Tweory = Twitter + Theory

Updated 1/10/09!  Please see bottom of page for post-project notes.

Wordcloud comprised of all the words used in the Twitter responses discussed in this paper;

Created using wordle.net

Tweory (Twitter + Theory) is my final paper/project for my visual communication course, Thinking About Seeing (hi, Professor Miller!).  While it includes some modified sections of my “Don’t Hate On Twitter” blog post, the majority of the page will display people's "tweets" (Twitter updates/mini-posts) as direct evidence of how various theories apply to Twitter.  About twenty people responded [via Twitter @replies or direct messages (DM)] to my question:

Not only did I reply to my followers' (Twitter lingo for "friends") answers but most of them continued the conversation with even more feedback.  The community and conversation facilitated by Twitter as a unique social network and a medium for microblogging will be explored in relation to the theory of Marshall McLuhan, Walter Benjamin, as well as Jean Baudrillard.

1.

In light of Marshall McLuhan's famous declaration that "the medium is the message," Twitter functions as a particularly unique example of this theory.  Unlike other social networks or news websites found in the larger medium of the internet, Twitter thrives on real-time communication between its users.  The time lag is minimal compared to other sites, allowing for a "synchronous," constantly-updating newsfeed of other people's thoughts and "immediate feedback."  In McLuhan's own words:  “the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs,” in which case Twitter completely collapses time and space restrictions by connecting "peeps around the world" in real-time (McLuhan 18).  This connection between Twitter users results in continual, albeit concise conversation - note that the @ symbol denotes a response to a user and that each mini-post/tweet can only be 140 characters long.  Accordingly, people develop the multi-tasking ability to address tens, hundreds, or thousands of people in 30 seconds; reply to several others; and message a few friends while simultaneously doing work online.

2.

The brevity and immediacy built into the medium of Twitter therefore expands people's capacity to communicate with others.  As Clive Thompson explains in "I'm So Totally, Digitally Close To You," Twitter users' "ambient awareness" of their friends' daily lives amplifies while their "loose tie" relationships with Twitter acquaintances increases. The more their Twitter community extends, the more people feel a sense of connectivity with others (what McLuhan terms "total field awareness"). That is, people's Twitter profiles, like “all media, ...are extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment” (“Playboy Interview” 4).  Just as Twitter creates in its users new patterns of consciousness, Walter Benjamin similarly explains how shifts in technology (he referred specifically to mechanical reproduction) affect people’s social relations, perception, and awareness.

3.

Through this expanded awareness, Twitter establishes and continues to "build a strong community" of people with varying perspectives.  Accordingly, it becomes a valuable resource - a platform for "phatic," two-way communication through which its users "ask/answer questions," express their thoughts, and/or share hyperlinks to humorous/shocking/relevant news, videos, and photos.  Given that the network also includes cell phone-compatible services and smart-phone applications, access to Twitter (and subsequently to the Twitter community) conforms to people's dynamic lives.  As such, Twitter and the internet are effectively "retribalizing" the world into a new “global village” where people “react and interact simultaneously to every stimulus" regarding each other's experiences (McLuhan).  

4.

Whereas Twitter functions as an alternative, up-to-date source of information for businesses as well as news sites, it plays a much more distinctive role in times of crises or breaking news.  Because its users tweet their personal experiences and observations, they assume the position of "citizen journalists."  For instance, during the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, people located in Mumbai became real-time sources of updates on the horrifying situation.  (One of my own followers, Gaurav Sikka/@gsik was one of these Mumbai tweeters; he reported that the terrorists in the Taj Hotel had been eliminated half an hour before CNN announced it on television. For more on the relationship between Twitter, MSM, and Mumbai, please refer to my blog post).  Beyond letters to the editor or website comments, Twitter demonstrates Roland Barthes's concept of the "Death of the Author"; for the Death of the Author signifies the Birth of the Reader.  Benjamin explains this transition: "the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character...At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer...the reader gains access to authorship” (Benjamin 232).  The former audience emerges as the author of their own lives, sharing, tweeting and retweeting (i.e. reposting others' updates) information at an unrivaled pace.

ex: @juliaroy (who has over 7500 followers) "retweeted" my question, as @OmegaSpreem and @chloedevon did as well - they all influenced other people to friend and respond to me.

5.

While it records tweets and thus makes them temporarily accessible afterward, Twitter remains a more transitory medium; it can archive "favorite" tweets but not all users (like @mikearauz and myself) use that function.  This reason does not represent Twitter's flaw so much as it indicates McLuhan's idea that "the medium is the message."  Primarily a network of ongoing conversation, Twitter is constantly in flux.  Its "trending topics" change according to current events and people's concerns.  In this very important sense, Twitter and the internet are rapidly becoming an integral part of the real world. It is real because it can no longer be separated from real news or real people. Even though this real world includes tangible people and objects in specifical localities, it limits social relationships for this same reason.  Twitter begins to bridge this gap.  Twitter friends unexpectedly cross the virtual-real chasm to become "good friends"IRL (in real life); "tweet ups" similarly organize get-togethers for Twitter friends in person. 

Though Jean Baudrillard maintains that "the medium and the real are now in a single nebula whose truth is indecipherable," this "single nebula" may not be as ominous as it seems (Baudrillard 83).  He predicts a new world in which "[t]he media are producers not of socialization, but of exactly the opposite, of the implosion of the social in the masses...[an] extension of the implosion of meaning" (81).  Perhaps this outcome seemed like the inevitable postmodern direction in the 1970s (when Baudrillard was writing), but today, it is individual people who are producing meaning and socialization.  Their continuing dialogue includes not only Twitter users but the mainstream media as well.  By examining Twitter in terms of older (yet still contemporary) theory, this project reveals more about the network's unique nature as a new form of communication in an evolving realm of the social.  Combining all of these tweets, Twitter demonstrates, through its own medium, how the real and digital worlds are merging into an interrelated world - one that infinitely expands access to information and connectedness with others. 

Next topic for analysis: why only 4 out of the 22 people who responded to my question were women. 

Just kidding, in any case:

Works Cited

Baudrillard, Jean. "The Implosion of Meaning in the Media." Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. New York: Shocken, 1968.

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Message.” The Anthropology of Media. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2002.

“The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.” Playboy Magazine. Mar. 1969. http://www.columbia.edu/~log2/mediablogs/McLuhanPBinterview.htm

Post-project notes!

I submitted this final project site in tweet form:

One month later, I've managed to aggregate the reactions to this site by using Twitter Search:

supportive responses & RT's ("Retweets"):

responses to @juliaroy:

featured on other sites:

Sure, most of these replies and tweets come from the same dozen or so Twitter users.  But the point is that these people perfectly demonstrate the continuous interaction that is central to maintaining a Twitter community. 

Thank you again to everyone who took time to read/contribute to/share this project.