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Standfirst:
IS TWITTER THE FUTURE?
Friday 8.30 BBC 3
Twitter has become one of the most used social networking sites in the world. Radio Times (RT)now
gives their opinion on the upcoming documentary due to hit television screens this Friday.
Director Ro’Shaq Bulawayo whose previous documentaries include Spray (a documentary on graffiti
art in New York) reading between the lines (a documentary looking into the phone hacking scandals
of the news of the world) and a short film on cyber bullying, states that he was surprised by people’s
attitudes to Twitter whilst filming. “The new documentary on BBC three explores the positive and
negative aspects of the social networking site Twitter.” Although at first it may seem as though
Twitter is not relevant to today’s society as the documentary progresses, much is revealed in terms
of how Twitter is used on a regular basis in people’s lives. From hash-tagging to following, tweeting
to trending the documentary explores how and why Twitter is used and also who by. The majority of
celebrities now have their own Twitter account and “tweet” regularly. These celebs include Justin
Bieber,Katy Perry, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Oprah Winfrey, Simon Cowell and many more.Beiber is
currently the most followed person on Twitter with 33427393 followers. Even president Barack
Obama has a verified Twitter page. Obama had an astonishing half a million “retweets” on his post
of the words “four more years”coupled with a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama embraced in a
hug.The US president’s “victory tweet” caused a stir amongst journalists and the rest of the media
alike. This shows that Twitter can spread messages worldwide in a matter of seconds which could be
seen as both a positive and negative. The documentary also goes on to explain which aspects of
Twitter are used the most. Twitter is used for advertising, general conversation, stalking celebrities,
sports discussion, local and worldwide news and also sharing photos with friends. The majority of
people would say that they use Twitter to communicate with other people around topics being
discussed in the media. However the documentary team embark on a journey to uncover the
negative side of Twitter and how this has affected people’s social lives. “Riley_69” became “Twitter
famous” after sending abusive tweets to Olympic diver Tom Daley. His abusive messages became
national news and in a matter of hours police arrived at Riley’s home and arrested him, his Twitter
account was also removed due to popular demand. The documentary then takes a massive twist as

2. the team end up journeying to San Francisco where the microblogging site first took off and where
its main office is based. An interview with founder Jack Dorsey portrays his keen interest and passion
for social networking and also explains where the idea of Twitter first began. With over500 million
registered users to date, Dorsey states that he is “pleased with the response that people have given
to Twitter and the worldwide phenomenon that it has become.” As Twitter becomes more and more
accessible on smartphones, computers, ipads and other tablets, its popularity is ever growing. Surely
soon enough it will become the next big thing and take over the likes of other social networking sites
such as Facebook. Will Facebook “do a MySpace” and flop completely meaning that Twitter will
become the only current form of social networking communication? The conclusion that the
documentary reaches is indeed a surprising one and makes its audience question the future of social
networking as a whole. Tune in on Friday to BBC 3 at 8.30 to join the adventurous debate of “Is
Twitter The Future?”.