We are holding a conference about Twitter at Lancaster University 10-12 April (https://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/twitter_and_microblogging/index.htm). Most of the papers will be academic analyses of the discourse of Twitter. But we thought it would be exciting to have some interaction with people who regularly use Twitter. So we are planning to have a virtual panel via Twitter leading up to Thursday 11 April, using the hashtag #LUtwitRC.
We are inviting people from a range of fields, to illustrate the wide ranges of uses to which Twitter is put in different communities, and we have focused on people who have something to say about the medium in which they work. We are inviting people who
- have between 1000 and 10000 followers
- post regularly,
- and are all entertaining writers in the 140-character form.
We have invited panelists, but anyone who uses Twitter regularly can join in. We’ll start it off with some questions. Participants at the conference would be discussing the tweets online from 4:15 to 5:15 pm (16:15-17:15) UK time on 11 April.
Issues in the discussion might include:
- Writing: Where does micro-blogging fit in your other writing activities (print journalism, blog, academic articles, books, talks)?
- Time: How do you possibly have time for Twitter? How often do you check it? When do most of your responses come in?
- Form: How do you use visuals? Links? Is the length limit a problem or an opportunity?
- Audience: Do you ever find a message misfires or gets misinterpreted? Because of the compression? Or the multiple audiences? How important are retweets in your feed?
- Following: Name two or three Twitter feeds you think are really well written.
We promise no rewards other than the expectation of some interesting interactions and new followers. If you would like to participate, just let me know, and I will put up background on panel participants.
Greg Myers
g.myers@lancs.ac.uk
@GregMyers
[for the LUtwit team: Julia Gillen, Diane Potts, and Johnny Unger]
Department of Linguistics and English Language
Lancaster University
The discussion happened, and it is online at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/twitter_and_microblogging/video/twitter_panel.htm. Thanks to all who participated, and to the Lancaster University audiovisual staff for videoing it.
Posted by: Gregory Myers | June 22, 2013 at 09:42 PM