communicating, campaigning and curating - dr thomas oliver
TRANSCRIPT
Communicating, campaigning and curating: Interrogating council lors’ use of Twitter in the City of Bristol.
Dr Thomas Oliver @thomoliPostdoctoral Research Fellow [email protected] Brookes Business School
Introduction
Social Media
Network society (Castells, 2000)
Increased capacity to interact online in many different ways and platforms (incl. mobile technologies)
Permanently connected
Diversity of audiences
15m Twitter users in UK (Wang (Twitter CEO, 2015).
50% of users prefer to read rather than send out tweets, 40% of worldwide users use twitter as a ‘curated news feed of updates to reflect their passions’ (Twitter, 2014).
Question over question of engagement, although even if not engaging they are maybe absorbing content.
Research Approach (Context and Method)
Context Bristol (SW, England), Why Bristol? Directly elected mayor system of governance (councillors
seeking new roles and voices).
Method
Time windows capturing ‘critical events’ (data presented in paper relates to Full Council meeting (17th March)
Snapshot/Supply side analysis (limitation)
Extract of all tweets during 24hr period, coding in NVivo.
Count and content analysis.
Outline Research QuestionsPreliminary (Snapshot) Who engages on twitter
How is twitter being used?
How can the content be classified
Reporting vs. consulting
Reach vs. dialogue
Early observations
Secondary Content analysis, use of language.
How does content vary across action points/fallow periods. Exploring in particular the distorting features of campaigning/vote seeking.
Any mediating factors (boundaries and behaviours)
Bristol Council lors on Twitter
Twitter use by party
Tweets (17/3 -18/3/2015)
Coarse content coding
Coarse content coding
Coarse content coding
Coarse content coding
Local or National content?
Use of hashtags
Preliminary thoughts
Diversity of usage (heterogeneous not homogenous)
‘Social’ media
Democracy side of engagement low
Local voice, tone and authenticity (personal communicators versus automata)
Campaigns coherent and structured through twitter.
Chatting amongst themselves / tweeting to the converted.
National content prevalent unsurprising)
Small examples of crowd-sourcing (ideas, campaigns and increasingly finance). As well as link to and promote local businesses and services (situating themselves in the geography).
Low use of jargon, complex language, messages simple and clear.
Images (high propensity)