Microblogging

Microblogging (Jaiku, Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr, identi.ca, et al.) is considered a minimalist communication tool designed to fit the needs of an end-user. This channel allows the user to post information 140 characters at a time, which are called tweets. This configuration of characters could be as simple as textual information to a complex command line designed to fit into a computer program. Search applications developed within the structure of Twitter becomes a way to filter the total aggregate feed into usable information. The application programming interface (API) embedded in Twitter grants third-party developers access the mechanisms to create other applications that can filter the mountains of data and help creates a bridge to connect users to the broader public sphere. Applications, such as Summizer, can find hashtags within the data and highlight those tweets for end-users. Hashtags (# followed by a word describing the current environment of the user) helps those using Twitter to manage their feed. It is through the use of hashtags that the beginning of a folksonomy structure can be organized that groups the individual messages and provides context to the conversations at the event. Folksonomy within the Twitter comes to the number of followers that are connected to the end-user and how effectively the end-user connects hashtags to relevant tweets.

One of the uses can be using the aggregate feed from those users attending an event or a conference to create a picture of that event or conference. An argument could be made about the completeness of the picture and what the picture represents. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to study the folksonomy created by microblogging service, specifically Twitter and see if these services could fulfill the role of the “public academic.” Public academics refer to a bridge that takes information gathered and analyzed by discipline and allows the general public access to the work away from the “ivory towers” of academia (Kirschenbaum, 2005).

Hierarchical systems usually indicative of traditional academic protocols are made informal through the transient nature of sending and receiving a tweet on the network. The barriers to publishing opinions regarding theoretical approaches and epistemological statements presented at a conference are reduced through the backchannel of Twitter. The anonymous nature associated with Internet communication, which allows a haven of misinformation without consequences, is minimized in this channel. There is typically a real-world component associated with most microblogging sites; this would be called a tweet-up on Twitter. A tweet-up is called on by one of the end-users and all of the end-users in a specific geographic location or associated with a specific hashtag can meet at a physical location to put faces with individual end-users and discuss the events of the day. Therefore, there can be an off-line public forum that addresses essential issues coming from the tweets and the newsfeed. This public face time allows the end-users to put more context behind the information. Information gathered from the tweet-up is then fed back into the newsfeed.

Several significant questions need to be addressed in this research. First of all, can academic thought be transmitted in 140 characters? Secondly, what form do end-users use to present information? Also, how complicated is the information presented in the tweet? Also, is it essential to find out the correlation between the number of end-users using the #ir9 hashtags and the number of tweets delivered by those end-users? Finally, is there a point of connection between the backchannel of the conference and the more extensive discussion that is the total aggregate feed of Twitter?

This piece is information is important to find out if Twitter could be a public academic as it would represent the ability of academic work to filter into more mainstream flow of information. The arena of the research will be conducting a contextual analysis of a newsfeed from Twitter that reference a specific conference, the Association of Internet Researchers’ IR 9.0 Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark in November of 2008, to determine themes that appear from those posts of the users.