Introduction (written by Todd Schoepflin). I’ve never met Matt Loveland in person.
We follow each other on Twitter and correspond on e-mail occasionally.
Recently, when I asked Matt for a few thoughts about Twitter in an e-mail, he
responded by saying “Let’s do a paper.” So we’re cooking
up a project about Twitter. For a short-term idea, I asked if he was interested
in sharing his thoughts about Twitter in an interview conducted through e-mail.
He agreed to do so, and this is the conversation that followed:
Todd Schoepflin: So, Matt, where are
you at right now with Twitter? What excites you about Twitter? What frustrates
you?
Matt Loveland: The most exciting thing about Twitter is
that I see it connecting me with a community of scholars/journalists/activists
that I wasn't even aware of until very recently, but I feel a part of. I think
that I have something to contribute to what is happening there, and I find that
very often I'm coming across ideas/resources that are helpful in my
professional work. Also, I'm finding that it is actually rewarding work in and
of itself. I see it as a place to be a public scholar, and this is particularly
the case when it's connected to my blogging and the blogging of others. I'm
working on getting others here at Le Moyne to see it this way, and really
that's just part of a bigger movement in the academy to rethink the substance
of academic work.
There are, of course, a number of frustrations. One is that
some people really do seem to carry typical academic prejudices/pretensions
onto Twitter. My opinion is that this is more common among the big names I find
on Twitter, and so in this way it can look just like the academic hierarchies
that we see in publishing, at conferences, etc. That's a shame because it seems
to obliterate one of the potentially fantastic things about Twitter, that we
can meet and learn from a wider range of people than if we are stuck in our
brick and mortar schools. Someone, for example, with 3000 followers who only follows
100 clearly thinks differently about Twitter reciprocity than I do!
Also, it's plain old addictive. I'm on Twitter too much,
and given that it's not yet a legitimate form of scholarly work, I do feel I
need to be careful not to get too wrapped up to the detriment of the other work
I do. Again, this is very much related to blogging (and really I see tweeting
and blogging as different forms of the same 'public scholarly community' I'd
like to be a part of). I can get a little obsessive about my follower count,
worrying that if I tweet too much I might drive away followers, or even worse
one of the followers I’ve enjoyed
interacting with. So, it's an added stress in some ways.
I was hoping it would be valuable for teaching, but so far
it's been difficult to get very many students to see it that way. I've only
used it that way for one semester, but already I'm thinking of pulling back on
that front.
TS: I'm very interested in the
hierarchy point. I think about this a lot. Along what lines do you think hierarchies
are formed? Have you made any observations about "Twitter
stratification"? (I'm probably trying too hard to coin a phrase). But it’s interesting to observe the Twitter hierarchy among
academics. Do you have more thoughts on this subject? Do you think ego is a key
factor here? I try not overdo the self-deprecation thing, but I do feel like a
second-tier (or third-tier) sociologist on Twitter. How about you? In terms of
the whole hierarchy matter, I'll pose a basic sociological question: What's going
on here?
ML: Yes, I feel
second tier, but I've had a chip on my shoulder my whole life, so it's hard to
determine which comes first. It's interesting to think about whether the
Twitter hierarchies are very different from other academic hierarchies. I'll
have to think about that. Sort of related, I think you've got to be careful
what you tweet about if you want to keep followers. A lot of people, I think,
aren't crazy about tweets about teaching, but that's a prejudice that infects
the whole discipline (publications in "Teaching Sociology" don't
count as much on the job market, that kind of thing). My favorite tweeters are
those at '2nd rate' places who tweet about the full range of what this job is,
and also occasionally leave hints that they are real people (music, tv, sports,
etc.). Using Twitter as a 'professional' seems to limit what one can do. In
this way it's so much narrower than 'real life' interaction with professionals
that can sort of maintain its main 'professional flow' over and against little
digressions into being people. Here I guess I'm thinking like Weber or Ritzer,
but clearly Goffman too. Maybe Twitter is the McDonaldization of the process of
self. All this said, my follower count has gone steadily up, and I feel like
I'm only a moderately disciplined tweeter, and I've interacted with people who
are at much 'better' schools than me, with much 'better' academic score sheets.
TS: Interesting thought that "A
lot of people, I think, aren't crazy about tweets about teaching." What
leads you to say that? And can you expand your thought that "Maybe Twitter
is the McDonaldization of the process of self." Please say more.
ML: I guess I think that people are
using Twitter mostly to share news they think is important, and then to add a
sociological comment if there is room. It's not that there are no tweets about
teaching, but typically these are funny thoughts or complaints about students.
I wouldn't say there is much there in terms of pedagogy. That said, most people
probably share news or comments that might be helpful for people teaching, so
maybe I'm making too clear a distinction between tweets about teaching and
tweets that I see as 'doing sociology.'
When I say McDonaldization, I think
what I mean to draw attention to is that followers are there for specific
streams of content. I go to McDonalds if I want a hamburger, and I go to Taco
Bell if I want a taco. Those are very rational/efficient ways to get food. If
McDonald's gets too far afield from its core fare, then its consumers get confused,
and probably displeased. You do burgers, McDonalds, not tacos! So, I think
there is to some extent Weber's iron cage of rationalization because our
behavior on Twitter is restricted by our followers (consumers) expectations. In
copresent interaction, the audience constrains us too, of course, but the
sanctioning is never as abrupt or as easily accomplished as the very simple,
consumeristic Twitter 'unfollow.' No feed for you! Part of the unfollowing
might just be that on Twitter, you are really just one feed among many, and if
the feed gets boring or distracting, then you just cut it off. It's really not
personal at all, and I've certainly unfollowed people myself. Here, maybe some
C. Wright Mills could be useful.
Too cynical?
TS:
I don't think you're too cynical. We're sociologists--we're trained to be
cynical! My own taste is that I like people who tweet with variety. I like when
people surprise me with their tweets. So as a consumer of tweets, I like when
people mix it up. I will say when my own tweets go off course I think to myself
"people aren't interested in this." But that's part of the beauty of
Twitter...self-expression. One last question: does it seem to you that informal
rules exist with regard to unfollowing? If so, do you find yourself adhering to
particular norms?
I actually prefer it when people’s tweets are sometimes riskier. All I
mean by riskier here is less well formed thoughts. Some people really can get a
lot of info in 140 characters, and I think that’s great.
But, at the same time, I like watching people work things out in multiple
tweets. Or even just sort of playing. I like that a lot, really.
As far as rules, I try not to tweet too far afield, too
often. I’ll let an
occasional sports or music tweet in, but I’ve got
another account that’s pretty
much only that. I try not to tweet ‘too much,’ but I don’t really know what that means. I
tweet probably, on average, 10 times a day. But, I don’t want to actually measure that
because it might be a lot more!
The End
A note from Matt and Todd: We plan to interview scholars
who use Twitter as soon as we secure IRB approval. We want to pick brains to
find out what other scholars think about Twitter. Our interview here just
scratches the surface of sociological inquiry. If you are interested in being
interviewed by phone or e-mail, please let us know. Matt can be reached at
@mtloveland or lovelam@lemoyne.edu and Todd
can be reached at @CreateSociology or tas@niagara.edu. So please
tweet/DM or e-mail one of us if you’d like one
of us to interview you for your insights about Twitter.
