Twitter: just a light chirping sound or is it more meaningful than that?

I've become so involved in Twitter of late, I was compelled to see how this social media phenomenon is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary.

My dictionary is only a few years old but old enough to define 'twitter' as v. 1 (esp. of a bird) make a series of light chirping sounds. 2 talk rapidly in an anxious or nervous way. n. 1 an act of twittering. 2 colloq. a tremendously excited state.

While there is no mention of the social media application called Twitter, I think the above definitions are applicable enough.

This week I decided to 'tweet' some comments to ABC's Q&A program while watching the debate from the Melbourne Writers Festival.  Having unsuccessfully tweeted live on the screen in previous weeks of Q&A, I realised most comments that are shown are often comical, witty one-liners.  A light chirping sound if you will.

Sure enough, when I employed this approach to my own tweet, it was up in lights on the screen a few moments later.

Other tweets of course are more serious, often fired off as a rapid, 'anxious' succession of news updates on any matter of interest as events are unfolding.  And it's not only professional journalists delivering the news in this fashion but members of the public as well, often doing some of the work of the journalists for them.

Last week I received a tweet from @SBS News asking for anyone who happens to be in Tripoli to call the news room to do an interview.  Not long afterwards, SBS was reporting events on the rebels' invasion of the Libyan capital using information acquired through interviews via Twitter and mobile phone with people who were there watching it happen.

The week before that I saw a rather anxious tweet from ABC journalist Sally Sara in Kabul.  Sara briefly described her concern after hearing an early-morning explosion in the distance and what the coming day might hold for her and those around her.  She sounded anxious and nervous.  Reading the news as it was happening, described by someone who was there, made me feel a bit the same way.

Based on my so-far limited experience with Twitter, I don't think the Oxford Dictionary needs to modify its definition of 'twitter' much, if at all, to accommodate the latest social media craze.

I've been converted to the Tweety thing too

Watching TV late at night, I usually opt for ABC's Lateline with Tony Jones.  Sometimes I'm too tired for Tony and instead watch The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Craig Ferguson

Watching this week, I noted that, as he often does, the Scottish-American comedian joked with one of his guests about being on "the Tweety thing."

A baby boomer, Ferguson often refers to Twitter as "the Tweety thing" in a self-deprecating manner, as if to suggest he's an old bloke who finds these new social media gizmos that the kids use a little difficult to grasp.

But the fact is, when I checked out his Twitter feed, @CraigyFerg has an impressive 850,574 followers.  Ferguson himself follows 75 people on Twitter and has tweeted 725 times since he joined Twitter in February 2010.

Struggling just to keep pace with Facebook, I avoided the Tweety thing until my Online Journalism course at QUT required me to join.  I have to say, like Craig Ferguson, while I'm still a little sheepish about being on Twitter, I'm really beginning to enjoy the experience.

In place of SMS messaging, I've started communicating with friends via Twitter and I receive news feeds from my chosen sources with just enough information to determine whether or not I would like to read on.

By following only those people and organisations I find interesting, I generally receive only information that is of interest to me.

With all due respect to my friends on Facebook, the information feeds aren't always that interesting or relevant.

And while Facebook is good for keeping in touch with friends, particularly those who live far away, I think Twitter can offer the same service in a more meaningful and deliberate way.

Yep, like Craig, I've been converted to the Tweety thing too.

(No) thanks to the media, life might return to normal for Madeleine

Today, New South Wales police announced that they had arrested and charged a man for allegedly breaking into the home of an18-year-old Sydney woman before leaving a fake 'collar bomb' around her neck.  The arrest took place in Kentucky in the US, in conjunction with the FBI.

Madeleine Pulver

Hopefully now, the media will get their wish and the lives of Madeleine Pulver and her family can return to 'normal'.

Of course, I say this in jest.  I'm sure the Pulver family genuinely did (and still do) want things to return to normal.  But the media, by following Madeleine's every move for the past two weeks - to school, to the local shops, even to hockey training - have done everything in their power to deny that wish while repeatedly highlighting the family's desire for things to.... return to normal.

While the television media clearly led the way, camping outside the Pulver home and questioning Madeleine and her family whenever they appeared from behind the front door, online media did its fair share of keeping things from as far as normal as possible for Madeleine too.

The online versions of The Australian and Sydney's The Daily Telegraph both ensured consumers of the running story knew that certain photos of Madeleine belonged to those particular news outlets.  Both slapped watermarks across the said images to avoid any confusion.   

It makes me wonder if the online news media are using this tactic as a shameless form of self-promotion, knowing full-well that the speed with which their stories and associated images can be posted place them at a distinct advantage over other mediums.

The tactic certainly did nothing to help Madeleine return to a normal life.

What do you think?

It will be new but will it be accurate?

According to the Australian Oxford Dictionary, 'news' is n. information about recent events.

When I began studying journalism last year, the first thing I learnt about news is that it should be new, interesting, important and informative.

News reporting should be fair, accurate and relevant and it should be properly attributed.

I'm not that old but I'm old enough to remember that, growing up in Melbourne in the 1970s and '80s, we received our news on the family's black & white television (for a while) and by reading the daily newspapers.

My Dad would buy The Sun in the morning and The Herald in the evening.

The Age was the broadsheet which is still in circulation and which also has an online presence today.

In 1990, cost-cutting saw The Herald and The Sun merged to become The Herald-Sun, a sign of things to come.

Since the 1990s, the rise of 'new media' and a fall in newspapers' share of advertising revenue has seen more mergers and closures in the print media.

While I consider myself to be technologically savvy, I like newspapers.  I like their tactility.  Even iPads can't give you that old-fashioned sense of touch.

The cyber-world of online journalism offers many advantages over its real-world elder.

As well as opening up the world of news reporting (good, bad, ugly and otherwise) to anyone and everyone, online journalism offers, more effectively than ever before, the 'new' in news.  In other words, immediacy.

But, as recent examples of online reporting show, immediacy can be at the expense of core news values such as accuracy, fairness and attribution.

Recently, a number of reputable media 'establishments' (not the amateur hacks) were quick to jump to conclusions about the circumstances surrounding the tragic bombing and shootings by a lone assassin in Norway.

I'm no fan of al-Qaida, but I don't think the shootings being attributed to the terrorist group in the first round of reporting was right, particularly when it wasn't right.  It was factually incorrect.

Eager to get the story out, journalists and their employers, were quick to jump to conclusions about al-Qaida or a related terrorist organisation being behind the 'attacks'.

Reports I have read do suggest that the journalists were reporting what was being speculated at the time by various terrorism experts.

Nevertheless, the fact that this wasn't the case has caused the very nature of such hasty and inaccurate reporting to become another story in itself.

That's not a good look for the journalism profession.

But that's more a criticism of journalists themselves than technology.

The internet offers immediacy of news to an information-hungry audience.

But it may just take time for journalists and news organisations to adapt to and understand the power and impact of new and evolving technologies to ensure that the facts are published in a timely and considered fashion.

Personally, I have embraced the world of online news.  The number of news apps on my iPhone is testament to that.

But I'm always wary of the accuracy of news just in and, perhaps showing my age, I still like the feel and the smell of a big fat newspaper to enjoy with my coffee on a Saturday morning.