In Kate Crawford's article "News To Me: Twitter and the Personal Networking of News", Crawford discusses if Twitter can be classified as an outlet for news. Does Twitter play a vital role in news ecology, or is it just used as a personal diary for millions of users?
Crawford uses an example of how a Twitter post can be considered journalism. When US Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River, eyewitness Janis Krums tweeted the news. Krums' tweet became the first news of the incident and put Twitter in the spotlight of citizen journalism.
Crawford brings up an interesting point: can a rapidly dispersed piece of information be considered 'journalism'? Krums himself did not intend for his post to necessarily be 'citizen journalism'. Crawford explains that it all comes down to deciding what counts as news and what does not.
The amount of people that tune into these posts can be a deciding factor in what is newsworthy. People discussing the stories can lead to the creation of other stories, and so on and so forth. She notes that Twitter shares news in an organic way: it's something that reflects communities and moves within a shared structure of emotion.
I think that it's perfectly reasonable to think of Twitter as being a valid source of news. Sure, not every user is going to be on the scene as soon as a story breaks out and not everyone will create "good" posts (i.e. lamenting how you burnt your toast probably isn't considered citizen journalism), but I have faith in Twitter. Who knows; maybe the next big global story will first be delivered to us in 140 characters.
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