How Social Media is Revolutionizing Real-time Information in Six Ways
Preface: This is my answer to my job application with Dataminr last week: Please describe how you think social media is revolutionizing real-time information.
To start, let’s look back on the time before the advent of social media. People can know a real-time information by word of mouth, through traditional media like television and radio, while they can’t get information immediately due to technology restriction and media gatekeepers’ checking. And one information can not go viral without the help of legacy media, the public was mostly the receiver.
Real-time information is being revolutionized through social media — I call it the game changer, and I believe it is leading our future.
As I’ve been working in the news industry for over 6 years, I will focus on how social media, particularly Twitter, is revolutionizing — for better or worse — breaking news, one of the most significant applications of real-time information.
- Acquiring real-time information had never been this convenient thanks to Twitter. Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, among which, we might get more than one breaking news, some press conferences were held afterward but only to confirm and provide an explanation as the news had already broken in real-time on Twitter first.
Take myself as an example, on the recent Inauguration Day, one man was injured in a shooting at a protest at the University of Washington in Seattle, I wrote the breaking news at home following up updates mainly through Twitter. At first, I got a mobile text alert from UW Alert, then I frequently checked Twitter and The Seattle Times’ live updates webpage that quotes several reporters and witnesses’ real-time tweets. I can’t remember since when I would go check my Twitter feed when big news breaks, and I’m pretty sure that Twitter is the place I can guarantee will be buzzing with updates and opinions.
2. Everyone who has access to social media can play an active role in the process of collecting, disseminating, reporting and analyzing news and real-time information. Because of the usage of social media, the public now is the sender of real-time information, everyone can also be known as a citizen journalist, the gatekeeper of news. For instance, the tragic news about the Boston Marathon bombing originated from people on the ground at the race’s finish line. They tweeted images of the explosions moments after the bombing occurred.
3. Real-time information can go viral globally and become a breaking news with retweets, replies, and mentions on Twitter, it’s way faster, wider and more interactive than what traditional media can do. Hashtags are also powerful which allow one to expand reach and tap into relevant conversations.
4. The form in which news is covered on social media is ever-changing. Besides text, image, and video, empowered by technology, anyone now can broadcast live on Twitter’s mobile app, which breaks Twitter’s 140 character limit. And with the development of internet speed, mobile phone, wearable technology, AR, and VR, we are able to see and hear breaking news in action, real-time information is becoming seamlessly immersive.
5. Real-time information can be misleading and fake without a filter and a fact-checking algorithm. Take Boston Marathon bombing as an example, while spreading the news, Twitter users, unfortunately, added to the confusion by posting and retweeting incorrect information. In 2009, DePaul University opened a course called “Digital Editing: From Breaking News to Tweets” that focuses on confirming and evaluating sources and information from citizen journalists, particularly in cases of breaking news.
6. Social media are revolutionizing the way we use and manage real-time information.The faster the real-time information is available, the faster an algorithm can detect, the faster a decision or a reaction can be made, I learned that from my previous experience in using Python to collect data from Twitter and answer questions. And Twitter Alert is a good example which plays a positive impact on emergency management via social media.
Moreover, as real-time information is becoming increasingly important to almost any sector — from news media, finance, security, crisis management, to the public, while faced with information overload, we are in need of company like Dataminr who can identify, classify, and determine the significance of real-time information and deliver relevant alerts and verification analytics that can actually make a positive impact.
All in all, it’s imperative for us to figure out all the good effects and bad effects we use social media and real-time information for and shape them more quickly than ever. Let’s hope we won’t see ourselves in the “Black Mirror”.
Connect with me on Twitter: @Awen23z
