Twitter Ephemera: Where Twitter does it right, and MSM gets it wrong

The Australian gravely intones that “Online ephemera lacks content to create communities” and declares twitter to be a passing fad. Then there’s a copy and pasted discussion of the failing of modern television. Topped and tailed with a reference to Twitter. Followed by a broadside at the Crikey website since they suggest the death of newsprint, followed by praise for the Melbourne Herald Sun‘scirculation, and an argument that newspapers create community (which is apparently why Twitter will fail).

I mark a lot of student essays in my day job, and I can spot a recycled idea from a different paper showing up in the hope of making the word count.  Did the journalist really compare apples with a Summer’s Day?  Seriously, for the highlight of offtopic rambling, the anti-Twitter argument detours for a paragraph about faked reality TV and scripted drama before concluding that  “Some 30 years on, Callan is still available on DVD and the popularity of Spooks and Slumdog will probably last for decades – unlike the ephemera that now sets twitters tweeting.”

Dear Sir.

You appear to misunderstand the nature of the ephemera.

More specifically, you appear to be criticizing a platform designed for emphemeral comments for containing emphemeral comments.  Do you often find yourself upset at the coffee flavour of your morning coffee?  Seriously, it’s a short messaging system of disposal messages. It is the ephemera of the interent by design, by purpose, and criticising it for doing what it does well is to misunderstand the nature of electronic small talk.

Since we’re at it – Twitter users are a group of people who share a common set of interests, talk to each other in a semi informal cohorts, and quite often live in the same geographic areas (hence the Regional Social Media Breakfasts, the Regional Twitter User Brigades etc).  There’s a word for that. I believe it’s called community. Something that social media, Twitter and newspapers achieve in their own ways. Since community isn’t zero sum, the contribution of newspapers to community does not mean other approaches cannot or do not provide their own input.

Yours sincerely

$tephen

PS: The news.com.au social media sharing button seems to have a few problems. Dead links, malformed URL, or corporate takeovers.  But that’s okay, at least you didn’t have a post to Twitter button for your anti-Twitter column.

6 links from 15 failed to load from the social media sharing buttons