Expanding Our Methodological Toolbox: The "Place" of Twitter in the Ethnographic Endeavor

Abstract

Among the most popular of the new technologies is Twitter. Twitter is a social media website that gives users the ability to share their thoughts and opinions with others, and in turn read and comment on others thoughts. Twitter is considered a micro-blogging service, which allows users to post and read 140 character tweets. It is considered a hybrid of social interactions and media (Altheide and Schneider 2013). Social media disseminate information like radio or TV, where users can nd links to newspaper articles, videos, blogs, and so forth. Twitter is designed to facilitate social interaction, the sharing of digital media, and collaboration, as well as having aspects of social network technologies (Facebook, LinkedIn), where users connect with each other by sharing ideas, pictures, et cetera (Murthy 2012). Both the popularity and accessibility of Twitter as a personal news media tool used by members of the community-at-large makes it a force to be considered by ethnographers interested in the social organization of everyday life.