Twittering on: Audience research and participation using Twitter

Ruth Deller
Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the potential of social network site Twitter as a site for audience research.  Drawing on notions of “liveness”, participation, convergence and interactivity, it argues that Twitter provides a potentially significant development in our understanding of audiences and their relationship with media, both “old” and “new”.  The study looks at examples of Twitter users engaging with (and in some cases creating) the news and discussing television programmes.  The author’s own experiences of using Twitter in audience research provide a case study suggesting possible directions for future research using this medium.

Keywords: audience, audiences, new media, television, Twitter, social networking, convergence, participation, interactivity, liveness, news.