I’ll follow who I like on Twitter, thanks!

May 13th, 2009 by Tim Greenhalgh

Our guest academic, Lorraine Warren follows up a post earlier this week on her Twitter journey. This is Dr Warren’s fourth post for us and we hope the conversation continues! Dr Warren is Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton.

In an  earlier post I commented that a really important feature of Twitter for me is that I can see debates and conflicts taking place that show different points of view evolving in the field.

Of course, a series of exchanges in 140 characters and a cluster of links are unlikely to give the full picture – these are fast-moving, conversational interchanges that indicate where tensions lie, rather than fully-fledged rational arguments.  Yet for me, this is invaluable in sensing what’s going on, what issues are important to people and where the next questions that shape my research might lie.

Inevitably, sometimes useful interchanges arising from different, but quite legitimate, points of view degenerate into personal feuds and name-calling, but that’s part of life generally, and like at a conference, or party, you can either walk away, join in, or maybe say ‘hey, folks….’ if it starts to get too nasty!

I saw an instance of this last month in my Twitterstream.  As I only followed one of the parties involved, I didn’t really understand what was going on at first, but I could see that a technology correspondent, @YYY, from one of the mainstream UK papers had posted something on his blog about a writer, @ZZZ that others found offensive.

This didn’t surprise me, as I have seen @YYY post some controversial stuff in the past, perhaps reflecting more right-wing views than my other connections are comfortable with.  By the time I looked, the post seemed to have been taken down, so I was on the point of forgetting about it, when I received a Direct Message (DM) in my email from a third party, @XXX who appears very popular and well-respected in the social media space: “why do you follow @YYY..? this is a slanderous pop at @ZZZ”.

A link to a jpg file of the now-vanished blog was included, that turned out to be a short piece of childish name-calling, referring to an ongoing dialogue indicating bad blood between the two.  Looking at the Twitter interchange between @YYY and @ZZZ, it seemed like they were both standing up for themselves quite well without any help needed from me.  So, I responded by DM to @XXX that overall, it was important for me to see a mix of views, and in this case, perhaps the hue and cry that had gone on had contributed to the piece being withdrawn, surely a good thing. 

That was on April 27, and I haven’t heard from @XXX again, although I have had quite a few pleasant interchanges with him in the past both in the Twitterstream and by DM.

@XXX’s intervention raised some interesting issues about the norms and values set within and by the Twitter community.  Did the message mean that I should explain myself for following @YYY, perhaps engage with the debate publicly (though it was nothing to do with me, and was by then, it seemed, over) or stop following @YYY?

Further, how I had been identified so quickly as a follower of @YYY, as I’d never interacted with him on Twitter except as a follower.  Why was I being singled out? Why was @XXX taking on this role?  It would be silly to over-interpret one DM, and I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

Following doesn’t mean complicity or agreement, and if a tweet bothers me, I’ll deal with the author direct.  It’s hard to see how Twitter will grow, and whether antagonistic factions and clusters will emerge.  I hope not!

                              

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Who should I follow on Twitter?

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A welcome return for our guest academic, Lorraine Warren. This Dr Warren’s third post and we look forward to more! Dr Warren is Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton.
 
 
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