Twitter as a facet of social media and the new paradigm of user aggregation, curation and production encapsulates the idea of collective intelligence demonstrating itself. Allowing for the leveraging of power law distributions, the long tail and the aggregate as a concept.
The fact that a tweet as small as 140 can amount to so having so much presence and power over information is unbelievable. Aggregation of content on twitter can be described as:
“Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles.”
Individual tweets are almost meaningless messages. However when they are assembled together in a story and/or process, then they have a resonant effect of a story appearing, (resonance of the aggregate). It is the future of this new medium.
Using my own twitter handle as an example (shameless self promotion), you are able to gain an idea of my presence, who I am, what my interests and and what people I follow. In a way, it is a story about my own life, collating all these small tweets to make a large narrative of my life.
Similarly, recently Australian Survivor has been receiving a heavily expanding twitter presence. Peoples opinions on the characters, production and show in general are being shared. Twitter therefore created its own story on Survivor, using the #survivorAU thread, using 140 characters or less. From little things, big things grow. Instead of watching a show, you could read the story on twitter and save 60 minutes of your life.
This also relates to the notion of the value of information being manifested and conjured by the aggregate. Creating, producing, curating and aggregating content in a feedback loop. A Feedback loop (the OODA loop) is small, however, as the whole audience can become involved, a continuous process is created. This logic is also resonant of the open source movement and permanent beta.
Twitter allows a plethora of individuals to come together on issues, which then, from many singular tweets of 140 characters, produce a aggregated and structured (to some degree) story on a particular event or issue due to the scalability of the platform.
Rather than a small group of gatekeepers selecting information of content (an assembly line model), we have a model where there is no gatekeeping. We have a million eyeballs watching the flow of content continuously. Exchanging information, fixing issues and having continuous conversation about information.
So next time you send out a tweet, be prepared to tell as story.
krisesandchrosses 
For starters, the number of sources you used in the blog is a credit to your research and dedication to the subject! I thought this weeks lecture was very interesting, and this post is a great iteration of that information. The aggregated value of a message as little as 140 characters or a 6 minute vine is evident to the economical shift of attention grabbing headlines online. However, does the minimal content seducing audiences equal to quality information? How can something broadcasting only 140 characters contain more relevant and useful information as an entire article or presentation? What do you think benefits the audience more? Mass quality content or minimal attractive content which ultimately benefits the creators pockets. Great meme as well!
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I thought that this weeks lecture was super interesting, and your blog post has summed up the content nicely. Its weird to think that we can send tweets and make vines with such a short limit but still manage to tell a story. As consumers, we are gradually becoming more and more disinterested in long-winded write ups and videos. So these time and word constraints are almost making it easier for us to find out information without having to read a 7 page article. However, with this in mind, how can we guarantee that what we are reading in 140 characters is going to be as informative as that 7 page article?
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Hi there,
Your title reflects exactly the content of your post. It is obvious that one tweet is limited in 140 characters and as you said, individual tweets are meaningless. However, the role of individual tweets is to link them together and guide the readers to bigger topics in which they are parts of. That’s why 140 characters can say a thousand words by opening the gates to other 140-character tweets which accounted for thousands of words when putting together. And all of them make up a big picture.
I also like it that you linked this idea to the fact that gatekeepers have been replaced by gatewatchers which are ones that witnessing the flow of content and always ready to participate and contribute to that flow.
My only recommendation is that you should include an example in the post to justify the power of Twitter and its 140-character tweets in the citizen journalism era.
This source provides a list of 151 best Twitter accounts worth following to be engaged in citizen journalism which I think you might enjoy: http://journalismdegree.org/best-journalist-twitters/
Great work. Keep it up.
Cuong.
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Really great meme that encapsulates the topic nicely. I love how much detail you went to in describing how aggregation of information is key, otherwise it’s worthless. It’s crazy how fast it is to find out news online via Twitter rather than through mainstream media- however, how do we know whether it’s factual or not. It would have been great if you added an example of how Twitter has been used in citizen journalism, here’s one that I found to be quite interesting: https://gigaom.com/2015/02/20/two-great-examples-of-how-journalism-has-changed-for-the-better/
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You have encapsulated the ideas of the lecture well and created a really interesting meme. Your post could have been improved by giving some examples of the way stories have been told through Twitter to give your post even more depth. Here’s an interesting article that builds upon your post regarding Twitter and journalism – http://theconversation.com/how-twitter-has-helped-the-emergence-of-a-new-journalism-19841
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I liked how you embedded links into your blog post so l was able to read on further about this weeks interesting topic and see it from another point of view.
I agree with your statement explaining that although individual tweets can almost be seen as meaningless messages, when joined they have the power to go a long way. Although the current word count proves to be such a success there are rumours of it increasing in the near future. But is this really necessary? – https://blog.twitter.com/express-even-more-in-140-characters.
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Thanks for your comment! I don’t think it would be as effective if it was changed to much. Gotta have something ‘unique’ about their site 😂
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Awesome post! Use of links was also really beneficial. I think the use of twitter is very powerful. Steven Johnson in this weeks reading even mentions that its argueably as powerful as google when we come to search for events and content that is happening now rather than googles aggregation of information.
I think the 140 charactors works well in aggregating information in small threads as well as having something ‘unique.’
Check this out, it makes some interesting points: https://www.wired.com/2013/06/twitter-marius-eriksen-finagle/
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Your post summarise the topic concisely, your memes are great, your example of Twitter just hit the right nail and I love how you embed all those links. That’s really helpful for readers. I love that 140-characters-of-a-Tweet, even though sometimes I need much more than that, but I think it’s powerful as it helps spreading messages much easier.
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A very comprehensive blog. Your whole blog reads like a tweet, so concise and to the point, whilst also being incredibly in-depth. “Instead of watching a show, you could read the story on twitter and save 60 minutes of your life”, this is true. As we are the impatient generation, where we demand everything to be instantaneous, websites like Twitter welcomes us with a big smile as it satisfies out every need. I find it interesting how you use the famous Paul Kelly lyric “From little things, big things grow” it really sums up this weeks topic in 6 words and roughly 30 characters. You use memes well and the content of your post is detailed. A collection of tweets make a story, but what happens when people misuse twitter by posting misleading tweets? Here is a link that might be useful to you http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/03/why-most-twitter-maps-cant-be-trusted/388586/ It details how twitter maps can cause issues.
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Awesome post. Twitter’s grasp on the capacity of collective intelligence has been a result of the hashtag, through new media’s facility to diffuse information, and the ability for such information to flow freely between tangible and intangible entities.
This is relevant to the concept of a network of nervous systems we discussed earlier in the session. This is due to the idea that collective intelligence on a worldwide scale through the Internet, we have the concept of a ‘Global Brain’ that is driven by collection of digital information and technology.
Here’s a solid article on the capacity that such shared information has:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1086763
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Hey there! Great post! I enjoyed reading it. I think you explained the topic really well – especially the concept of aggregation of content through Twitter. You made an interesting point about how an individual tweet can be meaningless but when it’s part of many tweets, a story emerges. That’s quite true. It explains why certain movements can become so powerful i.e. #blacklivesmatter. And Twitter is a great medium because the limited 140 characters is a quick and easy way of spreading awareness about an issue. I also like how you brought in the concept of collective intelligence because it’s very true. Our individual tweets help create the bigger picture. Overall, great post!
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It’s so interesting how twitter has become such a powerful platform. Although it’s limited to 140 words for a tweet it is able to inform people and help bring people together. Once a hashtag is made and everyone starts using it that creates the story for that event and people can piece together what’s going. An example was the Paris attack that happened in November 14, 2015. Not only were people tweeting about what’s going on but some people offer strangers a place to stay while the attacks where happening. Twitter was able to rally this message so quickly thanks to the retweets and hashtag. Here’s the link to know more about it http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/paris-attacks-amid-chaos-parisians-offer-refuge-to-strangers-via-twitter-using-porteouverte/ . Great post and good use of examples.
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Hey great post, focusing on Twitter and splitting it up with memes worked really well in explaining the broader concept of citizen journalism. Also the title was a banger. The 140 word thing works awesome in creating this bridge of pebbles but I still think sometimes it’s easier to watch the actual story than the twitter feeds because on twitter you have to sift through so many different opinions and huge number of tweets. Also often all the tweets will be focusing on the most interesting topic of the show rather than giving a broad overview. But definitely agree writing within 140 words is rough and a good learning curve.
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The fact that one tweet can have such a powerful effect is truly horrifying and spellbinding all in one. These 140 character messages have such great power and control over people. Learning to condense the most important message into 140 words can result in a shot of pure raw truth. And as always, amazing memes 🙂
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A picture is worth 1,000 words, on twitter however its only worth 24 characters. You’re totally right in your reference to Social Media identities. Your social media identity is formed through the aggregation of content you produce and engage with. All your tweets, favourites (+ other forms of engagement on the platform) represent who you are, or at least what perspective you want people to form about you
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You summarised the lecture really well in a clear succinct manner. I particularly liked your example of Survivor, with the aggregate of live user interaction working as a suitable substitute to watching the television show itself, as the collective tweets from all individuals paint a very detailed picture of what is occurring on the show in real time.
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I think you blog had summed up and hit the content of this week lecture. For me, I think 140 characters is difficult for me to tell a story but i know many people did that. Survivor, the example that you use with the aggregate of live user interaction working is really good.
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