Technoscientific Musings at WUSTL

#Ferguson was a really interesting article for me, because I’m interested in how activism and technology may both complement or impede each other. In #Ferguson, Bonilla et al writes about how activism on Twitter in the last 5 years have manifested, especially for protests in Ferguson and subsequent events of police brutality. I thought it was notable how Bonilla differentiated Twitter as an apt conduit for activism because of its specific features such as the hashtag. With tags such as #Ferguson, people can look at what others are saying about Ferguson in real time, and this allows for users to feel that they are participating in real time rather than posting and being done with it, like on Facebook or Instagram. It moves much faster than Facebook or Instagram, and is more permanent than Snapchat, which is why it’s perfect for discussion and protests.

To me, because I don’t have a Twitter and had always had the mindset “Why do I need Twitter? It’s like Facebook without pictures”, it was illuminating how Twitter was formed for a different purpose. One thing I did want to know more about that Bonilla et al didn’t discuss, especially because I’m not familiar with Twitter, was what is the demographic on Twitter? I would think that it’s younger people, but then Trump is all up in it, and so are many celebrities. This article also made me try signing up for Twitter after reading this article! (But then I was overwhelmed and deleted it again. Starting a new technology by yourself is scary and definitely not wise right before finals time).

Twitter is actually faster than news sites now, to the point that we now see live feeds on Twitter discussions during news broadcasts! I’m skeptical of those news sites—why can’t they get their own news and who knows if the posts are reliable—but it shows how present Twitter is. I think that the way that tweets are now ways for people to see exactly what others are saying about something is indicative of our feedback culture, where we want to know the reviews and opinions of other people for everything before forming our own opinion. That’s why in Ebay, we only trust things that have had reviews written by real people, or there’s Yelp, or RateMyProfessor, or many others. I think it could also be a response to media being controlled largely by news organizations, and Twitter is a way of democratizing information and bringing issues that news sources do not mention into the spotlight. In fact, one of the hashtags that Bonilla et al discusses, #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, is a direct criticism of the biases coloring the coverage by the media.