Twitter. Express yourself in 140 characters or less.
Tweet, tweet. From Jack Dorsey’s first ever Tweet on 21 March 2006 (MacArthur, 2014), Twitter has grown to have 284 million monthly active users (Twitter, 2014). It is a medium that ‘allows users to maintain a public web-based asynchronous “conversation” through the use of 140-character messages (the length of a text message) sent from mobile phones, mobile Internet devices, or through websites’ (Murthy, 2013). It provides another platform for individuals to connect with others who share similar interests to them, to keep up-to-date with what their favourite celebrity is doing and to read the latest news, just to name a few. Hash tags allow for tweets to be connected to a thread of trending topics. The trending hash tags are displayed on an individual’s Twitter homepage so they can keep up to date with topics trending around the world at any given time.
Some people often question the usefulness of Twitter. The unfortunate series of events that took place in Sydney this week and the social media trend that followed may be seen to answer these questions though. The Sydney Siege involved a man taking individuals of the public hostage in a café in the Sydney CBD. Soon after these individuals had been taken hostage, the man made them hold up an Islamic flag in the window, for all of the world to see. While everyone was concerned for the safety of the hostages, it did not take long for a large majority of the public to become concerned about the repercussions of this man’s actions on the wider Muslim community.
One story soon came out on social media of a Muslim lady removing her hijab because she didn’t feel comfortable or safe wearing it in public following what was happening in the Sydney CBD. Twitter user Sir Tessa tweeted later in the day using the hash tag #illridewithyou to show her support to the Muslim community (Ruppert, 2014). The hash tag brought with it meaning that if any Muslims felt uncomfortable riding public transport or being out in public by themselves, these individuals would provide them support. The hash tag soon went viral, with over 90,000 tweets featuring the hash tag (Rice, 2014).
In a time when a lot of people are questioning social media and its negative effect on community, this is an example that shows how social media can strengthen community.
