Twitter has become a great part of this world. It has indeed lived up to its name, giving its account holders several tweets at the start of the day. Its impact is huge. It’s a common notion now. Do you want to share your thoughts with the world? Tweet it! Anyone who uses his twitter account is always updated about what goes on around the world because that’s the deal, everyone uses it and everyone has something to share. Nowadays, celebs even notify their fan before they announce some exciting news, which keeps their fans waiting in anticipation. That’s how much power a single tweet holds.
Though initially, Twitter was an account with several celebs updating their fans about their lives, now even politicians, educational institutions, and the common man have started using Twitter. Politicians use Twitter for keeping up with the changing world and tweet to keep the citizens aware of their work. Common man uses Twitter for putting out their thoughts for the world. And it is certainly effective. One such famous example is that of the National Discussion on Fergusson. Sarah Jackson and Brooke Foucault Welles, both Assistant Professors of Communication Studies in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University studied the tweets with the hashtag “Ferguson” after the Ferguson shooting incident. These tweets were powerful, holding sentences that had words with great influence then. Such tweets led the story forward. From the second the first tweet with hashtag “Ferguson” was uploaded till the public speech was delivered by President Barack Obama, Twitter ruled the incident. This shows how much power social media now holds and how it affects every corner of a person’s life.
These assistant professors from Northeastern University found out who gave them the first tweet about Ferguson and also discovered that the tweet was uploaded just a couple of minutes after the shooting. With this, we see how fast news can travel and how easy it has become for stories to unfold in the world and how twitter helps in this process. This is certainly something that we needed.
Teena Rose Tom