Communicative capitalism: a study of retweeted content on Twitter

Abstract

This study focuses on the social media site Twitter as a media environment which represents an increased potential for audience interactivity, by allowing users the opportunity to simultaneously consume and produce media content. This development challenges the traditional sociological conception of audiences as simply receivers of information, and raises the question of whether the term 'audience' remains relevant in digital age. This study adopts a mixed methods approach, using quantitative analysis which captures a representative snapshot of Twitter activity over the course of a day, along with qualitative interviews with regular users of the social media site. Both sets of data are combined to make the case for the continued relevance of audience reception theory, by demonstrating the media environments where Twitter users are at their most active and passive. The study moves beyond audience theory, contextualising its findings within the wider debate between cyber-utopian theorists, who view social media sites such as Twitter as platforms for the democratisation of communications, and theorists adopting a political economy perspective, who focus on the exploitation of media users by political and economic power. It ultimately finds the political economy perspective to be most convincing, suggesting that the democratising and revolutionary potential of social media sites such as Twitter are often overplayed, and arguing that new media entrench hierarchy and preserve the hegemony of political and economic elites.