Micro-Blogging

I decided to research on Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie and the debut of her recent choice on getting a double mastectomy. This major news erupted in the social world of Twitter and Facebook as fans of the actress read the news in disbelief. I began the research by going to a valid news source of celebrity news such as CBC.ca who are more likely to have more of an accurate coverage on the issue. I also looked upon Twitter to see other celebrity/gossip blogging websites to see the kind of information they have gathered on the topic. Comparing the two as sources of information, they are very different in content and style of writing. The blogs and less professional sites, such as perezhilton.com, were using modern language that appealed to a younger generation as for CBC.ca who has a more elite and elder audience spoke in a traditional manner. CBC.ca described the surgical procedure of removing Angelina's breasts whereas blogging sites focused on issues of acting and how this will effect her career in the future.

Angelina's double mastectomy instantly became a trending topic on Twitter because it is an event that prompts people or fans perhaps to talk about a specific topic. The topic "Angelina Jolie" was trending world wide on May 14, 2013 and has instantly caught my interest to further research about. Micro-blogging has changed traditional ways of reading the news because of the level of interactivity it has elevated to. Now anyone with a laptop is able to create "news articles" on events on blogging sites or social media sharing websites. We instantly receive updates on different events around the world as they happen due to the fast and convenient world of the Web. This also introduces gateways for gossip, rumours and other types of news to be created. News is easier to manipulate which is dangerous because of the large group of audience this has the ability to effect. Passive readers fall into the traps of blog websites and news media platforms that are biased or just full of BS to be frank.

Some benefits for micro-blogging on Twitter would be the linking to other media websites to further search on the topic. It gives you the option of choosing from the many tweeters and sources to pick and choose your information. This is helpful in my case because I had to read a few blogs to understand what exactly a double mastectomy is and how its related to breast cancer. Also, Twitter gives you a chance to see people's reactions and their thoughts on the medical choice of Angelina Jolie. It interested me to see what fans have to say about such a sensitive topic such as cancer. A constraint on Twitter would be the 180-character limit there is to Tweet about the topic which is not enough room to talk about such a sensitive topic such as breast cancer. I understand there are links to other pages that further talk about it but it would be nice to see a brief summary about Angelina's issue in a post on the main page. Bloggers do not have an explicitly limit to their word or character count which worries me because they can ramble on about the topic, adding in cutting information as their hearts desire.These media platforms all give users and readers the chance to write their opinion, reaction or stance on the double mastectomy issue which is the highlight points of Web 2.0.