The Contemporary Approach to Information Ecology

Stephanie Coller, Michelle brown, Nachole Carlson, Liz Baroni

Rowan University, 201 Mullica Hill Rd
New Jersey, United States
michellebeanbrown@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Microblogging such as the social networking website Twitter is a new recent technology that
affects the way people write and think. In this white paper, we will take a close look at Twitter to
elaborate and explain the use of collaboration and writing within microblogging, which aims to
help in the creation of knowledge. For this project, we aim to better understand and update the
construction of information ecologies. Our findings suggest that Twitter accomplishes the task of
modernizing this eleven year old theory. We yearn to stress how Twitter uses collaboration
within a network, how it promotes, and how it allows communication as a tool, as well as how it
is changing the definition of writing.

Keywords Microblog : Technology : Information : Ecology : Literacy : Twitter

Introduction
Twitter is a social networking site that uses the tool of microblogging because it allows only 140
characters in each post, making a limit on what is typed. These mini blogs on Twitter are called
as tweets. Due to this limit, meaning is essential when creating a desired message. Users can
repost the tweet or reply to them, and anything can be blogged about from new ideas to simple
everyday life occurrences. Twitter now makes it easier to “open up channels for collaboration
and communication between researchers in divergent areas” by the networking system it
contains, therefore making Twitter a large digital ecology [6]. Users depend on Twitter to
microblog, and microblogging depends on its users to work, creating coordination between
unknown minds to another. The use of writing has expanded since the ecology of Twitter has
existed, changing the old ways that people communicate with words because of its character
limit and use of collaboration.
 Twitter

Microblogging

Personal Professional

Phatic/thin tweets Thick tweets

Promote
Social, not
Do not contain Contain useful collaboration and
expecting reply,
useful information information ellicit
not informative
responses/sharing

Networking with Collaboration

In order to obtain new information by microblogging, the system of networking must collide
with collaboration. Twitter allows the exchanging of ideas to be instant. The information given
through constant tweets is then used to fulfill a purpose. Twitter is like a “virtual water cooler”
[7]. It pours out massive information from a large gallon of swimming ecologies full of thriving
networking systems of collaboration. As part of ecology, microblogging depends on its users to
function which changes writing by causing diversity and evolution of ideas and information. This
in turn, effects how its users think. “Information ecology begins with our own efforts to
influence the shape and direction of the technologies we use and the settings in which we use
them” [6].

Understanding the Tools of Microblogging

Using microblogging on twitter to collaborate allows people to constantly converse in an easy
manner. This becomes especially useful when it comes to gaining or learning important
information. This affects how we write by applying the addition of the learned information or
idea in any case of writing. But first, the users of twitter must know how the technology of the
website works in order to utilize it to their own extent.
Once a person is knowledgeable in knowing the tools of twitter, they can create meaning
through their words in which they post or in other words, through interaction. “Technology
literacy is recognition that the tools we find and create in our environment are extensions of
ourselves” [8]. In order to complete an objective, it is important to be technologically literate and
to understand a tool beyond its surface. Microblogging is all in one a promotional tool, a learning
tool, a socializing tool, etc.

An Education through Microblogging

People become more and more educated as they freely gain and give away data even if the goal
is to simply communicate. “The microblogging tool of Twitter was used in an English course for
native speakers of Chinese” [1]. In the class, the students had to tweet each other and other users
to practice and to learn better the English language, making Twitter useful in an academic way.
Because the Chinese students were taught how to use the technology of twitter and make use of
its microblogging tool, they gained an education out of it. This exemplifies Enos and Laur’s
assertions according to how the heuristics in the rhetoric of microblogging creates an epistemic
process. “The social coherence and social interaction provided in online learning communities
enable the exchange of information, and they further provide part of the motivation for the
learners”[4].

Promoting Information
Twitter is a networking website that can be mainly used to promote useful information that
allows others to be attracted in order to succeed in collaborating with fresh ideas. Users such as
bloggers and business companies find microblogging as a good means for promoting and for
communication. One great example is Barack Obama, who used Twitter to promote his
campaign before he became president, and was followed by more than 100,000 people [3].
Microblogging has “become important elements of enterprise collaboration platforms, expanding
the options that employees have for communication and cooperating beyond the traditional tools
like e-mail, shared files and instant messaging”[2]. The importance of the fact that people can
now promote their writing through a microblog is extremely huge because it leads to new
discoveries of writing, language and ideas. The network of Twitter's ecology gives new writing
the option to be read around all over the internet world which can create an impact.
Our Tweets of Research

Our research consisted of our own use of Twitter, and our observations from microblogging and
other replying feedback from others within our network. Within our findings, we found that
Twitter remains a great source for collaboration, sharing of ideas, promotion of blogs and
information. It works as a giant web of network systems that continue to stretch outward, as well
as create and impact writing of all genres. We as a group have used microblogging to collaborate
with each other on this very white paper, and have found successful results.
 Our beginning tweets were rather thin. Their messages were to the point and
uninteresting. This does not always catch the interest of viewers. The aim is to get them to click
and read our information, then provide feedback and communicate their views. In order to catch
the interest a follower, one must use a combination of phatic and professional
microbloggs/tweets. However, as our knowledge of Twitter increased, our tweets became
stronger. We started to use intriguing quotes to capture the audience our blogs were directed to.
We figured out how to hash tag our tweets (categorize them into groups) so those who are
interested in the same areas can maneuver through them easily. This caused us to be successful
in using the social networking device to communicate and collaborate on our projects as well as
share information. We let others know what we’re doing, why we are doing it and accepted
feedback. We put our information out into the technological world like so many have been doing
since Twitter existed. Our research represents development in the users who were once
uneducated in Twitter’s tools. Meanwhile, other knowledgeable Twitter users continue to
participate in the information ecology microblogging presents and allows.

Christa Teston’s Tweets

Here we propose one other example of a microblogger that uses Twitter to advantage. Professor
Christa Teston, an Intro to Writing Arts professor at Rowan University, has exemplified a
partnership developed via twitter. She has collaborated with another professor from a completely
different area to collaborate on a paper. Christa Teston has retweeted information from her
collaborator to communicate and share that information with others that would not have noticed
it before. She uses a good combination of personal and professional tweets which allows her to
remain interesting, continue to be followed, and therefore, communicate what she wants
everyone who is following her to see. In this way both professors share their information back
and forth, communicate quickly with one another, and record their research and findings into the
information technology via Twitter.
Twitter is an Ecology of Change in Writing
While the ecology of twitter is relevant, more networks within it are currently being created. It is
an ongoing web circle that is at this very moment, taking off like a rocket. Our research tests,
which included our own use of twitter by tweeting with one another to write this white paper,
proved that microblogging is a great source for collaboration and also a source for meeting new
people which coincides with the sharing and exchanging of new ideas and messages. The tool of
microblogging encourages that technology in itself is not neutral, but can be either magnificent
or faulty depending on those who use it, and choose to function it. Microblogging has indeed
affected the way people write all over the world in a positive outcome, and in a variety of ways.
We would recommend an interface such as twitter for business, college, entertainment,
collaboration, and composing of new information. Twitter’s social media tools of microblogging
truly impacts the way modern day writer’s work and think. What is tweeted can travel far and
wide, and last a lifetime.

References

[1] Borau, K., Ullrich, C., Feng, J., & Shen, R. (n.d.). Microblogging for Language Learning:
Using Twitter to Train Communicative and Cultural Competence. Retrieved from
http://www.carstenullrich.net/pubs/Borau09Microblogging.pdf

[2] Carlos, J. P. (n.d.). Socialtext Collaboration Platform Gains Microblogging. Retrieved March
1, 2010, from PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/160565/socialtext_collaboration_platform_gains
_microblogging.html

[3] Galagan, P. (2009). Twitter As a Learning Tool. Really. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from
www.astd.org: http://www.astd.org/LC/2009/0409_galagan.htm

[4] Enos, R. and Lauer, J. (1992). The meaning of heuristic in Aristotle’s Rhetoric and its
implications for contemporary rhetorical theory. In S. Witte, N. Nakadate, R. Cherry (Eds.), A
rhetoric of doing (pp. 79-87). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
[5] Haas, C. (1996). Writing technology. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[6] Nardi, B. and O’Day, V. (1999). Information ecologies. Cambridge: MIT Press.
[7] Nancy. (2010). OnlineFacilitation.wikispaces.com. Retrieved March 4, 2010, from Full
Circle Associates: http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/twitter+collaboration+stories

[8] Moore, D. (2010). Technology Literacy: the extension of cognition. Athens, Ohio: Springer
Science+Business Media B.V.