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While critics of Twitter, the most popular microblogging application, dismiss the service as frivolous, proponents tout a variety of educational, political and commercial uses. Drawing from social construction theories of technology, this research uses the grounded theory approach to analyze press coverage of this emerging technology from 2006 through the first months of 2009. While the specifics of Twitter may be new, this research demonstrates that the public response to this web tool is similar to the public reaction to earlier communication technologies including the telegraph, radio and the internet. Despite vocal skepticism from some, the research shows newspapers, magazines and blogs have promoted and actively encouraged Twitter’s diffusion.
Arceneaux et al. (Tue,) studied this question.