Power in the Reverberation: Why Twitter Matters, But Not the Way Most Believe

This Twitter Research Forumessay by Communication&SportAssociate Editor Andrew Billings explores the problems underlying research efforts reliant on the mass aggregation of tweets within the social media platform. It is argued that Twitter research can often overlook the staying power of sport on television while overestimating the adoption and use of Twitter in the sporting context. Assertions about Twitter's role in democratizing sport need to be tested carefully as does the dynamic of Twitter's role in setting the mainstream sport media agenda. A key argument is made that Twitter is worth studying in the realm of sports media not because it is a great representation of the overall public but precisely because it is not at all representative of any generalized population, most certainly including the far-from-monolithic sports fan.