Alex Wood: What does the #IranElection Twitter trend tell us?
June 23rd, 2009Posted by Judith Townend in Editors' pick, Press freedom and ethics, Social media and blogging
Use of Twitter by mainstream media outlets has been much discussed in regards to recent reportage from Iran. Multimedia journalist Alex Wood provides a blog post with some good links and thoughts about hashtags and information spread. Particularly interesting is this part:
“[D]ig a little deeper into the statistics, and you find that over 50 per cent of tweets about IranElection are not first hand information. Twitter allows users to repeat other people’s tweets and send them on to their friends, who can then go on and repeat this to their friends. There is no control mechanism for fact or fiction and misinformation can spread quickly, especially in times of conflict.”
Tags: #iranelection, Alex Wood, Iran, Islamic Republic of Iran, Journalism, mainstream media outlets, multimedia journalist, Twitter
