News as Now: Twitter as a medium for news

The affordabilities and constraints of Twitter’s design create a framework of parameters within which users remodel the way in which they produce, distribute and consume news and current affairs information. To begin with, this essay will discuss the features of ‘traditional’ news media – such as print, and television and radio news programs – and blogging in order to lay out a contextual background from which to approach news via Twitter as a remodel of news via these earlier media. Next will be a discussion of the features Twitter’s design borrows from earlier media developments and elements of pre-cursor news media and social networking sites. Specifically, these features are the 140-character limit of Tweets, the chronological organisation of data, and its networking system. Finally this essay will discuss the ways in which these features of Twitter influence the way it is ultimately used to enact the genre of news and transform the way it is produced and consumed via Twitter as a medium.

Distribution of news via Twitter still falls within the genre of ‘news’; as such it is important to explore the facets comprising the genre. As Manovich suggests (How Media Became New), it is important to understand the history and context of ‘old’ media and how they transformed into ‘new’ media in order to actually understand the ‘new’ media. Before the internet, news consumption had several ‘main’ media other than word-of-mouth. The three popular traditional news media are print, and broadcasted programs via television and radio. In each of these, audiences engaged with news at large – often, to access a particular story, one would also be exposed to other topics: filtering through a newspaper, for example, requires news headlines, at the very least, to be read before their relevancy is determined by the reader. Via these media, news is also distributed after a given event occurs. There is a required format and structure that constitutes a news report; a certain amount of information needs to be provided in a certain sequence using a certain discourse to fit the accepted standard of traditional ‘news’. Then it needs to be published or broadcast; there is an accumulation of delays from the moment of the event until the consumption of the related news report.

This is also true of blogging, although the different, online medium allows for standard-format news articles (and even video) to be produced, distributed, and received differently. The article itself may have the same format and discourse, but online it is searchable. It comes with links and tags, and can be copied and pasted and retransmitted with great ease; an article as a blog post can be accessed directly, direct its audience immediately elsewhere, expand its audience beyond geographical boundaries and skip the delay of print and scheduled broadcasting by being published upon completion. “The elements connected through hyperlinks can exist on the same computer or on different computers connected on a network (Manovich, 60)”, with direction controlled by the audience, in a way that traditional news media cannot allow. The convenience is engaging. News-via-blogging is intended for quick, direct consumption, making time an important factor in the relevancy of the article. Tomorrow can be far too late to read ‘news’ as a blog post.

Temporal relevancy is even more important in the way meaning is produced via Twitter, as its design facilitates ‘immediacy’, no matter the Tweet’s genre, reflecting Fuller’s argument that “the ideal of a word processor is that it creates an enunciative framework that remains the same whether what is being written is a love letter or a tax return (It Looks Like You’re Writing a Letter, 146).” Designed for Tweets to be conveniently launched via SMS, Twitter’s arguably ‘main’ feature is its 140-character constraint, which remained even after other platforms for access were incorporated into the software. Obviously something about the limitation was attractive to the users and designers of Twitter.  Similar to blogs, it transcends the geographical restrictions of print, radio, and television.

The character limit encourages posts to be quick, and Twitter is highly accessible – this combination allows news to be broadcast in the moment, from street-level. Via Twitter, news has presence beyond that of other media. News can occur as the event itself does; furthermore, news can be consumed just as immediately. Twitter feeds emphasise this in the design of their display: Tweets are chronologically ordered, second-by-second, in ‘real-time’, updating as you read:

It's hard to stay on top of feeds that update as you read them

Users adapted unintended behaviours from earlier social networking sites into the way they use Twitter, but only those afforded by the technology itself. Twitter, something of a word-processor, is an “enframement that can never be pre-emptive or holistic enough (Fuller, 149)”, an “understanding of language captured and made into a world that describes the possibilities for its use and conceptualisation on behalf of the archetypal user (Fuller, 149).” Common behaviours include: #-tagging, @-user syntax, and ‘double’ URLs constructed to accommodate character limits. Tweets can be retransmitted and repeated – ‘reTweeted’ – and circulate further and faster than any traditional news medium or blog allows. In blogging “the tags that author puts onto each posting let us filter by data, category, author, or other attributes (Lovink, Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse, 3); these features and behaviours also allow users to filter what they come across on Twitter according to the content or author, much in the same way, only in real-time.

These features and behaviours allow for news distribution and consumption to be reworked and for our attitude towards news to be transformed when Twitter is the medium. According to Manovich “new media can be thought of as consisting from two distinct layers: ‘the cultural layer’ and ‘the computer layer’ (Principles of New Media, 63).”  The ‘computer layer’ of Twitter can be “expected to affect the cultural layer (Manovich, 64).”It is not so much, perhaps, that the ‘medium is the message’, as claimed by Marshall McLuhan, as it is that the medium ultimately determines how meaning is made in the message. A quote by Fuller emphasises this: “it has become a commonplace that all speech acts are as much verifiable by their circumstances as by what they actually ‘say’ (156).” Twitter accommodates new understanding of ‘news’ due to contextual features afforded by the technology. ‘News’ has become ‘now’.

During the Iran protests in 2009, and current events in Egypt and Libya, updates complete with #-tags were Tweeted moment-by-moment as the events unfolded. They were reTweeted just as quickly, users directing and referring one another onto more information. When articles began to appear online, tagged Tweets included links to them, redirecting audiences to more information that provided in 140-characters. The audience chooses their own direction of news consumption; and not later, but now – at least sooner than blog posts and online articles can be written and published. As a social networking site, Twitter also allows for interactional broadcasting of news. Users can direct Tweets to one-another, direct replies and reactions to the authors of news in sequential, real-time interaction that largely resembles conversation. This is not afforded by traditional news media. Yet, it is found in the commenting system of blogging. News via blogs or Twitter can potentially be simultaneously public and personal in a way traditional news media could never accomplish. Unlike Tweets, blog comments occur with the post they react to and are sequentially organised. Tweets are temporally organised, encouraging users to behave according to time rather than sequence. A reply that occurs after the original poster has already updated is behind the times. The news has moved on, gone stale. It is no longer ‘breaking news’. It probably will not even be responded to. The newspaper’s headline is also only ‘breaking news’ until the next issue, but that is not until tomorrow, not right ‘now’. Just as “blogs fix the social in a specific manner, and these techno-fixes reflect the broader cultural atmosphere of our time (Lovink, 2), Twitter as a news medium reflects a sociocultural need for immediacy; or perhaps, in reverse, using such technologies was key in developing our need for immediacy in news.

The above video showcases “breaking news” in the 1990s that is received the next morning, rather than immediately.

As technological developments progressed, our conceptualisation of ‘news’ has undoubtedly changed. This is evidenced in the convergence of social networking media with the genre of news. Through online social networking media, news has become easily searchable, networked, interactive, and has overcome geographical limitations. Through Twitter it has become instant – ‘real-time’ – and ‘present’. It is difficult to say if the changes in news media technology positioned people to reconceptualise news itself, or if the constraints and affordabilities of the technologies that allowed the change in news production, distribution and consumption were culturally determined at the level of design. Did we begin using Twitter as a news medium because we had already developed a need for immediacy in our news consumption? Or was it using blogs, and then Twitter, that resulted in this strive for immediacy in news? Most probably, perhaps, it was a process of negotiation between sociocultural attitudes and technology that led to each transforming to complement the other.

Sources Cited
Fuller, Matthew (2003). “It Looks Like You’re Writing a Letter” from Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 137-165.

Lovink, Geert. (2007). “Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse.” Zero Comments: Blogging the Critical Internet Culture. Routledge, 1-38.

Manovich, Lev (2002). “How Media Became New”, & “Principles of New Media.” TheLanguage of New Media. MIT Press. 21-48.

Baby, it’s cold outside

i kind of love that song.

And i kind of love Glee.

And i kind of really, really, really love the cover of it by Darren Kriss and Chris Colfer.

You know,  the one this is from (i just had to, because i love-love this cover oh-so so much) :

And, baby, it’s flippin’ cold outside.

At home we say “It’s like 2 degrees outside” to emphasise that it’s under 20 C (but almost always definitely above 10) and that it’s cold.

2 degrees would be pretty nice right now.

It was -22C on Monday, with windchill bringing it down to -29C, which is the coldest it’s been since i’ve been here.

Montréal is kind of known for being cold – that’s why someone here was innovative enough to connect all the malls and buildings in the city centre so that you can stroll around in the warmth for as long as you possibly can depending on which part you’re in.

But it gets a little worse than just cold: it’s windy. Sometimes. Some days are beautiful and still and sunny and you feel fresh-faced and wonderful walking around white streets under blue skies. Other days are cloudy and dark, and you start to realise that all these skinny little streets that are so charming when the sun’s out can transform, in a matter of moments, into these nasty, cruel wind tunnels.

They come from all directions – i’ve stepped outside on the way to class with snow and the wind striking the back of my legs, only to cross the street and get a blast of icy wind right up under my ears through the gap between my hat and scarf. And, seriously, it is not pleasant.

Monday was cold.

i’ve never been so cold. i was warm at the same time – you learn to dress appropriately pretty quickly. Wool stockings, wool skirt, thermals, good boots, down-filled coat, scarf, hat, mittens. Sunglasses. Having cold eyes is really something no one wants to experience. Lipbalm not gloss – because gloss is sticky and it gets cold. Hunch up, and march off wherever you’re going. Fast.

So i was warm. Ish. The wind went straight through my mittens, and my scarf was up over my chin but not my mouth – that makes my sunnies fog up.

My face ached.

It ached.

Like i’d been punched or like i’d just gone for a run but my face was hurting instead of my legs.

It was the heavy-as-lead type of pain you get deep under your skin – i couldn’t even feel my skin.

i was only outside for 10 minutes, but on the way home, at around 4pm, just before the sun starts setting, i had to duck inside the grocery store to get out of the cold.

i went for a walk around Old Montréal today – i didn’t take pictures, but my friend and i didn’t have enough time to see it all, so i’ll be heading back for a longer adventure sometime soon.

i think it was about -6 or so.

You know you’re learning to deal with a Montréal winter when you can call that ‘warm’.

The problem with the warmer days is the snow melts but the weather is still literally freezing (and i don’t even mean that figuratively) and the pathways and gutters get big clumps of ice everywhere. And it’s slippery as.

i hate slipping over. Everyone who knows me knows exactly why.

Freaks me out – i feel like i’m going to crash into the ground and die or experience some other painful equivalent every single time.

So far i’ve only slipped – i haven’t actually fallen. But my heart will probably give out by the time i come home because of all this stress.

Hopefully i’m going to this hyped up event called IglooFest tomorrow night. i’m under the impression that it’s this big nightly-for-a-few-weeks winter-themed outdoor snow-party reoccuring rave. My roommate is in love with it; she’s been twice this week and she almost burst with excitement when i said i was going. There’s supposed to be a low of -17C tomorrow night, which sounds kind of awful, to be honest.

What’s worse, though, is that it’s also expected to be the high temperature for Monday. Brrrr.

Coffee, chocolate, and church

Easily three of my favourite things, as well as Oxford commas. And pretty snow-dusted streets.

i spent my Saturday pouring over reading after reading and fogging up the bathroom while i washed my hair and just enjoyed being warm for a few precious moments.

It was not as easy and mundane a task as usual, because i am relatively, temporarily handicapped. People talk about opposing thumbs like they’re the most wonderful part about being human (and they absolutely are not: we don’t need thumbs to talk… well, unless you sign, then it might get tricky). Anyway, the issue i have with opposing thumbs at this very moment is that they need something to oppose: an index finger.

The weather was being pretty and whimsical and whirly, and i just absolutely could not leave my camera sitting in my bag anymore now that i’d finally charged it and while the snow was fluttering outside the window. So i grabbed my camera and bundled up in about 20 more layers of clothing and trampled up the stairs onto our terrace to take some photos of a picnic table and box of empty bottles all brushed over with white, white, white. And then my nose got cold so i went back inside and decided to take some more through the window.

Which fogged up. So i wiped it. Absent, absent-mindedly – there’s a crack right down the centre of the pane that’s uglier than Harry Potter’s scar. It can be seen from the other side of the apartment, and i knew it was there.

It’s kind of just a little difficult to wash your hair with your non-dominant hand while you try and keep the other one from getting wet so that the bandaid doesn’t seep everywhere.

Though my Hello Kitty bandaid is really, really cute.

So that was Saturday.

On Sunday i got up early, excited for breakfast because i just love food. Especially late in the morning. Except there were some boys crashing in the lounge room and i just couldn’t bear to wake them. So i just had tea (Earl Grey, please, and go light on the milk) and went off to church.

i’ve been checking out The People’s Church of Montréal in downtown, which is a cute little church that sings old songs from the fifties accompanied by an organ – totally reminiscent of those compulsory services in EMC chapel where everyone pretends to know the words and no one even knows the tune. Except that everyone does know the tune. And the words. And the ceiling is the right height and the acoustics are beautiful. It’s no Citipointe, but it’s quaint and sweet and i think i’m going to really enjoy experiencing church a little differently.

Our sermon was delivered by a Jewish Christian, which would just never happen in Brisbane because, well, there aren’t really any Jewish people in Queensland. But there are in Montréal, and some of them go to my church. And i learned a lot about their culture, and their history, and that some Jewish people are believers and followers of Jesus Christ. Plus a lot of the scripture used on Sunday came from Romans which is totally my favourite. i feel like whenever i need to read a certain something i end up finding it in Romans.

On the way home i managed to take a whole bunch of photos despite my window-mauled finger and refusing to take off my mittens. Everything just looks better covered in snow. Kids look cuter bundled up like little balls of down and fleece and polyester. Puppies wear little coats and booties and frolick in the snow. When snow falls it sparkles if it catches the light and it’s so soft that it just drifts and whirls, shimmering by. Rain is beautiful, but there’s something about snow and the way it’s so gentle and delicate and cold; rain sings and snow whispers.

Before digging my keys out of my bag i did something i’d been eager to do since i first peeked into the Lonely Planet guide to Montreal i got for my birthday: i went to Juliette et Chocolat.

And i sat there, quite comfortably on my own, tapping my finger at this and that on the menu. Hot chocolates ranked by their vintage and bitterness. Crepes, and cakes, and chocolate fondants. How could anyone ever choose? i’d heard good things about the brownies, so i sort of already had it in my head that i’d try one.

i wasn’t really counting, but i think the menu listed about 7 different brownies which i tried to choose from while i sipped the best macchiato i’ve ever had. Fleur de sel appealed to me, with its salty caramel fondant and sauce, and white and dark chocolate brownie. It was all mushy and hot and soft in that way brownies should be when they’re covered in that much caramel. i didn’t actually realise there were chunks of white chocolate cake in there until i bit into a bit – and it was a wonderful surprise.

The best part was that it was so rich i took forever to eat it and it cooled down before i finished, turning all crispy at the edges and chewy in the middle, which is kind of just how i love my brownies to be.

i live less than a minute’s walk away, so i’ve decided i will just have to try all of their brownies by the time i part with Montréal. i’m not even going to try to resist. Why would i even want to?

Talking of winter wonderlands

i pinched this picture off weheartit. There are a few famous panoramics of the Montréal skyline and of Mont Royal, but there’s something rather special about a snow-dusted city sparkling in the night time. Looking at this picture i feel the same way that i feel about living here: absolutely captivated.

After the initial bumps that come with arriving in a new city are all smoothed out (read: cards not working, jet lag, severe dehydration, taking a regrettable wrong turn when it’s -12 and breezy) the first few weeks are supposed to be the most enjoyable. i’ll enjoy them as much as i can, because ‘they’ say that things go sour somewhere in the middle. The concept of Montréal ever being something other than mesmerising is entirely unfathomable to me; i’m certain – and perhaps naively so – that this spell is only going to lull me over more, more, more.

Everything is shiny and new, yes, which certainly garners a lot of simple intrigue. But it’s also oh-so beautiful. And there’s these charming old buildings and busy streets and crisp, cold breezes, and boys in jackets and scarves who say “bonjour”, underground malls with millions of fountains, book stores and book stores, rue this and parc that, and snow. Winter clothes can be beautiful; i bubble up with glee everytime i put on my new boots and my pretty red coat (and a few people, much to my delight, have stopped me on the street with graciously accepted compliments about it). i will never tire of this place; i will always find something new to fall in love with here, and if not, i’m content with the old sort of love i’ll have for things i’ve already found.

Montréal is hardly a new city, but so far i’ll say i’m falling for her. Moving from the quiet streets of Cairns to a bustling Brisbane was one thing; arriving in a city that seems so overwhelmingly much more of a city than Brisbane seemed a little impossible until it happened.

This city is small, yet large. It doesn’t exactly take the breath out of your lungs to walk across town – and thank goodness it’s a quick trip because it’s only going to get colder from now, apparently – but Montréal seems more. There are more people speaking every other language; it’s not just people chattering away in a smattering of English before swapping into a very different kind of Français – i’ve overheard enough bits and pieces of a billion other languages (well, almost, but not quite) to know that multiculturalism reaches a whole new level in this charming city. There are Vietnamese pho stores on every corner, clothing stores tailored to suit the tastes of young 2nd and 3rd generation Italians, Polish church services, a law mandating that every sign in must be in French, Schwartz’s and bagels, Indonesienne restaurants that serve Malaysian food, and what seems to be hundreds of Australian exchange students.

So far it’s been hovering around -5C, which is actually kind of pleasant if the wind isn’t blowing snow into your face and your ears and hands are covered up. There’s something i enjoy about walking over slightly snowy pathways, leaving foot prints, with a cold face and warm body. i sometimes feel colder inside, once my coat, mittens and hat come off. 18 degrees feels hot after -5, but when you’ve been sitting around inside in just a cotton dress for a little while 18 degrees feels like just 18 degrees again, and that’s a little too cool for a girl from the tropics to be without a light cardigan.

Several different forecasts are predicting a dip to a high of something between -11 and -15 for a few days in a row in a week or so. Admittedly, i’m a little terrified. Thankfully, the worst day is supposed to be a Friday and i have been lucky enough to schedule classes to allow for a 3-day weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

A Matter of Time

Anyone who knows my family – or at least my mother’s family – knows that the women are always late.

It may well be our family curse. My grandmother was bad, and my mother is easily the worst. My father is so far the other way that he just gets frustratingly anxious whenever there is some sort of deadline looming – even a mere dinner reservation; he’s so anti-tardiness that rather than serving as an antidote to the Lewis Lateness,  timeliness in my family just deteriorates further.

Perhaps, though, the mixing of the two has had the right effect on the next generation; my brother and i seem to have it balanced.

And yet, here i am, about a week into my journey and only starting my travelogue now, when i’d planned to begin with a pre-departure post about the perils of packing and the uncertainty and nerves that come with preparing to leave a tropical summer behind to plunge into the middle of a Canadian winter the same day.

i flew from Cairns to Auckland. NZ never seemed special, until i saw the gentle hills and shimmering water from the window of a descending plane and decided that i’ll have to visit one day. In the two hours before my next flight i did little but find three other students from UQ attending McGill this winter who were also connecting to Vancouver. Excited, we all sort of just sat around and grinned and giggled and buzzed about being one 14-hour step away from Canada.

Fourteen hours is not a desirable amount of time to sit in the same place, no matter if they serve you wine and coffee and candy while you watch the beginning of every movie ever before getting bored and switching and sleeping and staring at the map, wondering why you’re just not there yet.

But it’s worth it. Because you’re going to Canada, right, and it’s winter.  And you’ve never seen snow before so, like, this is it. Snow. Right when you arrive. The last hour of the flight isn’t so bad, actually, because now there’s really something to look forward to.

Except not really, because it was probably just under 10C in Vancouver that day. Anti-climatic to say the least. Bare tarmac and grey fields are all you get upon arrival, besides a little glimpse of patches of white here and there on the dark mountains in the distance.

Boxing Day sales in Vancouver were an experience. i will never complain about packed shopping centres again. Except that i will, of course.

Out of the four of us, only two connected through to Montreal that day, flying out of a nighttime Vancouver, blazoned with thousands of pinprick orange lights arranged along streets that looked like glowing golden threads from the distance. i want to say smouldering, because gold isn’t orange, but i’ve been reading some terrible 20th century poetry this week, and i’m not really into words with too much imagery right now. Maybe next week, but for now i’ll rely on simplicity and syntax. And alliteration, which is, of course, my favourite.

That sight was pretty enough to forgive Vancouver’s lack of snow until, sleep-deprived and hayfevered (i don’t like the word ‘feverish’ with prefixes), i almost froze to death on the plane. i’d wanted to sleep. Boxing Day had been the longest day in history. Flying out at 10am into NZ and the future, then back to the past, arriving in Vancouver at midday, when i’d already been through noon that day somewhere between Cairns and Auckland. 10 hours in Vancouver was spent being intimidated by a cute but scary immigration officer, roaming the town, giving up seats on the bus for old ladies because every other kid ignored them, and enjoying free wifi in the airport instead of sleeping, because i could do that on the plane.

But i couldn’t. i’d nod off, and wake up moments later because i’d shifted in that little sliver of sleep and lost the warmth of however i’d been sitting. Constantly. By the time we got to Montréal i was cold, tired, hungry, and man, did my head hurt.

There was a moment of reprieve, however, when we started flying over large expanses of white, white, white stretching far and wide beneath us, right up to the edge of still grey waters that may well have been frozen. The wee hours of the morning, it was still dark. As we got closer to the ground we could make out the houses, with snow in their yards and Christmas lights sparkling on the rooftops, and orange light shining out of windows onto the snow. We were flying into a wonder world, all gossamer and fairylights, and a pale, swirling early-morning fog that shimmered over the lamplights. Snow makes everything seem magical.

And then the French started. To me it seems that when you speak and understand a little of a language that is about THIS far from enough of that language, it feels like people talk at you rather than to you. And no matter how well you understand what people are saying, when you feel sober-hungover and hungry, everyone is talking at you. At At AT.

A far-from quick trip to the bathroom followed our arrival, because the temperature on the plane wasn’t anything compared to outside the airport, and about 40 extra layers of clothes were in order. Pulling leggings on under jeans, kicking shoes off to put on a pair of wool socks, another shirt, a cardigan, a coat, a scarf, a hat, – and, bugger, where on earth were my gloves?

-12 degrees C. And blustery.

That’s what Jayde and i stepped out into. A few times. Back and forth, before we figured out the airport shuttle system.

We both jumped off at the central bus station before braving the weather and walking our seperate ways to nearby hostels. Mine was only just up the road and around the corner (though i wasn’t really sure), but after about a minute i couldn’t really tell if my face was still attached and the chilling, river-swept winds were trying to claw me to death – i had to step inside what i think might have been a metro station for a minute or two to warm up before venturing out again.

Then i slept right until the next morning without getting up once. Severely dehydrated, i couldn’t stomach food until Wednesday so i stayed inside, trying to drink water and keep it down, while my head hurt and hurt and hurt and i feared that i was going to flush all my electrolytes out and have a seizure as my mother once had done years ago.

So it wasn’t such a pleasant start. But the rest of the week turned out wonderful and uncannily warm for Montréal (which is, basically, nothing short of freezing to anyone from north QLD) and now it’s New Year’s Day, the yesterday of my home. i tend to put in a conscious effort not to be late because i don’t want to be like all the other Late Lewis Women, but while i’m here and writing this for home, i cannot help but be a day late.

i’ll say more about my first week a little later, but i’m hungry and haven’t taken any pictures yet, so it can wait.