EDINBURGH Saturday, Jul 6, 2013, 17:48 IST | Agency: ANI
A recent study revealed that
news agencies continue to have an edge over Twitter in being first to provide
news to viewers.
According to the research, Twitter can only break news before newswires in rare incidences, but for major events there is little evidence that it can replace traditional news outlets.
According to the research, Twitter can only break news before newswires in rare incidences, but for major events there is little evidence that it can replace traditional news outlets.
Twitter's can bring additional
coverage of events, and for sharing news items of interest to niche audiences,
such as local sports results.
Scientists at the Universities
of Edinburgh and Glasgow developed a software algorithm to track Twitter
activity. They used it to study 51 million tweets over 11 weeks in summer 2011
and compared these with output from news outlets for the same period.
Newswires tracked included the
BBC, CNN, Reuters and the New York Times, which seek to set the news agenda and
break news stories ahead of one another.
Scientists were able to
examine Twitter messages relating to major news items. They also identified a
large amount of minor news items that had featured on Twitter but had been
ignored by the mainstream media.
It was mainly for sport and
disaster-related events when Twitter outperformed newswires for speed, the
findings showed.
The study, supported by the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, is to be presented at the
7th International AAAI Conference On Weblogs And Social Media, in Boston, US,
next week.
Dr Miles Osborne, of the
University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, said that Twitter can bring
added value by spreading the word on events that we might not otherwise hear
about, and for bringing local perspectives on major news items.
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