Social Media Twitter Project

Rebecca Dupont

University of Central Florida

Over this semester while working on Twitter, my perception of Twitter has evolved. Before working on this project using Twitter, I had never created my own Tweets. I did work on a team that used Twitter to do research on sports teams social media communication, but I had never tweeted or adventured to follow other accounts on Twitter.

My perception of Twitter prior to this course was that it was primarily used for celebrities to communicate with their fans and for people to follow those influencers, and NFL sports team to communicate updated information on their teams. I was not previously familiar with the political communication and discussions that occurred on Twitter in the past and it’s popularity. After using Twitter for this project, my perception of Twitter has changed. I now see there are amazing outlets to share news while also sharing it’s sources and spread news topics. It’s a great resource to keep the public informed and even promote dialogic communication between the government and the public. I think it differs from other social media websites because the interface allows for easier sharing of links and articles for news. I previously questioned its importance or significance but now I do see it as a great resource for sharing news media. Twitter List 1 & 2 Overall Analysis

While following Twitter list 1 and 2, I noticed the American tweets by Twitter list 1 often followed a more emotional appeal and focused on the individual. Twitter list 1 also reported international media oftentimes from the “Trump perspective”, and framed international stories differently than Twitter List 2. A few examples follow:

Twitter List 1 vs 2 Example (1): Tweets on Vietnamese Human Trafficking in UK Twitter List 1 from American news covering International news focused on an emotional appeal for the story covering the truck in Essex holding 39 human trafficked bodies compared to the matter of fact explanation of the Twitter List 2. The American Twitter account CNBC International focused on the emotional appeal of an individual’s family by headlining with the face of one of the victims. Another story from Twitter list 1 covered a story of someone that had “experienced similar circumstances” as those in the truck, and another story headlined about the family’s emotions and fears of Vietnam families who feared their missing loved ones might be in the truck.

I found it interesting the Twitter list 2 news headlines focused more on the group rather than the individuals or the emotional appeal. It all seemed to collect all individuals together. ARY news tweeted “Irish police arrest man over UK truck deaths” and Al Jazeera English tweeted a headline reading the charges the criminals faced also not necessarily

appealing to emotions or the individual victims or their families. I am curious how Hofstede’s dimensions might relate to this, since the more individualistic cultures seem to cover the individual and emotional appeal while collectivistic cultures more commonly covered the issue as a whole. Higher power distance countries like Pakistan (Ary News), Japan (NHK World News), and Qatar (Al Jazeera) may also be less inclined to have an emotional appeal.

Twitter List 2 Examples of Essex truck incident:

Twitter List 1 vs 2 Example (2): Tweets About Syria’s Activity

When comparing the Twitter list 1 versus the Twitter list

2, I found it notable how the reports of activity in Syria were reported. I noticed on Twitter List 1, American sourced, the international news was difficult to find without Trump’s mention or his opinion. Many headlines featured what the

president said about events within Syria and it was difficult to find a headline that wasn’t more focused on his perception on the topic rather than the topic itself. This reminds me of the module in class where module 4 circled around American News Coverage of The World and how American international news coverage is on a decline and international news that is covered often covers a focus on U.S. foreign policy implications.

When topics of Syria were covered in Twitter list 2, they didn’t have the Trump central focus on foreign affairs, and reported on Syria’s situation without reference.

Twitter List 2 Examples of Syria Tweets

Twitter List 1 vs 2 Example (4): Tweets Covering Iraq Protests Twitter List 1 with American sources for the news coverage of tweets covering the Iraq

protests were more detailed headlines that heavily focused on the government’s harsh treatment of protesters. These headlines features the death toll, detailed abuse towards protesters and the government’s control on media.

In a classic case of framing theory, the Twitter list 2 covered the same protests in a completely different way. If the reporting on the issue was from another middle eastern country like Iran (Press TV), or UAE (Al Arabiya English) the protesters were described as terrorists and the headlines were framed as addressing “counter terrorism”. Twitter list 2 tweets not from middle eastern countries also went into less depth on the protester’s abuse from the government and more simply stated the death toll of protesters without much other detail. This difference in detail of the government’s abuse versus Twitter list 1 and 2 might be due to the U.S.’s history with Iraq and their framing of the government.

Twitter List 2 Tweets of Iraq Protests

Twitter List 1 vs 2 Example (4): Tweets Covering Lebanon Protests Interesting differences I found between Twitter list 1 and 2 regarding the Lebanon protests was how the American media seemed to have more of a tone of the people versus the government while Twitter list 2 did not seem to have the same headlines. Twitter list 2 headlines seemed more matter of fact, while American Tweets had images with government soldiers that seemed to be pushing against the people, while Twitter list 2 images appeared more peaceful and did not have the soldiers

in the photos with Al Jazeera even referring to the protests as “mostly peaceful”. This makes me question if this might be relevant to the readings in class of the

“Slate” series, where American news coverage heavily relied on stereotypes. Is there an American perception that all protests in the middle east are usually violent?

Twitter List 2 Tweets of Lebanon Protests

Twitter List 3 & 4 Overall Analysis

Within Twitter lists 3 and 4, I noticed two topics that seemed to be focused on by the lists as topics with salience. According to the Agenda setting theory, I believe both lists agreed issues of importance to cause people to think about are freedom and peace. Without necessarily telling people what to think about, both lists agreed that both of these issues were important to stir thought about. Of course I don't think both of these twitter lists are in cahoots about what topics to necessarily cover, but I think

it may be something that is a common issue both lists see of higher salience for reporting. One other topic I noticed popular among both lists not featured in the screenshots was the topic of empowering women. Empowering women was a popular topic as well brought up by both Twitter lists.

I believe freedom may be a focus of salience as well because of its relevancy of an issue, since Freedom House reported a 13th year of a decline in global freedom. With this decline, the fight for freedom and it's salience as an issue continues. Freedom of religion, press, sexuality, etc. are all relevant and issues at hand, although I did find freedom of religion and media the two most mentioned themes within freedoms. I believe these two are the top categories of freedom, while equality may be not far behind. Twitter List 3 vs 4 Example (1): Freedom

When comparing Twitter List 3 and 4, I noticed Twitter list 3 often discussed a topic of freedom. While freedom of religion was mentioned for both lists, freedom of religion was more prominently mentioned within Twitter list 3. Most twitter list 3 mentions of freedom of religion were celebratory, or showing appreciation of freedoms. While those on Twitter list 4 often mentioned goals for freedoms, comparisons with the United States or aspirations. I believe the differences in the lists regarding this topic are related to the United State’s patriotic focus on freedom in general and cultural ties to the terminology of freedom.

Twitter List 4 Examples of Freedom Tweets

Twitter List 3 vs 4 Example (2): Peace Another topic I saw that was discussed and differed between Twitter List 3 and 4 was discussing peace. I noticed when Twitter list 3 discussed peace, it was typically regarding the achievements of how peace was acquired, or the progress made towards peace, while Twitter list 4 seemed more centrally focused on peace efforts created through panels, discussions, video games and educational courses. I found this interesting when comparing, and it may be due to the same nature of Twitter list 3's tendency to celebrate American accomplishments.

Twitter list 3 Examples of Peace Tweets

Twitter List 5 Overall Analysis While analyzing Twitter list 5, I noticed an overall theme of avoiding consumption of

animal products and animals in need. I noticed many of the accounts discussed vegetarian diets and avoiding the use of animal products as well. Some of the accounts made jokes about lifestyle experiences of not using these products while others urged the public to avoid consumption of these products for the benefit of animals. Since Twitter list 5 is all Bollywood actresses, I think it would make sense since many of them enjoy a vegetarian diet since it is a popular dietary lifestyle in that country. Since the women posting within this Twitter list are famous and highly influential, I believe they understand their role as an influence of followers.

What I found interesting about this list is that I found almost no political references, political opinions or stances found within the twitter list. Usually in American Hollywood, many actors are vocal about their politics, political beliefs and movements they invest interest in. Commonly these actors in Hollywood use their influence to help push these movements. While I'm not necessarily saying Bollywood actresses aren't involved in politics or societal movements, I did not necessarily see a mention of it while following the accounts. There was no mention of societal issues, efforts for change or other issues that could have been used by the influential position of these actresses within Bollywood. Freedom House rates India as FREE according to the 2019 report, and according to this report freedom of political views was rated 4/4. I'm not sure why I did not see these influential women using their position to create awareness on certain issues. I did find that Bollywood is owned by the government, and this may be related to their lack of political expression on Twitter.

Twitter & Job Interviewing

While interviewing for a job where I may be required to run their Twitter account as one of my many duties, I intend on explaining to them my experience on my social media project in graduate school where I analyzed different trends among Twitter accounts and how a variety of topics were addressed. While explaining to them my strengths in managing Twitter, I would explain my experience creating an account for myself, and researching appropriate lists to create according to the required assignment.

I'd explain the importance of understanding Hofsteide's cultural dimensions ability to apply toTweets, and understanding one's audience. I would pull examples from the Vietnamese truck death incident, where media from the U.S. explained with an emotional tone and individualistic view versus collectivist cultures discussed the topic as a total amount of people impacted and the lack of emotional appeal. I would explain how my understanding of Hofsteide's dimensions can play into my Tweets and I could manipulate how Tweets were worded in order to cater to the culture of the audience. Along with this, I would use the example of Bollywood's sharing of animal product deterrence and dietary habits as something they understood appealed to their audience. Knowing your audience and what is important to them is also important when tweeting, and the social media project I created allowed an advanced perspective and ability to analyze these. When tweeting, I would argue that my experience would allow me to tweet in a way that was culturally appropriate while also appealing to the audience I was assigned to tweet to.

Total Tweets Posted Under My Account