All the news that’s fit to TweetUsing Twitter to conduct a discourse analysis of experts discussing the future of newspaper

Caitlin Kealey — caitlinkealey@gmail.com

OverviewThis presentationState of the newspaper industry

Methodology

Research Questions

Social media and Twitter

Community Building

New Opportunities

Results

State of news

State of news

Introduction

State of the newspaper industrySelf-proclaimed state of crisis in North America

Internet has replaced the newspaper as faster, cheaper and more broad delivery system

Readership numbers actually higher but the traditional economic model does not work online, scrambling to find a way to monetize the new systems

Much talk of the old systems not surviving the transition

Circulation numbers

ResearchQuestionsMain research question:

How can Twitter be leveraged to study the discourse surrounding the future of newspapers?

Sub questions:Who is involved? What are the people involved trying to accomplish? How do they do this? What are the key issues for these people? What types of language do they use to describe what is important?

Methodology

Data CollectionQualitative, Inductive, Macroscopic

Two months of data collection – February and March 2010

Top twenty experts on Twitter chosen with the help of Klout and TweetLevel

NVIVO to analyze the data

Grounded theory method

Computer mediated discourse analysis

Media ExpertsWho are they

Social Media

Why the world of TwitterUsers broadcast themselves through tweets, 140 characters at a time to their followers

Often used to link to blogs, articles, other sites of interest

Space to ask questions, share, collaborate, network

Powerful research tool as discussions are public and archived

Twitter users apply a # to signify a stream of discussion

#journchat, #wjchat are two popular community building discussions that happen weekly

Data analysisPossible coding categoriesCommunity building:@stevebuttry: New blog post: Wanted: Vision for community engagement. http://bit.ly/d76CR3Comparison of new and old:@ajkeen: what's the difference between a blogger & a journalist? http://bit.ly/dx8ZFz one reports the news, the other talks about reporting the news.Economic models:@digiphile: @awallenstein No monetization via acquisition? MSNBC acquired @BreakingNews. They've now launched on Facebook http://j.mp/awJ0KH #newsfutureInfluence/trust:@mathewi: RT @Literanista: @jeffjarvis #brite10 not just influence but relevance of message and also trust/rep are important too the message is keyEducation:@dangillmor: RT @10000Words: Mark Luckie has published THE DIGITAL JOURNALIST'S HANDBOOK, guide to online and multimedia journalism http://bit.ly/6SCR3j

Thank You!

Questions? Feedback?MA Candidate, Department of Communication University of Ottawa

Twitter ID: @caitlinkealey Email: caitlinkealey@gmail.comResearch blog: www.caitlinkealey.com