Twitter is a social networking and microblogging site that enables people to post 140character statuses and messages called 'tweets.' Users can send and receive tweets and subscribe to other users' tweets (known as 'following'.) Users have no public 'profile' therefore share a limited amount of personal information. This means that many celebrities use Twitter, as it allows them to communicate information such as tour dates and if they wish, communicate directly with their fans.
Twitter has not only changed the way celebrities communicate with their fans, it has also affecting the way people access and hear about news. Twitter means that people can 'tweet' about a news story as it happens, without having to go through any institutions. This also means that there is no gatekeeping; people can decide what they think is newsworthy and share it instantly. Twitter also has a feature known as 'trending topics' meaning that if loads of people are posting about one particular topic, it will appear at the side of all users' screens as trending. This means that many users find out about big and breaking news stories through Twitter first. 'Trending topics" can also help to spread awareness of a particular campaign or news story, as was the case with the Riven Vincent and Mumsnet story.
Twitter has also made it into the news as the subject of many stories and can be said to be changing the news in that way as well. A recent example is the case of Sarah Baskerville, an adminstration manager in the Department for Transport who posted some unprofessional tweets ('She was critical of the coalition's cuts, attacked Downing Street "spin" and told her 700 followers that the leader of a training course she attended was "mental"') that ended up being printed by The Daily Mail and The Independent on Sunday. She complained to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) that she had a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when she made them. She also pointed to a disclaimer on her Twitter page that her tweets represented her views and not those of her employer. However the PCC ruled in favour of the newspapers, stating that the fact that tweets are publicly accessible on the web was a key consideration. "It was quite clear that the potential audience for the information was actually much larger than the 700 people who followed the complainant directly, not least because any message could easily be retweeted to a wider audience," the regulator said.
This story shows that Twitter is not only changing the way the general public can access news, but also the way the press access stories too. If celebrities publish tweets these can then be used as quotes to back up stories by the press and with the PCC saying that it is acceptable behaviour it may well start to become a more regular occurrence.
Link to original news story;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8311522/Twitter-messages-not-private-rules-press-watchdog.html
