New Forms of Media Publishing

Twitter is a social networking website that allows people to micro blog, upload, download and comment on to share with others. Twitter acts as a tool which is capable of changing opinions and an outlook completely. Information from Twitter is also obtained rather easily as clicking on the trending topics tab would unveil everything. The trending topics can range from anything to everything. Walsh (2006) also opined that textual shift has taken place from monomodal to multimodal that includes different modes of communication, for example videos.

This further backs Twitter to be one of the best and newest social media tool in our media hungry world today. Journalists can actually capitalise on what the new media has to offer as people are often seeking for new things. Naughton (2006) says that, internet makes people much better informed by providing them with formidable resources which to become more knowledgeable.

This is one of the few reasons that journalists should not see the emergence of a micro blogging site as a threat to their profession. In addition, they need not worry about distance as communication can be easily done even by sitting behind your desk. Journalists not only can reach out to a limited spectrum of viewers, but worldwide acknowledgement is imminent if this continues. Schriver (1997) mentions that it is vital to combine well-designed image with text because readers gain better understanding than text or image alone. Twitter has the potential to futher develop as solely being a micro blogging and file sharing medium. Journalists should be well aware of its potential, ultimately conforming to its nature, and using it to their advantage.

Reference

1) Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, Reuters Institute, viewed 25 August 2011,

2) Schriver, K 1997, Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers, The Interplay of Words and Pictures, pp361-441, viewed 25 August 2011

3) Walsh, M 2006, 'Textual shift: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', in Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp24-37, viewed 25 August 2011.