Academics Twittering on
Claire Ross
Research Assistant
Department of Information Studies
University College London

Email: claire.ross@ucl.ac.uk
Webpage:https://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/claire-ross/
twitter:http://twitter.com/clairey_ross
Blog: http://claireyross.wordpress.com/
pointless babble or enabled backchannel?
digital backchannel
#dh09
#thatcamp
#drha09
#drha2009
4574 Tweets
326 Twitter users
77308 tokens
twitter conventions
polarisation
Awareness of the backchannel
"Top Tweeters"
Motivation for using Twitter
purpose of Tweeting during conferences
use of #'s
does Twitter enable a more participatory culture?
Textual Analysis
Open coded analysis
lack of feedback
nervousness of asking questions
single speaker paradigm

"non verbal, real-time comminucation 
which does not interrupt a presenter or event"
  Ynege 1970
twapperkeeper.com
RT
@
link
disparaging and disrespectful
"I use Twitter as a form of note-taking and information sharing"

"I wanted to both regurgitate and aggregate good points for people attending and people not attending."

"1. reporting out to people who aren't there
2. note taking, but in public
3. backchannel"

To make the proceedings more of a discussion (including with those not at the conference"

"As a record for myself for later,"


Does Twitter enable a more particpatory conference culture?
"Absolutely. Instead of zoning out, I can now be an active participant in more than just the question and answer portion of a panel. It allows the audience to interact with the presenters and with one another."
"I have been unimpressed by backchannels presented on conference podiums behind speakers. I find they distract from the presentation. I think tweeting should be silent and discreet."
"Certainly. There have been famous cases where the backchannel turns ugly, with people tweeting harsh criticisms of the speaker while s/he is speaking (this happened to danah boyd at the Web 2.0 expo, for instance, and to a speaker from Ruckus at a conference of web developers from higher education), but so far that hasn't happened at a DH conference."
Frequency             Word

2243                        thatcamp
1917                        dh
752                           http
603                           s
488                          digital
400                          m
311                           t
302                           rt
294                          drha
277                          humanities
268                          bit
267                          briancroxall
258                          ly
243                          elli
232                          amandafrench
204                          session
200                          up
199                          dancohen
195                          com
187                          nowviskie

90:9:1
community 
of 
practice
uneveness 
of 
participation
90:9:1
90% lurk
9% contribute from time to time
1% participate a lot
power #fail
TEXT
comments on presentations
sharing resources
discussions/conversations
jot down notes
establish online presence
post organisational questions
ambiguous
Jot down notes:
Dh09Twitteruser: French: humanities are already
 digital, but not digitally literate. #Dh09
Comments on presentations:
Dh09Twitteruser: really enjoyed 
@dhTwitteruser1 presentation on how 
she used MONK tool to read Stein #dh09
Establishing online presence:
Dh09Twitteruser: Just remembered I 
have binary M&M’s. Oh joy of Joy’s!
Post organisational questions:
thatcampTwitteruser: what’s the trajectory of learning ‘digital’ things in dh? Simple skills that build into deeper understanding? #thatcamp
sharing resources: ThatcampTwitteruser: http://www.speculativecomputing.org/ivanhoe/ IVANHOE: A game of critical interpration #thatcamp
Discussions/conversations:
ThatcampTwitteruser1: @thatcampTwitteruser2 I’ll have to think about it. They’re not totally orthogonal, but seem so in practice. #thatcamp
so what does all of this mean?
photo from mw2009 flickr pool
photo from mw2009 flickr pool
adapated from museum 2.0 blog
adpated from museum 2.0 blog
photo from Dannh Boyd blog
photo from mw2009 flickr pool