it. (Sonenshine and Durocher, 1997, p. 11) argues that the power of the gate keeper/editor has been diluted as information flows from many places. The description is akin to a dam giving way and water flowing through.

However, the internet offered a cultural change as much as a technological one (Jenkins, 2006, p. 15). News consumers were inspired, and given the platform, to join in the media production cycle (Lewis, 2012, p. 853). Improvements in phone, tablet and laptop technology provided the general public with a camera and writing device to capture what they saw. This idea has had many labels, including user generated content and participatory journalism. The idea being that the general public can perform some of the tasks that were traditionally conducted by journalists and news outlets. (Domingo et al., 2008, p. 331). The evidence of this trend includes instances of the general public publishing news stories on natural disasters, terrorist attacks and protests. (Singer et al., 2011, p. 2).

The internet also closed the distance on news providers and consumers. Prior to the digital era, news consumers would write a letter or telephone a complaint to a newspaper, television or radio station. (Craft et al., 2016, p.683) argue that readers have been complaining to news outlets, editors and ombudsman about a series of issues, most commonly objectivity, balance, bias and accuracy, for decades. Newspapers would often publish complaints or praise in sections commonly termed ‘letters to the editor’. However, this process was also affected by gate keeping editors. These sections would traditionally have a specific editor to sift through the letters and select those for publication. A study by (Renfro, 1979, p. 822) revealed 32 percent of the reader letters sent to an American metropolitan daily newspaper failed to be published and therefore didn’t reach the public.

The beginning of the digital era has closed the distance. Be it email, tweets or another form of digital communication, news consumers are able to contact the journalist, gatekeeper or outlet in an easier format which is quicker and draws instant reaction. Social media sites, including Twitter, have also provided journalists and news outlets with detailed analytics of audience engagement. These gate keepers can get a swift quantitative study of consumer actions around news stories and topics with software development making this easily digestible (McKenzie et al., 2011, p. 378). But despite these capabilities, some journalists are not utilising the data. A study showed that a number of senior editors working for news outlets in America mostly used social media to post links to stories. (Bullard, 2015, p. 176).

For some, though, this closed distance and instant feedback has helped shaped news agendas. In a 2009 survey of U.S. news managers, almost two thirds monitored web statistics each day, more than half said they monitored web site traffic statistics on a daily basis and more than half reported discussing these statistics at least ‘fairly frequently’ in news meetings (Lowrey and Woo, 2010, p. 48). (Gieber, 1956, p. 432)’s newspaper men of a pre digital era may have enjoyed the distance from the reader but that luxury is not afforded in the internet era. As (Singer et al., 2011, p. 8) note, the distance between journalist and news consumer has disappeared.

Twitter

Twitter is an American micro-blogging website that was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. Users can read and send messages, or Tweets, of 280 characters publicly, to selected groups or privately via a direct message to another user. Tweets can contain different forms of media, including pictures, videos and audio files. In February 2019, Twitter had 126 million daily active users around the world (Twitter, 2019). This was the first time the site had revealed user numbers. For the vast bulk of journalists in lots of different countries, social media tools, like Twitter, have grown to be indispensable tools for their work. (Thurman, 2017, p. 1) and (Posetti J, 2009, p. 1)

A study by (Gulyas, 2017, p. 890) showed that Twitter and Facebook were the most used social media tools by journalists in mainly western countries. The large numbers of journalists adopting the tool suggest these social media platforms make life easier. (Hahn, 2013, p. 15) argues Twitter can help journalists by providing more sources and views for a story while also aiding the pace of publication. Twitter can also help steer your reporting on to topical trends and news items that have gripped the public. However, large numbers of users do not always lead to diversity and a balanced sample. A study of over 2,700 Twitter users in the U.S. revealed that just 10 percent of Twitter’s U.S. users are responsible for 80 percent of the output. (Hughes and Wojcik, 2019). The study also revealed that the most active 10 percent tended to be democratic voters who were highly educated, suggesting that Twitter in America was providing a small snapshot of society and not a countrywide, diverse view. (Hughes and Wojcik, 2019).

While the invention of social media has undoubtedly been popular with journalists, judged by the vast number of sign ups, it would appear through research, and experience, that Twitter and other platforms have made life more complex for journalists. (Gulyas, 2017, p.885) states that there was a general consensus that journalists have been considerably affected by the introduction of social media tools and the digital age, with the role now considered more complicated than before.

How Twitter has opened the gates

Social media has changed traditional gate keeping and removed the exclusivity of the role from journalists (Wallace J, 2018, p. 275). While the internet has opened up the possibilities of communication, Twitter, and social media sites like it, have provided a platform and community for conversation. Where once consumers would go to the website of their traditional newspaper or tv broadcast for news, many now go to Twitter to consume news from a selection of sources including the original actor of the story. (Blasingame, 2011, p. 4) defines this as ‘gatejumping’, where the news vaults the traditional journalist gate keepers and goes straight to news consumers.

Twitter empowers news consumers.

Twitter is one of a new band of social sites that have fostered a more instant and public form of audience engagement with stories. Audience members can post public critiques under Twitter posts of journalist’s news articles and videos (Lee E and Tandoc E.C, 2017, p. 437). (Lee E and Tandoc E.C, 2017, p. 437) argue that this digital feedback is quicker, more inclusive, more comprehensive and benefits from being public and not limited to journalists.

Twitter does provide the option to block or report Tweets and replies sent, but the vast majority of instant critiques to a news story from a traditional media outlet are visible to all. The public nature of the feedback, it is argued, means journalists remain are cautious and alert to it during as they go about their work (Lee E and Tandoc E.C, 2017, p. 442).

The invention of Twitter, however, has provided a platform for closer interaction between news providers and consumers. It hosts a space for citizen journalism, user generated content or participatory journalism where the public report the news. Twitter and the like are allowing the public to mediate news and therefore weaken the gatekeeping capabilities of journalists. Gatekeeping was considered a series of controls over what content left the newsroom and was mediated to news consumers (Bruns, 2003, 11). But (Singer J. B, 2014, p. 55) states that journalists, or people who work for media outlets, now produce only a portion of “mass-mediated ‘news.” This means that the role of journalist gatekeeper is being threatened by news consumers, the very group it provides for (Bowman and Willis, 2003, p. 7).

(Goode L, 2009, p. 1295) attempts to argue that old-style gatekeeping practices are matched in today’s digital era, despite considerable changes to the method. But experience and evidence suggest different. As (Shoemaker and Vos, 2009, p. 33) argue, the exclusive gate keeper club is over and that we all share the role. The journalist no longer solely decides what is published into the public domain, the people are free to distribute news via Twitter as well.

Trending Twitter and curated feeds

Twitter produces news feeds and trending stories. These are put together by curators and an algorithm. Twitter doesn’t produce news content but instead takes news items from a wide range of traditional media, new media and the general public and reposts it for its own audience (Wallace J, 2018, p. 275).

(Bruns, 2003, p. 34) described this as “Gatewatching” where Twitter, as do other social media platforms, promote the news of others by pointing to it rather than creating and publishing their own. Gatewatchers monitor all news at the gates and highlight to news consumers avenues to explore.

Journalists have followed this practice to create a relatively new story formats to deal with the vast amount of unverified and verified material posted on Twitter and other social sites for a wide range of news topics. These live blogs or live pages traditionally are used for major events, breaking news or live sports events (Coddington and Holton, 2014, p. 237). Social media editors and journalists are tasked with curating a continuingly updated story from the vast amount of verified and unverified information posted on Twitter around breaking news events.

(Thurman, 2017, p. 1) said the amount of content that is being produced is impossible to monitor, verify and digest. However, much of that content contains trivial information or spam (Farhi, 2009, p. 28) (Lehmann et al., 2013, p.3). While the scale of scrutinizing all that content is problematic, it does provide the journalist with the chance to re-establish their role as a gatekeeper of sorts. The volume of material means it is impossible for a news consumer to view all of it, therefore the journalist can sift through the various Tweets and applying journalist values to decide what should be including and which ones omitted (Hermida, 2010, p. 300).

However, Twitter and its news consumer users are also in competition for that curator role. Like with other social network sites, Twitter is complemented by algorithm-based services, such as search engines or news aggregators, which are redistributing and channelling information on the Web (Wallace J, 2018, p. 275).

It offers a news selection in its ‘Moments’ and ‘Trending’ sections and also uses its algorithm to try and tailor the most attractive news selection for your consumption. Choosing posts to repackage and distribute involves selection and assessing what might appeal to your intended audience. (Singer J, 2014, p. 57)

Twitter has also hired a number of curators to work in different languages to provide. The company says this team choose material that best serves the audience (Help.twitter.com, 2020). This definition is parallel to universally accepted definitions of traditional media gatekeeping where communicators pick some elements of a message and reject others (Shoemaker, 1991, p.1). It even fits with the earliest theories about newspaper gatekeeping. (Rosten, 1937, p. 255) argued that: “the entire process of journalism… rests upon selection”.

Conclusion

The role of gatekeeping has fundamentally changed with the advent of the internet. (Wallace J, 2018, p. 275) said the distribution of news by the general public and not journalists has left the gatekeeping theory in a state of flux. Journalists and news outlets went from all powerful decision makers of news distribution, closing gates on any number of stories they didn’t see fit, to a position of battling to survive. (Hermida, 2010, p. 300) argues that Twitter and other social media services are reducing the number of intermediaries between news outlets and consumers, therefore weakening the power of the journalist gate keeper. This essay looks at the history of mass media gatekeeping and how it has evolved through the digital age and then the advent of Twitter. It analyses how Twitter has affected gatekeeping, by opening the gates, removing the distance between journalist and consumer, the detailed story consumption analytics that are now discussed in newsrooms and the emergence of the Twitter curator. All aspects that show journalists no longer enjoy exclusivity on media gatekeeping and in fact share the role with Twitter and the general public.

Twitter: History, Features And Services

Social media are the latest developments on the Internet, which have been accompanied by the advent of many Web 2.0 technologies. In general, many Internet specialists point out that social media represents a quantum leap in communication through the Web in a much more interactive way than when the communication was limited with very little information sharing and greater control over data managers.

In addition, social media has provided many opportunities, which may be a place for trading for some companies and the beginning of all projects. Some of the small projects may also support the sharing of information among all network subscribers with the possibility of direct and free interaction on social sites at the end of each article or news. Radio or television programs that they love and follow by proposing proposals to the program master, or asking questions for the guest to be hosted by the program, all this and what social media has done with the revolutions that swept the Middle East and the protests that Many European countries and America have become a new addition, as these events have created so-called citizen journalism, so that the person who lives the juveniles to photograph or write about them and send what is filmed or written to the media eager for news from areas that were not able to access them either because of the system The ruler of his fear of knowing the world what is happening or the difficulty of access to the event, which may exceed the time of minutes only what could be transferred to the world only through those who lived and documented.

Social media refers to the use of Internet technologies and mobile technologies to transform communication into interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Hanlin defined social media as ‘a collection of Internet applications based on ideology and technology from the Web 2, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content.’ Social media are social media as a comprehensive group behind social networking. Social media has changed the way organizations communicate

Among the most famous of social media platforms Facebook, twitter, snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, g+ and a lot more, in our report we will talk about twitter.

About twitter

Twitter is defined as a social networking application and site that allows users to share information so that they can post status updates, news and events, in posts called tweets, and follow other users’ Tweets, Where users can communicate with each other all day using SMS or Twitter, so that the user can type the tweet using the keyboard on the computer or mobile device and send it to the Twitter server, which transfers it to the list of other users on the site, Or what Followers, who subscribed to Twitter to receive tweets by text message to their mobile phones or instant messaging to their personal computers, were invited.

Twitter History

The Twitter application was created using Ruby on Rails, a framework or structure that specializes in Ruby in Internet applications, allowing it to be adapted and integrated with other online services. The service was designed in 2006 by Evan Williams and Biz Stone have launched Podcasting Odeo after finishing their work at Google. Ivan Williams began creating the famous Web authoring tool Blogger, SMS service called Twttr, bought Odeo and started with Corp, then Jack Dorsey joined the management team. The full version of Twitter appeared for the first time at the Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, in March 2007, and Twitter was created the following month.

Twitter features

Twitter has many areas where Twitter can be used. Twitter allows users to post daily life to friends, family and friends, stay connected, create discussion and discuss topics, and allow people to keep in touch with corporate events, Individuals, and individuals, businesses and organizations can use Twitter as a source to promote themselves and their products and services and attract attention to their own events.

Using Twitter

People use twitter tweets for various reasons, such as attracting attention, boredom, bragging, personal promotion to the public and others. It is a way to express feelings to the world and to identify people who are interested in reading what is written and what the person publishes. The site is very informative and provides a variety of news and updates from friends, family, news from researchers, journalists and others. Amateur journalists can find this social network a good environment for publishing their daily events, Twitter is also used to follow up on news of famous persons, and to inform people of the dates of the various TV events, awards and others, and for this reason is called Twitter’s social TV name.

The user starts his work on Twitter as soon as he enters his official website www.twitter.com, registers on the site by creating a private account, and then immediately posts and follows people. Twitter allows sharing of photos, videos and written publications. It is available in several languages including Arabic, English, Japanese, Turkish, Russian, and others.

Twitter can be used as a way to build relationships with others, exchange ideas, access information, news, etc. The difference between Twitter and Facebook is that you can communicate with friends through the follow-up button, not adding a friend, as in the social networking site Facebook.

Twitter services

• Create a free personal account.
• Text messages.
• Reply to comments.
• Share tweets Re-tweet
• RSS (latest feed).
• Updates by email.
• Instant Chat Applications: Twitterfox, twhirt, Twitterrific, TwitBird.

Conclusion

Through what we have reviewed in the report, we find that Twitter in particular and the means of social media in general, have pros and cons, and we must explore the advantages and take the benefit from these platforms and do not waste our time on something that is not useful, also parent mentor is necessary, whereas a lot of crimes happen while using these media, because any one can login and have an account, as well as dealing with strangers even kids.

There is no objection to the recognition of all new, and benefit from technological development, which allows us access to all sources, and to make use of the available means, taking into account the choice between what is useful and what is useless.

Twitter Ethical Issues

The Internet since its inception, has become a primary source of information flow throughout the world and the social networking has empowered people in every corner of the world to interact, collaborate and share their views online. Among which, the microblogging medium- Twitter, have 316 million active users every month with 500 million tweets posted each day. However, this free medium has lead to lot of consequences which are globally affected. There are countries that follow different religions and rules, but certain tweets and hashtags have created criticism between various countries. Moreover, women are threatened about abuse and violence on Twitter. The rise of social networks have resulted to invade the privacy of people as well. Large amount of public data from twitter is being used by researchers for health and depression monitoring and even for sentiment analysis without the consent of the users.

There are several benefits of Twitter, but it comes with many social and ethical issues that affect people around the globe. Here is an overview of the approaches made by Twitter itself and the Government to censor the contents of Twitter. I have even addressed the issue on how much and what data should be censored so that the people do not accuse the company for its decision to censor any content.

The evolution of social networking comes up with freedom of speech and expression for everyone, but it has many challenges as well as threats to people or entire communities as well. Firstly, the introduction of Twitter censorship can avoid or reduce the criticism faced between countries. Secondly, it can avoid violence and abuse against women. Lastly, it can avoid use of public data without consent of the users.

Twitter censorship can avoid criticism between countries. Twitter is growing throughout the globe. In the year 2012, Twitter posted a blog explaining that each and every country has their different views and it can conflict with views of some other countries. Every country has its own definition of freedom of expression. Some of the countries can have totally opposite views which may not even exist in some other country. Apart from that, other countries may have similar views but their culture may not follow such thing hence creating a conflict between them. For instance, Germany or France are opposed to pro-Nazi tweets. Twitter until now, in case of any conflict, had to delete that particular tweet globally. So they took a decision of censoring the tweets from any user in particular countries with different views. According to this censorship would definitely benefit all the activists. In case if a government demands to get down any tweet which is offending any country, then Twitter has only two options. Either remove that tweet or user in that particular country, or deny the government and getting a risk of blocking entire Twitter for that particular country. So it seems better to get the content blocked for a particular country and still able to reach to rest of the world unlike first when the tweet was deleted entirely and inaccessible to entire world.

Secondly, Twitter censorship can avoid violence threats and abuse against women. By having the right to freedom of expression means that everyone should be openly able to involve and share their views online without having fear of abuse or violence. But it is totally opposite with women on Twitter. In reference to this, Amnesty International conducted an online poll about how women’s feel about and what are their overall experience on Twitter. The results were astonishing as the poll of around 63% to 83% of women stated that they have faced situations threats of harassment and abuse. Meanwhile, the poll of around 78% to 81% women stated that they changed their way of using Twitter as they used it before.

Lastly, Twitter censorship can avoid researchers to use public data without their consent. The amount of user data generation is increasing every single day. Millions of people share their views on tweets daily. People share tweets expressing their opinions or views about almost everything which has created Twitter as a real time information collector. In this generation of data, the analysts or the researchers have started using this public data to analyse sentiment from the opinions [PAPER 12]. Most of the time the sentiments that are analysed are related to politics which may create controversies within or between some countries. Moreover, the data is also used to monitor the health and detect any disease by analysing the behaviour of people. This is possible by noticing the instances of alcohol, cigarettes or hookah and understanding each user’s behaviour [PAPER 6]. Apart from this, researchers are even working to analyse the mental health, i.e the depression at population level [Paper 7]. However, using the data without having the user’s consent is not ethical. Researchers cannot take consent from each and every user, even if he tries to do so, he won’t get reply from half of the users as some of them might have left Twitter or simply ignore the message. Hence, censorship of Twitter can avoid the user data privacy from invading and restrict the researchers to use the public data without consent.

Twitter censorship violates the basic human rights of freedom of speech. The social media companies have reached upto a level where they can determine what crosses their digital borders. So, Twitter has the power to remove or limit the content or entire account of a particular user [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/01/12/is-twitter-really-censoring-free-speech/#116a59da65f5]. Even the government can involve to remove critical tweets or comments in some cases which stops someone from reaching to the people throughout the globe. If people are stopped to share their opinions about someone or something is violating its freedom of speech. Either Twitter censors some contents in some specific countries or Twitter as a whole is censored by the government, it would definitely violate the human rights.

Twitter censorship grabs more attention to the censored content. A general tendency of citizens have been observed during past few years with respect to censorship. Whenever the government imposes censorship on a content, the people usually tried to acquire that piece of content by learning new methods to evade the censorship. Despite having a traditional perspective that censorship will lead to decrease in access to that content, increasing censorship leads the citizen to invest more in the technology that evades the censored content. Here, the censorship performed as a medium for publicity globally. It shows the same tendency of censorship that by having blocked the most popular social networking platform Instagram in China has led millions of people to evade the Great Firewall and try to access Instagram. So in this case, the situation suddenly increased the number of visitors from China who were trying to access Instagram’s website. is evident to this scenario stating that the Chinese users that never showed interest to Instagram ever started to get into topics of some occurring protests online just after Instagram’s service was stopped in China.

Although there may be some good benefits of Twitter as a microblogging platform and its censorship may violate the basic human rights of freedom of speech and grab more attention to the censored information. However, there are various social and ethical implications of Twitter. The social controversies on Twitter have a negative impact between countries and creates criticism between them which may indirectly hurt their religion or their way of living. Moreover, it causes silent abuse and violence threats to the women who wants to get involve and give their views and opinions, which may demotivate women from raising their voice. Everyone should be treated equally and women should not be criticised for their thoughts. Apart from this, the public’s opinions or views and every other tweets from the Twitter is being used by the researchers to do sentiment analysis, that too without the consent of the users which is ethically wrong. Hence, in my perspective, Twitter should be censored for the betterment of the society and avoid the criticism and silent abuse.

Essay About Twitter

Twitter is an online microblogging site/social network where users can instantly compose and share messages, called “tweets”, in 280 characters or less. Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams (Skemp, 2019). On Twitter, each user has a profile that can be viewed and followed by anyone if their profile is public, users also have the option of making their profile private and only those approved can follow and view their content. One big feature Twitter is known for is hashtags, which, with the use of the “#” symbol followed by any word, allows users to connect and talk about a specific thing. Twitter also features, “Trending Topics” which highlight current topics of discussion and popular hashtags (Skemp). As of 2018, Twitter has around 321 million active users (Twitter, Inc, 2019). Twitter allows for users to connect with celebrities, musicians, politicians, and companies. Some of the most notable users of Twitter include Chrissy Teigen, Ariana Grande, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.

One major benefit for users of Twitter is the ability to connect and engage with other users from all over the world at once. Users can talk to each other about the latest episode of their favorite show, discuss a presidential debate, or even share updates on an emergency within seconds. Users are also able to receive the latest information regarding breaking news stories much faster than traditional media outlets. Twitter also provides an outlet for users to share their talents such as singing, dancing, writing, and so much more.

Twitter makes money from advertising, promoted accounts and trends, and data licensing. About 86% of Twitter’s revenue is from advertisements (Beers, 2018). In 2010, Twitter began to offer companies the ability to purchase “promoted tweets” which allow for certain tweets to appear in search results or on a user’s timeline if the product is relevant to the user. In 2016, Twitter launched the “Instant Unlock Card” which is promoted content that features a button usually stating if you click it, you will tweet about a brand and instantly unlock some type of reward, usually exclusive content that can only be unlocked if you tweet about a brand (Twitter, 2019). Twitter’s ads and promoted tweets are personalized to each user, and if users do not wish to see certain ads, they are able to hide the ad. If you are a brand or company, you can reach specific demographics to ensure your ads reach people who are likely to buy your product.

Twitter allows for brands and companies to engage with consumers in an authentic way. The website allows for brands to share information about their latest product, answer questions, or take part in playful banter with consumers or even other brands. Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Apple, and Netflix are popular users on Twitter because of their creative, fun, and engaging tweets. On Twitter, a brand/company can also search their name and see what users are saying about their company and take ideas or criticism into consideration. For example, Amazon does not have a live chat on their website, but they do have a Twitter account specifically to help consumers with any issues they may have. Another benefit is, with the use of hashtags, a brand/company can instantly create a campaign to gain attention and potentially trend on Twitter. About any industry can thrive on Twitter if they use it to their full advantage, because even though the use of Twitter does not automatically mean an increase in sales, it does get a product into consumers heads. When consumers decide to buy or use a specific brand, they will have the idea of the one they see being advertised or engaging with users on Twitter.

Two successful campaigns through Twitter include Always’ “#LikeAGirl” campaign and Nike’s #Breaking2 campaign. In 2014, the feminine hygiene products brand, Always, uploaded the “Like a Girl” social experiment video on their YouTube channel and thus launched the “#LikeAGirl” campaign. The first half of the video featured many different people acting out actions such as running, throwing, or fighting “like a girl.” These actions were initially acted out in a silly or weak way. The second half of the video featured young girls who were asked to perform the same actions “like a girl.” Rather than perform the actions in a weak way, the young girls performed the actions to their best ability without holding anything back. At the end of the video, girls (and boys) were encouraged to use the hashtag #LikeAGirl to share the incredible things they or other women do (Always, 2014). According to Always, “the program garnered more than 290 million social impressions and 133 thousand social mentions with #LikeAGirl (99% positive/neutral) in the US alone.” In addition, the campaign also managed to increase Always Twitter followers by 195.3%.

In 2017, Nike decided to use Twitter’s live video feature powered by Periscope by streaming their attempt at breaking the world marathon record. Nike teamed up with three marathon runners, Lelisa Desisa, Eliud Kipchoge, and Zersanay Tadese and they had to run 42 kilometers in less than 2 hours to break the record. The hashtag used for the event was #Breaking2. In order to be notified of the event the second it started to stream, all users had to do was like or retweet the #Breaking2 tweet put out by Nike. Through Twitter, users were able to watch the live stream and chat with other users watching the event. While the record was not technically broken, the event became Twitter’s biggest-ever brand-driven, live-streaming event (Natividad, 2017).

Because Twitter allows for messages to be sent out to an audience immediately, you run the risk of damaging your credibility if you were to send out misinformation, because once it is posted then it gets shared, screenshotted, and talked about. Another issue is many brands on Twitter try to appeal to audiences by tweeting relatable or funny tweets. This can be a hit or miss for any brand. Sometimes they come off as cringeworthy or even insensitive and suddenly a brand finds themselves dealing with damage control. User error in general is the biggest risk with using Twitter. You must be mindful of what you like or retweet or even who or what you respond to.

In 2012, a hashtag intending to promote Susan Boyle’s album release trended for all the wrong reasons. The hashtag, which was meant to be read as #SusanAlbumParty, was seen as #susanalbumparty and Twitter users instantly made a mockery of the hashtag because of the alternative words that could be picked out within the phrase. The original tweet was deleted and changed to #SusanBoylesAlbumParty, but the damage was done, and the internet was not going to let Susan Boyle’s PR team forget it. Multiple memes and trolling ensued seconds after the hashtag was used, and rather than a celebration, the entire campaign was used to mock Susan Boyle and her PR teams flub (Kolowich, 2017).

In 2014, the hashtag #myNYPD was tweeted out by the New York Police Department news twitter account. The hashtag was meant for users to share positive images of citizens with members of the New York Police Department. However, Twitter users used the hashtag to share images of police brutality instead (Oh, 2014). The New York Police Department did not take into consideration just how quickly social media can turn something seemingly positive against you.

These two examples show that the use of the hashtag must be viewed from all angles. The Susan Boyle incident was a poor word choice and lack of capitalization and the NYPD did not consider how trolls could hijack the hashtag and use it against them.

I recommend the use of Twitter for any brand or company’s social media efforts. Twitter allows for consumers to connect to a brand or company instantly with questions, comments, or concerns. The site has many different options for a company to promote themselves in order to reach a wide or specific audience. And finally, Twitter brings more visibility to your company. Your company will show up in more search results and if you have successful interactions with users, people will talk about your company more and share the interaction on other social media platforms.

Twitter Sentiment Analysis

Introduction

Nowadays text mining and sentiment analysis are sensational topics in the area of research. Twitter, a social media website which allows different ways of demonstration opinions and establish communication among the users, all over the world. Since Twitter is very distinctive so it’s difficult to assemble data for sentiment classification. , data is first preprocessed before analysis, to enhance the tweet. After tweets are processed, different information and features are produced from them.[1]

Twitter, a social networking service where users can post and communicate with messages basically called “Tweets’ in its terminology. ,but only registered users can share their views in the form of likes, comments , posts , retweets and unregistered users can just read them . Twitter was called into existence in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey , Biz Stone, Noah Glass and Evan Williams and instigated in identical year July. Earlier, more than 120 million users posted 400 million tweets per day, and besides service touched a standard of 2 billion search questions everyday.[2]

Twitter Sentimental Analysis focuses on the mood during which the user posted the tweet. It tells the polarity of text, categorizes the tweet into three branches of expression that are positive,negative or neutral. For analysis tweet must be limited under 140 characters. User needs to convey their message within the character limit. There are a large number of tweets in a day there are a large amount of tweets posted by users because there are a large number of users on this platform so it becomes difficult to analyse what type of tweet was posted by the user. In this project Twitter Sentimental Analysis, we will categorize the tweets which are positive, negative or neutral. The primary task in sentiment analysis is to classify the polarity of a given text at the document, sentence. Advanced sentiment classification looks for emotional states such as whether the sentence shows ‘angry’, ‘sad’, or ‘happy’ emotion of the user.

Currently there are three main approaches for sentiment analysis which are statistical methods, hybrid approaches, and knowledge based approaches.[3]

For this technique Text mining and sentimental analysis are used they are used to analyze unstructured tweet text to get positive and negative polarity about this text. Also, tweet frequency analysis is done to view the changing trend in public opinion across a time interval of 9 days’ tweet text data. It is found that a large number of people have this attitude towards this incident by using 2-3 hashtag with overall data.

So why is Twitter Sentimental analysis important?

It helps to Analyze thousands of tweets which are mentioning your brand or your business. Also used for real time analysis: It is also used to monitor Twitter sentiment analysis is essential to observe sudden shifts in customer moods, detecting if complaints are increasing, and for taking action accordingly. With sentiment analysis, you can also monitor brand mentions and gain actionable insights.[4].

One important step in sentiment analysis is preparing the dataset because the language that is generally used in the tweets is not a level language, it is mostly some short forms or some fancy words . Most of the times the spelling or the utilization of the words used may vary a lot from people to people. As it is a superintended learning technique, so it requires a training set to tell the polarity of the text. Data Preprocessing becomes very necessary because of the use of patter, URL removal and mis spelled words. To solve decipher problems because of patter words, a dictionary is retained, which analyses the words and after that returns the word with its similar or identical meaning.

SENTIMENT CATEGORIZATION – Classification is done after performing above steps using the machine learning algorithm which is Naive Bayes, It Keeps Up Vector Machine, Maximum Entropy and Troupe Classifiers. Categorization Techniques Normally, there are a different kind of classifier required for categorization of text in twitter analysis. Naive Bayes Classifier The algorithm in the naive Bayes classifier requires all characteristics of the feature vector. It tells the conditional probability. Sentiment Analysis can be done so productively on Twitter because of the existence of predefined properties like emotional keyword, a number of positive and negative hashtag, the number of keywords which are positive or negative; it also observes the emotional keyword used and emojis used. The relationship existing between the characteristics is not regarded in this classifier for categorization. [5]

References

1. Nagamanjula, R., & Pethalakshmi, A. (2020). A novel framework based on bi-objective optimization and LAN2FIS for Twitter sentiment analysis. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 10(1). doi:10.1007/s13278-020-00648-5
2. Wikipedia contributors. (2020, October 26). Sentiment analysis. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sentiment_analysis&oldid=985616558
3. Mishra, P. (2020). Twitter Sentimental Analysis. International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology, 8(5), 2476–2478.
4. Karumanchi, B. (2020). An unsupervised clustering approach for twitter sentimental analysis: A case study for George Floyd incident. International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology, 68(6), 46–50.
5. Singh, S. S., Dwarakanath, D., Santhoshini, & Mary, J. (2020). Twitter Sentimental Analysis. Journal of Advanced Research in Dynamical and Control Systems, 12(05-SPECIAL), 868–873.

Twitter Business Model: Analytical Essay

Twitter, a microblogging service that allows subscribers to send “tweets” of 140 characters or less to their followers is a giant technology company that started in 2007 by founder Evan Williams. Twitter can be accessed through its website, SMS, or mobile device and has multiple features such as pinning tweets, advanced search, tags, and alerts, that made Twitter a widely regarded company to have social and political influence as it enables its users to access and spread news faster than ever- been used as a media platform and communication tool for the Iranian revelation, the Arab Spring revolutions, and entertainment events to name a few-. Despite the optimistic attitudes of its entrepreneurs, the enormous amount of investment it receives (from 2009 to 2011: 1.25 billion dollars), and the high evaluation it has on the New York Stock Exchange Market (In 2014 the company valued at 26.63 billion dollars), Twitter is challenged to generate revenues from declining advertising prices, increase its customer base, and recover its operational costs to make the company profitable.

Business Model Canvas:

1- Customer segments:

Twitter has a self-service ad platform that allows small business owners to advertise through Twitter. Large Corporation Such As Starbucks are also using Twitter advertising services. Moreover, data licensing counts for fifteen percent of the company business. These customers include analytics firms, which analyze the data to identify consumer trends; news agencies, which filter the data for breaking news stories; and even high-frequency trading firms, which use trending tickers and stories to place trades. Twitter sells its river of information to companies that try to turn its tweets into actionable data. Lastly, users that use Twitter to interact with friends and family and watch their celebrity feeds who are regular customers and constitute the bulk of its customers segments.

2- Value proposition:

Twitter delivers real-time information, empowerment, and engagement that stimulate innovation and idea exchange. These tweets also have a set of embedded metadata such as location, time and topic. Furthermore, users can also aggregate their messages by using the hash-tag keyword that triggers access to all tweets with that particular hashtag. This drives a sense of community, affinity and collaboration.

• User Benefits – Users share content with the world, get real-time and relevant content in return and also get to participate in conversations with people through tweets or messages.
• Advertiser Benefits – Viral global reach, unique ad formats, real-time connection with the audience.
• Data Partner Benefits – Access, search and analyze data and generate insights to monetize.

3- Channels:

Customers can access Twitter through the following options; Websites, Desktop apps, mobile aps, SMS, and Twitter API.

4- Customer relationships:

Twitter provides additional support for customers who want to optimize the server for their business by attracting specific target segments that most relate to their product or service. The partner program links a customer to ad partners that have enterprise tools and expertise to help create and manage high-quality ads with advanced features and capabilities. Another option for customers is using the data partners that would help make well-informed decisions, study past behaviors to predict future trends and to engage most valuable audience. In addition, regular users have a direct communication line with the Twitter app and website, it was described that the app and the website to operate as a self-taught website or an app that customers find easy to comprehend and use.

5- Revenue streams:

There are two main revenue streams for Twitter: A) Advertising: There are three main ways for a company or an individual to advertise o n Twitter: by promoting a tweet that will appear in people’s timelines, promoting a whole account, or promoting a trend. B) Data licensing: The micro-blogger sells something known as the ‘firehose’, its public data, which often adds up to about 500 million tweets each day. Companies can dive deep into the data to analyze consumer trends and sell their insight to other brands and companies.

6- Key resources:

The platform of Twitter is perhaps the most crucial resource as it has. As twitter would use the service to build and expand its customer base. Specifically, the network allows connectivity and communication between people that would not have otherwise would be connected without twitter. The technological advancement that Twitter launches and updates is also a crucial resource for the network, as it helps the network compete in the digital social media circle.

7- Key activities:

Since Twitter’s major resources are its platform and technological advancement; key activities include maintenance and the development of these resources. It can be summarized as website and app development and maintenance. Another activity is the maintenance of user data for that Twitter stores, analyzes, shares, and uses Big Data from its platform.

8- Key partnerships:

• a) Search Vendors: Twitter licenses full feed of public tweets to search engine vendors such as Microsoft (Bing Social), Google (Google Realtime), and Yahoo. This helps in enabling real-time search and discovery.
• b) Device Vendors: Twitter partnered with Apple to enable deep integration of Twitter in iOS5 mobile operating system for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. This means users can tweet directly from Apple apps such as Camera, Photos, and Safari, along with third-party apps such as Flipboard, Livingsocial, and Instagram.
• c) Media: Twitter has entered into partnerships with companies such as Mass Relevance and Crimson Hexagon to help media companies and brands deliver compelling Twitter integration to their users more easily. This can help media companies capture real-time reactions to the important news. Though these partnerships are not major source of revenue, they help in expanding user base. Additional visibility drives further growth for Twitter.
• d) Mobile operators: Twitter has partnered with Telecom operators across the globe to enable users to send and receive tweets from mobile phones using SMS.

9- Cost structure:

• A) General and administrative
• B) Sales and marketing
• C) Research and development
• D) Cost of sales or Revenues

Empathy map for Twitter main customer’s base:

Think & Feel: I feel connected “ my friend favored my tweet. Excited knowing a favorite artist coming to my city. Worried, saw sad news somewhere in the world. Think about the content being shared.

See an ad of Starbucks, Lyft, or Whole Foods among others. News Channel Account tweet about war in Yemen, and to promote one’s own tweet., and a list of Trending Hash-tag worldwide or one’s country.

Hear: Follow me on Twitter, from friends or public figures on other social media accounts. Follow us on Twitter from other businesses that you just visited their business or purchased a product or a service from. You didn’t hear about it? It’s trending on Twitter from a friend or coworker.

Say or Do: Retweets, favorite, create a hash-tag, tweet negatively about a company, service, or a person while tagging them, and share a meme or a link to a video.

Pain: So much to be updated about, and so many opinions, might feel attacked or afraid to share your own opinion.

Gain: Feel connected to friends. Feeling up to date with world news.

Business Model Patterns:

Twitter uses a multisided platform that it serves multiple distinct but interdependent groups of customers such as data licensing companies, business owners, and regular customers who use the network to communicate with friends, family, and public figures. The strengths of Twitter’s current business model is first their use of technology to create and maintain meaningful relationships within its customer segments, whether it’s a regular customer to another regular customer relationship, or business to regular customer relationship, it creates immediate value to all their customer segments. A second strength of Twitter is the ability for users to target their message to a specific audience, this can be done through the hashtag feature that focuses on a topic or based on other elements such as location. Third, Twitter customers can use Twitter as a marketing tool to advertise and communicate with their own business customers free of charge, which untimely expands Twitter’s customer base

A shortcoming of Twitter’s business model is one linked to their user data and privacy. Customer data is one of the most crucial parts of Twitter’s business data, for that Twitter shares Big Data with third parties for analytics purposes such as better-targeted advertising efforts and promotions. However, customers of Twitter would also share information about what they are doing, their location, what music they are listening to, and products they have been purchasing, among many of personal information that puts a risk of customers being spammed. Another shortcoming of Twitter’s current business model is that there is no solid revenue model – Being ad-free to a lot of small businesses that can use the platform to post their product features, pictures, or videos with no subscription fee. Even though Twitter does charge companies for advertising and promotion, it fails to charge the small businesses for utilizing the platform free of charge. Twitter is initially employing the traditional Cost Per Mile (CPM) model, which involves an advertiser paying for their advertisement on a per-view basis, so it would cost X per one thousand views.

Alternative business model:

An alternative or a modification to the business model would address a previous shortcoming of Twitter’s current business model, which is the limitation of revenue on its current advertising strategy. Instead, they can offer a service that is described as ‘resonance’. Resonance is a system that incorporates how many times a tweet is viewed, retweeted, replied to or added as a favorite and in turn assigns it a score. If a user is not interested in a link they simply do what they have always been doing and ignore it. If the resonance score for a tweet is low, it will be dropped from the system and the advertiser will cease to be charged. This in principle seems to be a system, which will work well for all parties concerned, the user is not bothered with the ad and the advertiser can rethink their strategy without wasting further money.

In addition, Twitter can implement a feature where customers can link their credit card to their Twitter account to purchase within Twitter from the advertising shown on Twitter, where it can take a transaction fee from the company where the item was purchased. These modifications are stronger than the current model because it would allow Twitter to utilize their full offered features such as the number of retweets an advertising tweet would get or a “favorite”, it eliminates customers who might not be fully interested in the add or they might not have seen it. Simply, it helps to advertise to precisely define t and interact with their target market. Moreover, the ease of payment within Twitter means that customers can easily make a purchase without the pain of entering card information. The reason why I think these modifications would work for Twitter is that it creates value for two of its customer segments, first, advertisers would have a more efficient way to seek customers that demonstrate involvement with their ads by “retweeting” or “favoring”. Customers who would like to make a purchase through a Twitter ad would find no hassle in doing so, as their credit card information would be linked to their account in case there are interested in making a purchase. These modifications can boost Twitter’s revenue simply for these reasons, ease of payment to customers, and advertisers can reach involved customers that are more likely to purchase their offer.

The Story:

” We share a desire to be heard, seen, and understood in a world that is fast changing and where news is flashing by by the second. Here at Twitter, we stand by the people, through the Iranian revelation, the Arab spring, or through an Oscar selfie, or even to help you by selling more of these delicious cupcakes, we hear you, we see you, and we can spread your news. With Twitter, you are the story; let Twitter be your medium because Twitter enables you to share your ideas, emotions, and creativity faster and louder. Twitter now allows you to share your news to the most involved customers, with Twitter you can purchase what you like immediately, and at the same time enjoy a giggle at your friend’s tweeted meme. Be part of the murmuration.”

Business Model Environment Assessment:

• Key Trends: Increase in popularity of social media usage globally (with 3.196 billion users worldwide in 2018, up to 13% increase from 2017),. Growth of social TV: video content. Customer trust declined, and peer influence rose.
• Market Forces: Evolving customer expectation. The emerge of hybrid cloud IT infrastructure to reduce cost of operation Big Data and increasing demand for content security.
• Macro-Economic Forces: The emerge of E-commerce markets, market globalization, Social Network continuous technological innovations.
• Industry Forces: Low entry barriers, a large pool of competitors such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Substitutes to social media networks are moderate, as each network would try to come up with new and innovative to its customers. Visitors constitute the main supplier to social networking sites and apps, whereas advertising companies are the largest buyers.

SWOT Analysis For Revenue Streams/Twitter:

The strength of Twitter’s revenue streams is its diversity where it can generate revenue from both data licensing companies as well as advertisers. A weakness, however, is that those revenues are challenged to make a profit with its current strategy as customers’ usage of the network are declining. An opportunity for Twitter is one regards the additional revenue it might generate if it can charge for Twitter promotion influenced transaction, it can also boost its customer base if it adds and succeed with the addition and collaboration of video content creators with their new partnerships. The threat to Twitter’s revenue stream is internal because balancing their cost infrastructure while stimulating customer involvement through technological innovation such as automated credit payment and content creation has been historically challenging for Twitter. They are known for the instantaneous nature of exchanging information; the expectation would be high from its customers to remain in speed with its current offerings as well as the new ones.

Other Consideration/Expanding on value proposition:

As discussed previously Twitter’s main challenge is to generate profit from its current business model, the main reasons are a declining price for advertisements and fewer customers using the network. Twitter can expand the value it offers to its customers: immediate credit payment and more specified targeting tools for advertisers are two modifications that can enhance the business model. Twitter can increase its value to its customers in several ways if they better understand the different and evolving needs of its customers, such as do they want larger tweet space beyond the 140 characteristics. Or do they want the ability to add short voice notes for advertisers to communicate better within their tweet space? The theme is to provide more of the current features in a simple way that satisfies all needs of their customer base.

Executive Summary:

Twitter offers its multi-customer segment a platform where people can enjoy and be part of a network that delivers real-time information, empowerment, and engagement that stimulate innovation and idea exchange. Their use of technology helps create and maintain meaningful relationships within its customer segments that make Twitter the powerful social network it is today. However, Twitter has struggled to generate a profit and its current business model shows little guidance in how to make the giant company profitable in the long run. One of the main issues the report aims to address is its revenue streams as it seems to be shrinking due to decreasing customer base participation and the fall of its advertising prices. In my report I have discussed a modification to Twitter’s business model where it focuses on two suggested ideas: 1) To offer its advertisers the resonance model to advertise that depends on customer involvement, it is a system that incorporates how many times a tweet is viewed, retweeted, replied to or added as a favorite and in turn assigns it a score. 2) Offer its other customer segments to link their credit card information to their Twitter account to ease the purchase process and so that Twitter can profit from taking a transaction fee from the company it helped to promote their product or service. Both of these ideas aim to add value to Twitter’s customer segment that can help boost its probability.