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#RIP Twitter Celebrity Death Hoaxes

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
rip-twitter

Twitter has been teeming with celebrity death hoaxes; the #RIP hashtag has been attached to Tweets about the untimely demise of celebrities from Chris Brown and Cher to Mr. Bean. We often take information for granted because it is plentiful. Plentiful is not the same thing as accurate. On the Internet, information is uncurated and unvetted. It can provide late breaking, important, and poignant information. It can also give us junk and lies. Our ability to be responsible digital citizens relies on our ability to make judgments about the quality of the information we see and to be thoughtful about where we seek information. Parents of tweens and teens can use these hoaxes as a teaching moment to talk about how easily false information can spread, not just about celebrities but anyone. Twitter makes lots of things easier, including hoaxes. Hoaxes aren't new. We often think of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast as the standard-bearer for media hoaxes, although that wasn't … [Read more...]

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Six Weiner Lessons for Using Social Media

June 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Anthony Weiner and the Twitter Faux Pas

Politicians may have personalities predisposed to risk-taking behaviors.  The same is often true with CEOs and Rock Stars.  These kinds of occupations attract competitiveness, narcissism, and the need for power along with talent, tenacity, resilience, and the willingness to take risks.  A bigger problem however is when success turns into Celebrity Syndrome, especially in the age of social media.  The only cure is a serious reality check. In Celebrity Syndrome, the people who achieve success or notoriety lose the ability to see themselves as 'regular' folks, subject to the same social norms and laws of gravity as the rest of us. The problem with getting cured is that reality checks at the top are hard to come by. When you have status and power, your world is full of fans, sycophants, power-seekers, and people on your payroll who reflect back the image that you want to see.  It's pretty hard to get real information--even if you actually wanted it-which most … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture & Society, Social Media & Networks Tagged With: , , ,

Twitter & Sheen: Ringside Seats to a Spectacle

March 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Twitter’s Authenticity and Immediacy are turning Charlie Sheen into (even more of) a Media Sensation. Twitter is just like sitting courtside. While plenty of people have thrown in their two cents on Charlie Sheen’s recent and extraordinarily public bad boy behavior, what’s most interesting to me is that Sheen has taken his campaign to Twitter. While I have no doubt that Sheen has a team of public relations professionals, the use of Twitter makes it appear much more direct. Unlike other forms of media, like Entertainment Tonight interviews, we experience Twitter as authentic, immediate, and down and dirty. This is true for two reasons. First, any interview, press report, or magazine expose is subject to editing and framing, the questions the journalist or commentator asks, as well as the decisions made by the editor and producer. And while media professionals often strive for some sort of truth, they also are influenced by ratings if not their personal point of … [Read more...]

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Twitter and Goliath

April 14, 2009 By 5 Comments
2009-04-13-amazon-failwhale

This was posted April 13, 2009 on my blog "Positively Media" at Psychology Today. First it was "Dell Hell" and now it is "#AmazonFail." For all the debates over the purpose, point, and value of social media, it is events like these that illustrate how important they have become and how powerful they can be. "Dell Hell" is one of the iconic stories in the history of social media sending an emphatic message that consumers have a new power. In June 2005, blogger Jeff Jarvis shared his less than satisfactory experience with Dell's customer service on his blog "Buzz Machine" with the title "Dell Hell." (This story is documented in a number of places, including the books Groundswell and Citizen Marketers, both quite interesting.)  The reach of Jarvis' blog got his story out there, but the fact that his experience resonated with so many other Dell customers coupled with the system properties of the Internet sent the story viral, ending up not only all over the web but in the New York … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture & Society, Social Media & Networks Tagged With: , , ,
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