This is lecture 5 of a course on social media at the University of Winchester. This covers a brief overand history of blogs, microbloggs and Twitter, the public sphere and some of the research on # hastags and the consequences of using twitter.

1. Lecture 5 Blogs, Microbloggs and
Twitter

2. Introduction
 Aims:
 Overview and history of blogs, microblogs
and twitter
 The public sphere and the impact of new
technology.
 #hashtag research – users tagging data
(see folksonomy)

3. Blogs
 Understood as a significant means of
challenging repositioning the citizen in
relation to power:
 Blogs are part of a fundamental shift in how we
communicate. Just a few decades ago, our media culture
was dominated by a small number of media producers
who distributed their publications and broadcasts to
large, relatively passive audiences. Today, newspapers
and television stations have to adapt to a new
reality, where ordinary people create media and share
their creations online. We have moved from a culture
dominated by mass media, using one-to-many
communication, to one where participatory media, using
many-to-many communication, is becoming the norm.
(Rettburg, 2008:31).

4. A blog is?
 A blog is a type of website with details of
events, commentary linked to this and
user of still images, video and sound.
 Events listed in reverse order with
newest at the top.
 Permits comments and often links to
other blobs sites, news etc.
 Often also include feeds from other
blogs and can be syndicated to other
blogs.

5. History
 First ancestor is newsgroup mod.ber
from 1983 (pre web, so not actually a
blog).
 1992 T.B.L. keep an internet diary about
we developments.
 Late 1990s lots of software emerges
that permits blogging to occur.
 Results in lessening of skill required to post
online and massive growth of blogs.

6. How many?
 A tricky question:
 Active blogs - when is a blog active: once a
week, month, year? Lots of orphans… 
 Different companies
 2013 figures vary between 181 million
and 800 million….

7. Microblogs & Tumblelogs
 Emerge in late 2004 -2005.
 Microblogs are a variant of a blog that
consists on numerous small posts.
 Some use standard blog platforms to do
it but new platforms soon emerge –
Tumblr 2007.
 Considered by some as a form of „short
broadcasting‟ because of the
aggregation of other blogs.

8. Twitter
 Based on use of SMS to reach many
individuals.
 Initially a phone text based service and
was „in-house‟ at a company called Odeo –
first tweet was “just setting up my twttr”.
 Moved onto web with account.
 Understood to be a mix of an SNS and a
microblog.
 Free to use but if used by txt message it
will cost the txt price.

9. Growth
 In 2007 there were 400,000 tweets
sent per 3 month period.
 2010 this was 65 million per day.
 2011 140 million per day.
 10-11 new twitter launched –
allowed vids and pics to be seen in
Twitter.
 2012 340 million tweets per day.
 2013 400 million tweets per day.
 1 billion registered users (241
million monthly users).
 Biggest country user – PRC 35
million.
 75% access from handheld device.

10. The public sphere
 A key theory in the
power of new and
social media.
 Draws upon the work
of the extremely
influential German
political-sociologist
Jurgen Habermas.

11. The public sphere
 Wrote a book in 1962 (trans. 1989)
called:The Structural Transformation of
the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a
Category of Bourgeois Society.
 Told a story…

12. 18th to 19th century
 Until this point power had
been in the hands of royalty
and their chosen people the
aristocracy.
 But bits „broke off‟ the
aristocracy and with newly
rich merchants they formed a
new class of people.
 The Bourgeoisie.
 This happened in a number
of countries –
UK, Germany, France

13. The Bourgeois Public
Sphere
 This social class communicated
its shared interest through a
range of media and „arena‟.
 The pamphlet and the coffee
house – people discussed the
news of the day, politics and
business information.
 They facilitated the exchange of
information between „equals‟ –
what H. saw as something we
should aspire to (he invented an
idea of „discourse ethics‟
guidelines to facilitate proper
deliberative communication).
 It was very class and gender
delimited – no working class or
women.

14. Evolution and demise
 Over time these arena evolved – the
mass media emerged – newspapers
then radio and television.
 But these were not the public sphere in
the old sense as they were dominated
either by commercial interests or the
interfering state.
 The independent public sphere or space
of discussion slowly disappeared…

15. Then the internet…
 When the internet starts a number of
commentators argued this was the
rebirth of the public sphere.
 The qualities of the internet would allow
a new public sphere to emerge.
 Then when social media and blogs
started, the argument were repeated…

16. New media will…
1. Facilitate civic participation –
 Passive public will become politically active and take part
in debates about issues of import.
2. Challenge or revitalise existing journalistic practice:
 Eye witnesses,
 non mainstream stories,
 challenge to the ethics of a story
3. Make politicians accountable – revitalise watchdog
of media.
 PR firms and spin has blunted the teeth of old
media, blogs will be better.
4. Weaken old systems of power –
 Voices from below will challenge cosy relationships.

17. But did it?
 Most evidence sees only a partial
actualisation of these points.
 A bit naïve - not such a divide between
mainstream media and alternative media – most
journalists consider themselves mavericks.
 Money and power impacts upon bloggers as it
does others.
 The public sphere is not a singular thing and is
fragmented, as such it has not been revitalised
and H, thinks the Internet cannot allow the PS
as the internet is an „echo chamber of idiots‟ (my
quote not H.).
 Is all lost?

18. Hope is not yet dead…
 Feminist theorists argued Habmermas was
wrong about the public sphere anyway, it was
never truly public anyway as it excluded
women and non-gentry.
 It prioritised „rationale‟ communications –
which turned out to be a bit of a myth and
based upon value judgement – “I am rationale
– you are not” and inherently gender
biased, devalues „emotional intelligence‟ which
is just as important as rationality in settling
disagreements.
 Moreover, there were many public spheres
and have been since then.

19. So? #
 One area of particular interest on twitter
is hash tags.
 Comes from IRC (internet relay chat)
where you could set up a public forum
with a title #gameofthrones and people
could come and join in.
 Used on flickr to tag a photograph with a
label.
 An incredible consequential action…

20. #howitworks
 Used on twitter to tag a tweet and make them
available to people following the conversation
but not the author.
 Can search for a tag.
 No limit on the number of hashtags that can be
created or the purposes they are used for:
 Coordination of emergency relief;
 Memes and jokes;
 Commenting on TV programmes
 Seen as very „generative‟.

21. #sowhat?
 # allow us to set our own channel.
 To define a micro-public sphere on a
particular topic.
 By labelling data we can make channels
or spheres out of the data.
 Creation of millions of micro channels.
 A seeming reversal of the traditional
broadcast model.
 We create the channel within the media.
 Example of #folksonomy
 People labelling data –

22. #are
What we see emerging … is not simply a fragmented
society composed of isolated individuals, but instead a
patchwork of overlapping public spheres centred around
specific themes and communities which through their
overlap nonetheless form a network of issue publics that
is able to act as an effective substitute for the
conventional, universal public sphere of the mass media
age; the remnants of that mass-mediated public sphere
itself, indeed, remain as just one among many other
such public spheres, if for the moment continuing to be
located in a particularly central position within the overall
network. (Bruns , 2008: 69)

23. # as „ad hoc‟ or temporary
public spheres
 The use of # creates a temporary
community around a topic and allows for
deliberation (if it warrants it).
 Thus H.‟s idea of the public sphere
becomes one of a temporary nature into
which we move and exit (as we tweet
and read).
 We continually move in and out of them
as we partake in different discussions.

24. Twitter is public
 # add a public dimension to what our
communications.
 Lifts communication out of the „local‟ and
into the „global‟.
 Sometimes this is not understood by
people…
 EG – caution this may cause offense –
please leave if you do not wish to see.

26.  Bruns, Axel. (2008) “Life beyond the
Public Sphere: Towards a Networked
Model for Political Deliberation.”
Information Polity 13(1-2): 65-79.