Contents

• This assignment answers the following questions –
• 1. Using the boyd and Grossman readings about Twitter, and any of the readings on Conversation Analysis, explain Twitter’s affordances and constraints for interaction and how they are different to co-present interaction (500 words)
• 2. Collect at least three sets of Twitter data, consisting of at least four tweets each (preferably more, and you can choose the content/context)
• 3. Using your data, any one (1) of the readings above, at least one (1) other reading from the course, and one (1) other relevant research article that you find yourself, make a case about the adaptation of social action/activity in Twitter (1000 words). Your argument should follow one of these three directions:
• 1. The same as co-present interaction (i.e. nothing new here)
• 2. OR Something from co-present interaction being adapted to Twitter (i.e. same action, new format)
• 3. OR Something new occurring in Twitter that could not occur co-presently (i.e. new, new, new!)

Description

Man is a social animal and he likes to socialize, mix and share his views and ideas with people around him. Different ways and means were devised by man to achieve for the conveyance of his thought. Long distance communication was made possible and more common after telecommunication was introduced. In the era of internet and mailing, micro blogging has become one of the best ways of keeping up with friends and relations. Many interaction options exist on internet like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Linked In, Buzz etc. Each has its own salient and highlighting features. Twitter was developed in 2006 initially to enable sending of text sms restricted to only 140 characters.
The main highlighting feature of Twitter is that it can be used for conversing with individuals, groups or large number of people than just single person. Due to this the thoughts or expressions provided by a person is conveyed to many people or groups at one go. Retweeting is a way of participating in a conversation. It is also a way of rebroadcasting and copying. The thoughts and conversations shared on Twitter through retweeting give rise to a common emotional sharing in relation to that particular context or topic. It can be looked upon as the means of information diffusion and also a means of conversation distribution. Different syntax is used for retweeting such as ‘RT: @’, ‘retweeting @’, ‘retweet @’, ‘(via @)’, RT ‘(via @)’, ‘thx @’, ‘HT @’, ‘r @’. (Boyd et.al.,2010)