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Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

people-press.org

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Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#52
post #51

What percentage of TV users generate any content on television? Many people just spectate, whether it’s TV or social.

that is a poor analogy at best. Everyone is intuitive on the amount of friction it takes to get content onto broadcast or cable TV. No one is delusional.

There is relatively zero amount of friction for a twitter user to post political content to twitter. The fact that people are not posting political content, is not due to insurmountable friction.

Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#53
post #42

Journalism would only be improved if every journalist got off of Twitter tomorrow. It's not representative of mainstream opinion. And the artificially created and cultivated Twitter echo chamber couldn't help but warp anybody's neutrality. Unfortunately, it's still seen as the best way to drive clicks.

Journalism is over. It doesn't matter what journalists do now. It was a by-product of mass media massive ad business which is being quickly taken over by tech companies.

Journalism has turned into a sort of institutionalized shamanism, where you try to anger the attention gods, so they may flood your place with attention and clicks.

Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#54

Journalism would only be improved if every journalist got off of Twitter tomorrow. It's not representative of mainstream opinion. And the artificially created and cultivated Twitter echo chamber couldn't help but warp anybody's neutrality. Unfortunately, it's still seen as the best way to drive clicks.

Imagine believing that anyone, anywhere was ever "neutral".

Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#55
post #51

What percentage of TV users generate any content on television? Many people just spectate, whether it’s TV or social.

that is a poor analogy at best. Everyone is intuitive on the amount of friction it takes to get content onto broadcast or cable TV. No one is delusional. There is relatively zero amount of friction for a twitter user to post political content to twitter. The fact that people are not posting political content, is not due to insurmountable friction.

I thought that went without saying. My point is, why would anyone be surprised that not everyone speaks up? The fact that everyone can tweet doesn’t mean that they do. Friction of calling radio talk back is low, but I’ve never done it. Letters to the editor also.

Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#56
post #42

Journalism would only be improved if every journalist got off of Twitter tomorrow. It's not representative of mainstream opinion. And the artificially created and cultivated Twitter echo chamber couldn't help but warp anybody's neutrality. Unfortunately, it's still seen as the best way to drive clicks.

Journalism is over. It doesn't matter what journalists do now. It was a by-product of mass media massive ad business which is being quickly taken over by tech companies.

There's still very important independent journalism payed using donations that uncover the corruption that's going on in my small country (Hungary).

The government took over all media, they are what's left for us, and this year was the first time that they were able to change the result of local elections.

Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#58

People generally, especially in younger generations need to accept that the internet != the real world. I’ve had a number of friends on both sides of the isle fall into the internet trap of politics, existential dread and dilution. A few to the extent of developing serious mental health problems, even college educated people. It’s scary to watch this happen to people you know and love. Some might label me, but I enjo…

On a much larger scale, nothing equals the real world because the real world is endlessly complicated. To take in the breadth and depth of human perspectives and experiences is simply impossible. This is only a problem when people fail to realize they are only seeing as tiny, unrepresentative sliver so they can adjust their reactions accordingly.

Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics

#59
post #14

I grepped for "bot" on this, the source and their methodology page. Bot activity on Twitter is especially high and not at least mentioning how they accounted for that kinda voids this whole effort. It'd be very interesting to identify the political leanings of automated posts. I bet they could analyze the messages to determine bot networks. Disappointed this wasn't considered.

They only looked at tweets by people who previously agreed to participate in the study, so their data cannot be used to analyze automated posts.
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