How Twitter Has Changed News Forever

By: Abby Rechel

@AbbyRoseRechel

In my lifetime, from August 13^th, 1993, to December 2^nd, 2014, the way news has been reported has changed drastically. When I was a child, news stations relied on print newspapers and nightly televised news to broadcast current events, weather and various stories. Some news stations broadcasted during dinnertime, others during bedtime. There was no way to know what was happening in my community until the broadcasts each evening. When I was a 4^th grader, there was nothing more important than hearing about a snow day. However, snow days would only be communicated in the morning or late in the evening, only on the local news stations.

When I began my high school career in 2008, Twitter was introduced. I created a username and profile, yet I did not understand the purpose. At the time, Facebook was all anyone needed. With rapid status updates and photo additions, high school students would be glued to their Facebooks for hours after a long day of school. There would be hundreds of status updates a week, the primary reason for Facebook. No one understood that Twitter’s main purposes was to “tweet” things much like statuses on Facebook. Twitter suddenly became more popular as the use of hashtags became more frequent. This way, a public user could tweet using the hashtag in order to be categorized with others using the same hashtags in their tweets.

Today, hashtags are everywhere. Often, hashtags are placed on the bottom right corners of television screens during various broadcasts. You can use a certain hashtag to vote on The Voice, to comment on Olivia Pope’s brilliant plans on ABC’s Scandal (photo on the right) or even to contribute to E! News’ Who Wore It Better? It’s even rare to watch a television show and not see a hashtag in the corner condoning discussion about the show or broadcast.

 In addition to taking over the entertainment industry, Twitter has become the main source of news coverage in communities across country. It has even become the main source of coverage in our nation. In Monica Guzman’s article Community as an End, she discussed how the hashtag #WAshooting led to raw but real and an ultimately more powerful search for the shooter on that November day. Not only could police and news stations tweet about the shooting, but also workers from the coffee shops, regulars and even those passing by were able to contribute to tracking down the mystery shooter.

Another prime example is a major national issue at hand: Ferguson. Colleen Shalby and Hari Sreenivasan, journalists at PBS, posted an article titled, How Twitter is Getting it Right in Ferguson The article gives examples on how Twitter has promoted and retweeted tweets of reporters and normal citizens whom have made important statements on the issue. The article can be found here and exmaples of other tweets are below. The Boston Bombing is also an example of how Twitter spread news. A link to How journalists utilized Twitter during this catastrophe can be found here.

Twitter is just one example of how we can be rapidly and more efficiently updated by news stations, police, reporters and every day, regular people. More importantly, Twitter is a perfect example of what digital connection has made possible in our society today.

All photos from Google Images.