Twitter. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that it has a big presence in the media industry. I, personally, have had my (personal) Twitter account since 2011, and within this eight year period, I have learnt to love the website for it’s easily accessible news, as well as it’s plethora of memes (although that is not this blog post’s focus). Naturally, the type of ‘news’ I was looking at when I was 12 is different to what I would be reading today, but nonetheless, I have always found Twitter to be plenty reliable in both a public and private sense.
Co-founders Evan Williams, and Jack Dorsey own the majority of the company; the former having the largest shareholding of 46.56 million shares, whilst the latter owns
16.6 million (Forbes, 2019). However, the beauty of news on Twitter is the abundance of different sources coming from a range of companies and individuals, rendering the owners of the company not as important – in this aspect at least.
This means that for practically every story, every reportable news incident, there is a multitude of sources, all easily accessible with a few effortless taps on a screen or clicks on a computer. Further, having such a broad range of professional and public outlooks means that readers are able to readily obtain their news, as well as form an opinion on the matter by doing further digging. Conveniently, Twitter gathers all relevant tweets for that topic together, subsequently allowing for an easy flow for maximum information absorption.
Obviously, not every source is official, or in Twitter terms, ‘verified’, but having access to the public’s personal opinions on matters allows viewers, such as myself, to gain a deeper understanding of the situation in question. This form of communication isn’t necessarily passive as Twitter allows for anyone to live tweet about any story, meaning that users can actively interact with each other in order to further voice their opinions on certain topics of interest.
As more and more official news companies join the ever-growing population of Twitter users, the news forum on the website is becoming more trustworthy than ever, allowing audiences to be up to date with current affairs, and simultaneously, have their voices heard.
(Twenty-ninth of March 2019)
References
Forbes, 2019, Evan Williams, Forbes, viewed 29th March 2019, <https://www.forbes.com/profile/evan-williams/#324cc2112134>
Forbes, 2019, Jack Dorsey, Forbes, viewed 29th March 2019, <https://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-dorsey/#493113912372>
Image: http://makeminemini.blogspot.com/2014/11/old-newspaper-collage-sheets-for-your.html
in omnia paratus 
Really interesting blog post! in particular what you said about how we have access to multiple stories and opinions even on one single event at our fingertips was honestly an eye opener for me. I always seem to forget just how lucky we are that we have such ease of access to information. because this ease of access is more than just informations really, it gives us more than just the facts, it means that now so much of our understanding of the world is shaped by more than just what happens in our area, or state, or even our country but by international events. I think it is so important to stay informed about the world we live in and, as you pointed out, because of social media sites like twitter we are able to do that and not only that but we can keep up with world events whilst also enjoying a healthy smattering of memes.
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