What is the maps on Twitter?

                               What is the maps on Twitter?

                                                                     by Ikki Ueda

Image: The visualisation of maps on the Twitter network                ( http://eppsnet.com/2012/10/visualizing-social-networks/ )

There is no perfection in the world, so everything is flawed at some points. Even though everything is not perfect, we still use things such as maps or online social network for some reasons. That is because, if these things meet our purpose to use, we can generally feel satisfaction. For example, it is impossible for us to create a perfect world map (Wood et al, 2016, p 12), that demonstrates everything at the same time. The main function of maps is to reflect place and space (Kuttainen, 2017). Wood et al (2016) also mentioned that this is why every map provides a specific purpose in order to meet our need. Today, maps exist not only in the real world but also in the virtual world such as Twitter. The reason why I use Twitter is to know what my friends are doing. The main factor is, even if I do not contact with some of my friends in person anymore, it is still possible to know what they are doing on Twitter. This is why I use Twitter.

            Twitter has the ability to create maps in the virtual network, so it is crucial to make it more clear. The main point to figure out maps on Twitter is to realise the basic concept of the virtual network system. Barnes (1997, p 1) stated that people can anonymously move inside the border of the virtual space with connections while developing their identity. That is, the way to constitute of maps on Twitter is the human connections on the virtual world. One of the way to spread maps on Twitter is to retweet somebody’s posted tweet. Retweet refers to share the tweet someone posted again (retweet, 2017). Especially, the more followers we have on Twitter, the more influential we can be. It creates both complicated and widespread maps constituted of human connections on Twitter in this case.

            It is also essential to consider about Twitter more deeply based on how Twitter is universal or inclusive to us for the further understanding. There is no doubt that Twitter is universal tool in the world. One of statistic to demonstrate is that there are more than 500 million Twitter users across the world in 2014, and it is still growing (Bontcheva, 2014). However, whether we see Twitter is inclusive or exclusive is based on our point of view. One of the example is, if we do not have access to Twitter, we are excluded. In contrast, there are numerous ways to share experiences to our users with the access to Twitter. Moreover, if our users put hashtag of current location, we can identify where there are in the real world. This phenomenon signifies that there are occasionally few boundaries between the real world and virtual world. Subsequently, it is still possible to create maps on Twitter.

                                                            References

Barnes, G. (1997). Passages of the Cyber-Flanuer. Retrieved from http://www.raynbird.com/essays/Passage_Flaneur.html

Fitzgerald, A. (2013, July). Adventure in Twitter fiction [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_fitzgerald_adventures_in_twitter_fiction

Gorrell, G., & Bontcheva, K. (2014). Classifying Twitter favorites: Like bookmark, or thanks?. Association for information science technology, 67(1), 17-25. doi: 10.1002/asi.23352

Kuttainen, V. (2017). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place, lecture 4: Power. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

The visualisation of maps on the Twitter network. [image] (2012). Retrieved from http://eppsnet.com/2012/10/visualizing-social-networks/

Retweet. (2017). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/retweet

Wood. D., Kaiser, W. L., & Abramms. (2016). Seeing through maps: Many ways to see the world. Oxford, England: New Internationalist Publications