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EXAM PRACTICE Reading CD O

T W I T T E R

The news ¡s changing. Newspaper circulations have slumped over the past decade, while online news

blogs are multiplying. The internet aliows us to find out about world event5 more quickly than ever,

keeping us abreast of events that oceurred barely hours before. And now, thanks to 'Twitter', the

news might just be getting even faster!

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that you can access online and on your mobile. Subscribers can

send messages of up to 140 characters, which are then ¡nstantly uploaded onto the web. Although

mostly used as a social networking service, similar to Facebook (typical messages include 'What

are you up to?' and T m going to a concert ai the weekend'), Twitter is also becoming increasingly

popular with news agencies.

Information about the 2008 earthquake ¡n China appeared on Twitter before ¡t was covered

anywhere else - only two minutes and fifteen seconds after it had happened! Researchers at the

BBC and CNN now regularly check Twitter for key words like 'crisis', 'help' or 'attack', so that they

can be the first to learn about breaking stories. In times of crisis, it is much easier to send a message

vía Twitter rather than on a conventional phone or computer. For this reason, Twitter fans, who cali

themselves 'tweeters', argüe that tweeting could even provide an emergeney service for journalists in

trouble hot spots. James Buck, an American journalism student, ran into difficulty with the Egyptian

pólice when he was caught photographing a demonstration. He managed to send one word out on

Twitter - 'arrested' - and the next day the American embassy negotiated James's reléase from prison.

So, how ¡mportant could Twitter be in the future of the news? It aliows reporters to send bulletins

quickly and safely, and it enables us to find out about the news immediately after ¡t happens.

However, Twitter complements rather than conflicts with the traditional media, as journalists still need

to verify the faets in each message, as well as expand the stories. It seems that most of us still usually

prefer news articles to be a bit longer than 140 characters!

1 Mark the sentences T(True) or F (False). Give evidence from the text. (2 marks)

1 Newspapers are now less popular.

T. 'Newspaper circulations have slumped over the past

4 Write a question to which the following sentence is the answer. Look carefully at the bold words. (1 mark)

A Twitter message can be up to 140 characters long.

2 Most 'tweeting' is concerned with reportlng the news.

5 Join the following sentences using a relative clause. (1 mark)

James Buck is 20. He uses Twitter regularly.

2 Complete the sentences using information from the text. (2 marks)

1 Mobile phones ...

2 Two minutes and fifteen seconds after the earthquake, ...

6 Find a word or phrase in paragraph C which means 'áreas where there is danger'. (1 mark)

ÍM^lhgtspots

7 Find a word in the text that contains the same sound as show. Us/). (1 mark)

3 How useful does the writer think Twitter will be in the future? Answer in 20 words or fewer. (1 mark)

8 Write a noun which has the same stem as the adjective 'important' (paragraph D). (1 mark)

Mportance

56 Unit 6 The media