The Ambient News Network: Twitter and the reconfiguration of journalism was the keynote Alfred Hermida gave at the Neo-journalism conference in Brussels.
Its subject was how Twitter had grown into a network for real-time news and information, and what that changed: how news organisations respond to breaking news, how journalists go about reporting, and whose voices get heard. The platform allowed short fragments of information to be published and picked up instantly by people outside the formal structures of journalism, producing social awareness streams — a constantly updated collective account of the experiences, interests and opinions of its users.
As an ambient news network, the argument ran, Twitter offers a mix of information and comment, usually attached to current events but without an established order among them. The talk examined how journalism was adapting to the logic of a system in which knowledge, expertise and authority are networked and distributed rather than held in one place.