Tweeted thoughts and Twittered Relationships. Some Sociological Remarks on the promises and limits of molecular online communications

Abstract

Twitter (and other micro blogging services) combine the flexibility and immediacy of bilateral telephone SMS with the multilateral networking capacities of the Web 2.0. In contrast to Blogs, discussion fora and Social Network Sites, Twitter allows online communication characterized by asymmetric leadership-follower relationships, remoteness of sender identity, metacommunicative signaling functions and low threshold spontaneous RealTime responses compatible with most current social activities and roles. However, such short messages are only functional within highly specific frames of shared experiences and symbolic interpretations that are a prerequisite for communicating successfully by using a very restricted verbal code.