The days of relying on newspapers to tell us what to think are long gone. As an analysis of tweets surrounding the Ferguson shooting shows, everyday citizens on social media are the ones shaping our national conversations.
Researchers from Northeastern University analyzed 535,794 tweets containing the word or hashtag "Ferguson" from Aug. 9 to Aug. 15, 2014. They found that the most-retweeted statements during this first week after the incident were from African-Americans located in or near Ferguson.
On the first day studied, for example, by far the most retweeted and mentioned user was @AyoMissDarkSkin, a black woman from Michael Brown's neighborhood. Minutes after the shooting, she described Brown as "unarmed" and "executed."
Shot him 10 times !! Like it doesn't take all of that to kill someone. That's how you know that it wasn't for protection. Smh
Later tweets by other people about the incident used @AyoMissDarkSkin's language.
Cops just killed an unarmed 18 year old. Shot him 10 times in St. Louis smh
What constitutes a mob? Were they violent? “@stltoday: Fatal shooting by Ferguson police prompts mob reaction http://t.co/CWzcBwV62L”
@AyoMissDarkSkin's tweet was retweeted or mentioned three times as often as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's tweet about the same event, which read, "Fatal shooting by Ferguson police prompts mob reaction"—phrasing that other Twitter users took issue with.
They're not a mob. Words matter RT "@stltoday Fatal shooting by Ferguson police prompts mob reaction http://t.co/m5sHkIjtdd"
The study found that news organizations and even celebrities and politicians played a secondary role to Black Twitter as sources for information about the Ferguson shooting.
"Twitter can allow everyday people who otherwise have little social or political power to shape a narrative about their experiences and what matters about those experiences," Sarah Jackson, one of the study's authors, said in a press release.
The authors did not immediately return NTRSCTN's request for comment.
