Before going to David Bornstein's Media Ethics lecture titled "Solution Journalism: Responsibility, Entrepreneurship, & Change", I had only live tweeted hockey games while sitting on my couch. The ability to give my own commentary on a major sporting event is really empowering for myself. Depending on my followers, they may either completely agree with my tweeting and enjoy it, or unfollow me after my fifth tweet.
However, I did not find the same experience live-tweeting the event for #loweclass #sports. While I enjoy live tweeting sporting events, I felt like live tweeting an event like this was more distracting than educational.
I did not find actually tweeting the event not to be the difficult part. I tweeted 17 times while at the event, along with retweeting five of my classmates tweets. So if you don't get math like us journalists, I tweeted 22 times while at a lecture that lasted for around an hour. So I was able to tweet easily and often, and feel like someone who wasn't at the lecture could get an understanding of what was going on.
I, however, could not tell you clearly what Bornstein talked about in his lecture. I was too busy live-tweeting.
Each tweet took about 20 to 30 seconds to type, and I was completely focused on tweeting, and not paying attention to what Bornstein was saying. So I lost around seven to eight minutes of Bornstein talking to tweeting. And once I got comfortable tweeting, I started selectively listening. I feel like as a journalist, I have a knack of picking out quotes that are important. So if a sentence was not going to be something to tweet about, I would not pay attention. I would also be looking for my classmates' tweets to see if there was anything to retweet.
So, because I was live tweeting, my focus was not on the speaker but Twitter. If I were a speaker, I would not have wanted students to be more focused on their phone than on what I was saying. Tweeting could be a form of note taking, but those notes would be more of quotes, not overarching themes from the lecture, which is what people remember more.
I understand that Twitter serves as one of the most popular news resources for my generation. It is where I get the majority of my news. But live-tweeting a small event is not news, its just annoying for the person live-tweeting, the speaker, and the followers. I may be biased, but keep it for big time events.
However, I did not find the same experience live-tweeting the event for #loweclass #sports. While I enjoy live tweeting sporting events, I felt like live tweeting an event like this was more distracting than educational.
I did not find actually tweeting the event not to be the difficult part. I tweeted 17 times while at the event, along with retweeting five of my classmates tweets. So if you don't get math like us journalists, I tweeted 22 times while at a lecture that lasted for around an hour. So I was able to tweet easily and often, and feel like someone who wasn't at the lecture could get an understanding of what was going on.
I, however, could not tell you clearly what Bornstein talked about in his lecture. I was too busy live-tweeting.
Each tweet took about 20 to 30 seconds to type, and I was completely focused on tweeting, and not paying attention to what Bornstein was saying. So I lost around seven to eight minutes of Bornstein talking to tweeting. And once I got comfortable tweeting, I started selectively listening. I feel like as a journalist, I have a knack of picking out quotes that are important. So if a sentence was not going to be something to tweet about, I would not pay attention. I would also be looking for my classmates' tweets to see if there was anything to retweet.
So, because I was live tweeting, my focus was not on the speaker but Twitter. If I were a speaker, I would not have wanted students to be more focused on their phone than on what I was saying. Tweeting could be a form of note taking, but those notes would be more of quotes, not overarching themes from the lecture, which is what people remember more.
I understand that Twitter serves as one of the most popular news resources for my generation. It is where I get the majority of my news. But live-tweeting a small event is not news, its just annoying for the person live-tweeting, the speaker, and the followers. I may be biased, but keep it for big time events.
Ladies and gentlemen, #muethics is now trending in Milwaukee.twitpic.com/aw2xl6
— Christopher Chavez (@Chris_J_Chavez) September 18, 2012
Live-tweeting the @dnbornstein lecture seems a little ironic #muethics
— Sarah Butler (@sarahfbutler) September 18, 2012
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