Enabled backchannel: conference
Twitter use by digital humanists
C. Ross, M. Terras, C. Warwick and A. Welsh
Department of Information Studies, University College London, London, UK
Abstract
Purpose – To date, few studies have been undertaken to make explicit how microblogging
technologies are used by and can benefit scholars. This paper aims to investigate the use of Twitter by
an academic community in various conference settings, and to pose the following questions: Does the
use of a Twitter-enabled backchannel enhance the conference experience, collaboration and the
co-construction of knowledge? and How is microblogging used within academic conferences, and can
one articulate the benefits it may bring to a discipline?
Design/methodology/approach – This paper considers the use of Twitter as a digital backchannel
by the Digital Humanities (DH) community, taking as its focus postings to Twitter during three
different international 2009 conferences. The resulting archive of 4,574 “Tweets” was analysed using
various quantitative and qualitative methods, including a qualitative categorisation of Twitter posts
by open coded analysis, a quantitative examination of user conventions, and text analysis tools.
Prominent Tweeters were identified and a small qualitative survey was undertaken to ascertain
individuals’ attitudes towards a Twitter-enabled backchannel.
Findings – Conference hashtagged Twitter activity does not constitute a single distributed
conversation, but rather multiple monologues with a few intermittent, discontinuous, loosely joined
dialogues between users. The digital backchannel constitutes a multidirectional complex space in
which the users make notes, share resources, hold discussions and ask questions as well as
establishing a clear individual online presence. The use of Twitter as a conference platform enables the
community to expand communication and participation in events amongst its members. The analysis
revealed the close-knit nature of the DH researcher community, which may be somewhat intimidating
for those new to the field or conference.
Practical implications – This study has indicated that, given that Twitter is becoming
increasingly important for academic communities, new, dedicated methodologies for the analysis
and understanding of Tweet-based corpora are necessary. Routinely used textual analysis tools cannot
be applied to corpora of Tweets in a straightforward manner, due to the creative and fragmentary
nature of language used within microblogging. In this paper, a method has been suggested to
categorise Tweets using open coded analysis to facilitate understanding of Tweet-based corpora,
which could be adopted elsewhere.
Originality/value – This paper is the first known exhaustive study that concentrates on how
microblogging technologies such as Twitter are used by and can benefit scholars. This data set both
provides a valuable insight into the prevalence of a variety of Twitter practices within the constraints
of a conference setting, and highlights the need for methodologies to be developed to analyse social
media streams such as Twitter feeds. It also provides a bibliography of other research into
microblogging.
Keywords Social networks, Digital communication systems, Conferences, User studies
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
With improved accessibility to an increasingly mobile web environment, large
numbers of users are creating content using a variety of tools, bringing about changes
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
JDOC
67,2
214
Received 25 January 2010
Revised 5 May 2010
Accepted 6 May 2010
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 67 No. 2, 2011
pp. 214-237
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220411111109449

in the ways communities interact, socialise and collaborate. From sharing tedious and
unremarkable babble of everyday life, to alerting people of breaking news, to sharing
research resources, the uses of these web 2.0 applications are as diverse as the people
who use them. The user-centred, decentralised concept (Kolbitsch, 2007) allows anyone
to become an active participant in the conversation.
In recent years a new form of blogging, microblogging, has become popular,
pervading daily life as well as academic communities of practice, although it has been
accused of being a disruptive, distracting and inconsequential tool full of “pointless
babble”[1]? Microblogging, with special emphasis on Twitter.com[2], the most
well-known service, is increasingly used as a means of undertaking digital
“backchannel” communication (non-verbal, real-time, communication which does not
interrupt a presenter or event) (Ynge, 1970, Kellog et al., 2006). Digital backchannels are
becoming more prevalent at academic conferences, in educational use, and in
organizational settings. Frameworks are therefore required for understanding the role
and use of digital backchannel communication, such as that provided by Twitter, in
enabling participatory cultures.
Formal conference presentations still mainly occur in traditional settings: a divided
space with a “front” area for the speaker and a larger “back” area for the audience,
providing a physical platform for didactic transmission with limited interaction from
others, implying a single focus of attention and restricting individuals to the role of
either speaker or listener. There is a growing body of literature describing these
problems; lack of feedback, nervousness about asking questions, issues raised by the
single speaker paradigm where the focus on only one speaker can lead to a decrease in
participation by others, reduction in collaboration and interaction due to the limiting
factors of the setting (Geske, 1992; Bligh, 1967; Gleason, 1986; Anderson et al., 2003;
Reinhardt et al., 2009). The use of a digital backchannel such as Twitter, positioned
alongside the formal or official conference programme, can provide an irregular or
unofficial means of communication (McCarthy and Boyd, 2005) which can extend
beyond the lecture room to engage with scholars across the community. Backchannel
benefits include being able to ask questions, or provide resources and references,
changing the dynamics of the lecture room from a one to many transmission to a many
to many interaction, without disrupting the main channel communication. However,
emerging issues regarding this type of communication include a cause of distraction,
the generation of disrespectful content and the creation of cliques amongst participants
( Jacobs and Mcfarlane, 2005, McCarthy and Boyd, 2005). Nevertheless research shows
that digital backchannels are a valuable way for active conference participation (Kelly,
2009) and that they are highly appropriate for use in learning-based environments
(Reinhardt et al., 2009). Recently microblogging has been adopted by conferences such
as DH2009 as it allows for the “spontaneous co-construction of digital artefacts” (Costa
et al., 2008).
However, little is known about how Twitter is used within a conference setting.
This paper presents a study that analyses the use of Twitter as a backchannel for
academic conferences, focusing on the Digital Humanities community in three different
physical conferences held from June to September 2009. Digital Humanities – the
interdisciplinary field of research and teaching concerned with the intersection of
computing and humanities disciplines – was chosen due to its early adoption and
acceptance of emergent technologies. During three key conferences in the academic
Conference
Twitter use
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