a little birdie told me
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A Little Birdie Told MeWhat the H1N1 Outbreak Taught
Us About Using Twitter
Tonya Oaks Smith13 June 2011
Let’s get it started… and get the worm
Who am I and why do you care?
Who are you? I do care
What are we talking about today?
@marleysmom @ a glance
Director of Communications at the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law
Co-chair for #hewebAR
Co-chair of the HighEdWeb regional support committee
Earned master’s degree in applied communication studies in 2010
About.me/marleysmom
Who are you?
On the agenda today
Background
Theory
Research
Results
Application
The background
Why Twitter? Presence is more and more
prevalent – use in Iran, Hudson River crash, H1N1
65 MM Tweets per day from millions of users
Why H1N1? Health catastrophe that was
anticipated Other communication vehicles
used in preparation for outbreak
Right place, right time
The theory
Diffusion of Innovation Ev Rogers – communication
researcher and supreme networker
The way a new idea is shared through both interpersonal channels and mass media
Begun as way to chart spread of information about and adoption of crop innovations in Iowa
Now theory is used as way to share health information on a broad scale – HIV, malaria, STDs
The theory
The research
Over 300,000 tweets used one of three terms (H1N1, swineflu or swine flu) during the height of the outbreak – spring to fall 2009
Isolated tweets for three key dates in the outbreak – April 25, Sept. 4, Oct. 24, 2009 = 15,000 tweets
Detailed reading of 5,000 tweets for content analysis
Later survey of Twitter users for in-depth information about follow-through on vaccinations
The results
Content analysis – three themes: Information-seeking behaviors Misinformation Uncertainty reduction
The results
Survey of the users: How often do individuals
pass along information? How do they choose what
information to pass along? How do they verify the truth
of the information they see? How does the information
they see on Twitter impact their decisions?
What’s different now?
Today, people expect to share information, not be fed it. They expect to be listened to when they have knowledge and raise questions. They want news that connects with their lives and interests. They want control over their information. And they want connection – they give their trust to those they engage with – people who talk with them, listen and maintain a relationship.
– Michael SkolerMedia scholar
Influence means what?
Per Twitter: Indegree influence Retweet influence Mention influence
Popular users who have high indegree are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions. Most influential users can hold significant influence over a variety of topics. Influence is not gained spontaneously or accidentally, but through concerted effort.
- Cha, Haddadi, Benevenuto, Gummadi, 2010
The application
No, seriously…
Don’t: Share information unworthy of
your followers Ignore followers’ legitimate
concerns Waste time sharing useless
information Ignore misinformation Spread information you can’t
confirm Abuse your followers’ trust Use Twitter without pondering the
ramifications
And even more seriously…
Do: Accept the importance of the medium
both as an interpersonal channel and mass medium
Build relationships before emergencies and crises happen
Share salient information Harness power of network Encourage questioning Call attention to misinformation Fill the information vacuum Reduce uncertainty Verify your own information
So what did we learn?
Twitter is an important new-ish medium (still NEW to those not in the know (bosses, presidents, chancellors ;) ))
Twitter can be used for good and evil
Our followers trust us as change agents and opinion leaders – scary!
Twitter can’t be the only medium we use to communicate information – it is part of a toolkit.
Questions?
tosmith@ualr.edu
@marleysmom
501.324.9896
Complete research is on issuu.com/marleysmom
OR… @robin2go can usually find me ;)
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