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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

#61

Post by mycall »

blfr wrote: post #42
romaaeterna wrote: post #29

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 is not dead, it just won't make any money.

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

#62

Post by hos234 »

blfr wrote: post #42
romaaeterna wrote: post #29

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.

It's not over. Value might appear diluted because of the ever increasing noise, but people will still look to say a Dexter Filkins for signal. Where else are you going to find that kind of signal?

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

#63

Post by jackfoxy »

blfr wrote: post #42
romaaeterna wrote: post #29

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.

It's more like the veneer of unbiased trustworthy journalism was a by-product of the mass media ad business.

Journalism has reverted back to the journalism mean which was always biased, propagandizing, shoddy, and appealed to the confirmation biases of the target audiences since the 18th century.

That's not to say there are not excellently written and researched articles produced today, but hey, today anyone can be a journalist.

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

#64

Post by jml7c5 »

paulddraper wrote: post #2

The real number is that 10% of Twitter users [1] produce 97% of political Tweets. (I.e. this is "just" one social media site, used by a minority of Americans.) [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-...

I think you cited the wrong source for that. It's actually the page linked in this submission that has that statistic.

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

#66

Post by ng12 »

wutbrodo wrote: post #45
modeless wrote: post #11

If you, like me, find the non-political part of Twitter valuable, I have discovered that Twitter has built in filtering tools. It's pretty simple. Each time I see a tweet I dislike, I pick one word from it and add it to my "mute word" list. It's now filled with words like "trump", "liberal", "minister", etc, and now I see interesting technical discussions instead of political trash.

I've done this by following a small amount of people and being extremely judicious in adding new ones (and quick to remove them: there are a couple writers I enjoy that do nothing but shitpost about politics on Twitter). I will say that my approach has the downside of being very low-volume though

Up until 2015 I had a wonderfully curated comedy Twitter created in this manner. It was selected from the set of my favorite comedians, actors, writers, and internet people with particular focus towards those who posted humorous or insightful things on a regular basis.

Then 2016 happened and the greater half decided they were really closet political pundits all along. Now I don't read Twitter at all.

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

#67

Post by jacquesm »

ng12 wrote: post #66
wutbrodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done this by following a small amount of people and being extremely judicious in adding new ones (and quick to remove them: there are a couple writers I enjoy that do nothing but shitpost about politics on Twitter). I will say that my approach has the downside of being very low-volume though

Up until 2015 I had a wonderfully curated comedy Twitter created in this manner. It was selected from the set of my favorite comedians, actors, writers, and internet people with particular focus towards those who posted humorous or insightful things on a regular basis. Then 2016 happened and the greater half decided they were really closet political pundits all along. Now I don't read Twitter at all.

Comedy writes itself these days. That's why comedians had to find something else to do. You just can't compete with reality when whole continents are run by clowns.

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

#69

Post by spinach »

blfr wrote: post #42
romaaeterna wrote: post #29

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.

Isn't journalism a pillar of democracy? The well educated professionals who deep, lengthy dives into corruption, raw data, etc. How will democracy survive if no is being paid to spends weeks, years, to go deep on a subject and citizens can't be fully informed?

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

#70

Post by cwkoss »

spinach wrote: post #69
blfr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't journalism a pillar of democracy? The well educated professionals who deep, lengthy dives into corruption, raw data, etc. How will democracy survive if no is being paid to spends weeks, years, to go deep on a subject and citizens can't be fully informed?

We'll cross our fingers that benevolent general AI overlords are developed before we destroy ourselves.
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