Posts

Showing posts from March 13, 2011

Pakistanis on Twitter

This is part of my thesis, it was originally supposed to be a literature review, but I have taken out in-text citations and chapter references, and basically turned it in to a blog entry/article. This is part of the over all bigger thesis of mine, where I am doing a research on Pakistani tweeters and their tweeting patterns and behaviours. Also how they react to news.  There are many Pakistani users who come to Twitter to just have a casual chat with their followers (people who read a person’s ‘tweets’) or just tweet their thoughts, or even share information. Pakistani twitter users can be divided in to sub-groups. There are people who mainly blog, then share their blog writing with their Twitter followers, there are people who casually tweet about their thoughts and random stuff, there are people that share informative links on Twitter, but all of these users do have something in common. They comment on news. Any disaster that happens, any abnormal news, some situation that is cu

Citizen Journalism and Participatory Culture

Mass Communication's role has changed a bit since the invention of New Media or Social Media. Mass communication before basically involved a sender, a message, a medium and a mass audience. The purpose was to appeal to a wider audience and get your message across to as many people as you can. These days with Social Media, the purpose is not only to get your message across to as many people as you can, but also to get them to participate. Get them to interact with you, by participatory means. Shows like Britain's Got Talent and Big Brother, call for participation from the audience. This culture has mainly spread due to the Internet.  Participatory culture does not only mean people reacting to television programs and voicing their opinions about what they see, but it also means people coming together, collaborating, building ideas and this culture allows people with similar goals, ambitions and interests to connect to one another. This kind of culture has allowed, celebrities