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ABSTRACT
This study examined the place of twitter as a social media in the present day mass communication using students of Ken Saro- Wiwa Polytechnic, Bori. It was found from the study that social media has moved from being just interactive to a form of mass media. Therefore, there have been attempts to extend to social media has been predicated as a strong force in a shaping public opinion especially in issues of politics, social causes business and sexuality. Social media has also been an expression of the complexities between the media and society. This stems from the fact that much of social media is user-generated content. Although there have been a great amount of reception of this new media, a lot of it is met with suspicion especially regarding issues of privacy and security. It is therefore recommended among others that There is need for twitter and other social media users to ensure they understand why they are joining the social media site in the first place so that they would not be overcome by any negative impacts but rather they can use these sites for maximum benefit.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Today technology has made more universal, the ability to produce media. Printing, radio and television are some examples of mass media in that they are intended to reach vast audiences. But these forms of media previously could not be produced readily by the average person.
The advent of relatively inexpensive, personal media technologies like blogging, podcasting and internet video allowed the average literate person to do what was therefore restricted to media companies. These forms of media are still referred to as new but they have become part of society even as much as the traditional media in some parts of the world. In a few years, the term “new media” might not be very suitable because these forms are becoming part of our daily lives and the fusion with traditional media might dilute the fact that it is new.
Social media is a form of electronic communication which facilitates interaction based on certain interests and characteristic. Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social dialogues. They support the democratization of knowledge and information and transform people from content consumers to content consumers.
ORIGIN OF TWITTER
The first unassisted off-earth twitter message was posted from the international space station by NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer on January 22, 2010 by late November 2010, an average of a dozen updates per day were posted on the astronauts communal account, @NASA- Astronauts. NASA has also hosted over 25 “tweetups”, events that provide guests with VIP access to network to further the outreach goals of NASA.
In August 2010, the company appointed Adam Bain as President of Revenue from News Corps Fox Audience Network. On September 14, 2010, Twitter launched a redesigned site including a new logo.
GROWTH OF TWITTER
The company experienced rapid growth. It has 400. 000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007. This grew to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008. In February 2010, twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day. By March 2010, the company recorded over 70, 000 registered applications. As of June 2010, about 65 million tweets were posted each day. Equals about 750 tweets sent each second, according to twitter. As of March 2011, that was about 140 million tweets posted daily. As noted on compete com, twitter moved up to the third-highest-ranking social network site in January 2009 from its previous rank of twenty- second. Jack Dorsey, a co-founder and the chairman of twitter, in 2009.
Twitters usage spikes during prominent events. For example, a record was set during the 1010 FIFA world cup when fans wrote 2, 940 tweets per second in the thirty-second period after Japan scored against Cameroon on June 14, 2010. The record was broken again when 3, 085 tweets per second were posted after Lost Angeles Lakers’ Victory in the 2010 NBA finals on June 17, 2010, and then again at the close of Japan victory over Denmark in the world cup when users published 3, 283 tweets per second. The current record was set during the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final between Japan and the United states, when 7, 196 tweet per second were published. When American singer Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, twitter servers crashed after users were updating their status to include the worlds “Michael Jackson” at a rate of 100, 000 tweets per hour.
Twitter acquired application developer Atebits on April 11, 2010. Atebits has developed the Apple design Award-winning twitter clienttwee tie for the Mac and iphone. The application, now called “Twitter” and distributed free of charge, is the official twitter client for the iphone, ipad and Mac.
From September through October 2010, the company began rolling out “New Twitter”, an entirely revamped edition of twitter. com. Changes included the ability to see pictures and videos without leaving twitter itself by clicking on individual tweens which contain links to images and clips from a variety of supported websites including Youtube and Flickr, and a complete overhaul of the interface, which shifted links such as ‘@mentions’ and ‘Retweets’ above the twitter stream, while ‘messages’ and ‘Log out’ became accessible via a black bat at the very top of twitter.com. As of November 1, 2010, the company confirmed that the “new Twitter Experience” had been rolled out to all users.
On April 5, 2011, twitter tested a new homepage and phased out the “Old twitter. However, a glitch came about after the page was launched, so the previous “retro” homepage was still in use until in use until the issues were resolved; the new homepage was reintroduced on April 20.
On December 8, 2011, Twitter overhauled its website once more to feature the “Fly” design, which the service says is easier for new users to follow and promotes advertising. In addition to the Home tab, the connect and discover tabs were introduced along with a redesigned profile, and timeline of tweens. The site’s layout has been compared to that of Facebook.
On February 21, 2012, it was announced that twitter and Yandex agreed to a partnership. Yandex, a Russian search engine, finds value within the partnership due to twitter’s real time news feeds. Twitter’s director of business development explained that it is important to have twitter content where twitter users go.
On March 21, 2012, twitter celebrated its sixth birthday while also announcing that it has 140 million users and sees 340 million tweets per day. The number of users is up 40% from their September 2011 number, which was said to have been at 100 million at the time.
In April 2012, twitter announced that it was opening an office in Detroit, with the aim of working with automotive brands and advertising agencies. Twitter also expanded its office Dublin.
On June 4, 2012, twitter announced the purchase of Washington D. C. based web design agency Nclud. Upon the purchase, Nclud’s co-founder and director of brand experience, martin Ringlein, was named Twitter’ new design manager, on June 5, a modified logo was unveiled through the company blog =, removing the text to showcase the slightly redesigned brid as the sole symbol of twitter.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Twitter is ranked as one of the ten-most visited websites worldwide by Alexa’s web traffic analysis. Daily user estimates vary as the company does not publish statistics on active accounts.
It is recorded that at least 2 million and seven hundred Nigerians are on twitter, with a good number of them being young (Twitter statistics, 2010). However, there is no comprehensive knowledge of their activities as well as how this form of media can impact on various aspects of life. This work examines the relationship between social media and its usage by Nigerian youths.
The study specifically focuses on the usage habits of young Nigerians and how social media has affected their communication and socialization habits.
1.3 PURPOSE OR OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
- The objective of this research is to analyze the social medial issue which can be used to educate and inform the general public on the use of social media especially twitter and facebook.
- To analyze some of the benefits of social media among people.
- To understand how the use of social media has influenced the social cultural behavior of Nigeria youth.
- To study the effects of social media on people.
- To highlight the success of using social medial in this present ICT era.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- To what extent do people use social media as a means of communication and interaction in politics?
- How much of time do people devote to chatting and interacting on twitter?
- Why do people prefer using twitter and other social media in Nigeria?
- What activities do people engage in on twitter?
- To what extent is twitter beneficial to people?
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Fundamentally, it is essential we understand current usage and behavior and identify potential problems so they can bead dressed. This can be seen in the amount of academic studies on social media within the last seven years.
However, Danah Boyd has gathered a collection of research about social networking sites that list approximately one hundred and fifty research papers, three books, and seven research reports published in the year 2003. 2010. (Boyd, 2010) none of these papers cover African. This shows a lack of research that concerns the African region and especially Nigeria where this form of media is greatly used.
Therefore the overall motivation for conducting this study is to contribute to research about social media in Nigeria.
This research should also create a platform for further research in this field and how it affects business processes as well as other spheres of life. This research should provide useful date for market researchers, marketing and product development professionals as well as educators as to how they can maximize social media for optimum benefit in their various fields.
1.6 SCOPE OF DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This investigation focused specifically on the usage habits of users of twitter in the present era of ICT in Nigeria.
1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Although this study has accomplished the purpose, which it sets out to achieve, one of the very limitations is that the validity of the result or finding is defending on the honesty of the respondent in providing the needed information.
Due to constraint of time and money, it is difficult to carry out the research extensively. This led to the limiting of the scope. Cognizance was also taken to the fact that the academic calendar was too short and academic workload was enormous, as a result of this, no time to run around for the work.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
SOCIAL MEDIA: A group of internet-based applications that builds on the ideological and technological foundations of web 2.0 and that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content, ( Kaplan and Heinlein, 2010)
SOCIAL SKILLS: Any skills facilitating interaction and communication with others. Social rules and relations are ways through a process called socialization.
CYBERSPACE: This is the electrons medium of computer network, in which online communication takes place.
BLOGS: A blog ( a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.
VLOGS: Video blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging of vidblogging is a form of blogging for which the medium is video, and is a form of internet television. Entries often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata.
INSTANT MESSAGING: Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real- time direct text based communication between two or more people using shared clients. The text is conveyed via devices connected over a network as the internet.
TWITTER: This is one of the social networking service and microblogging service that enables users to send and read text based messages of up to 140 characters known as tweets.