Traditional forms of media consumption are slowly, but surely, being replaced by social media platforms.
Specifically, the platform that limits commentary to 140 characters or less: Twitter.
Live-tweeting of TV shows has taken over the “water cooler talk,” and more people are receiving breaking news updates from their Twitter feeds instead of their television sets.
As far as TV shows are concerned, Twitter has become a tool for executives to increase ratings and overall audience interaction. Hashtags are now flashed at the bottom of the screen during episodes of shows like “#MadMen” and “#Scandal” to help drive the conversation.
ABC’s “Scandal” has been one of the first shows to be dubbed as “the show that Twitter built.”
“Scandal,” which premiered last spring, began its first season with low ratings as well as less than solid reviews.
However, by the time the second season finale aired this past May, the program was regularly winning its time slot in ratings and scored 9.12 million viewers — as opposed to 7.33 million in its first season finale.
The rise in viewership has been associated with the fact that the show’s lead cast of Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn and Columbus Short, as well as the show’s creator Shonda Rhimes, live-tweet with fans each week.
The new show’s second season finale even beat long-time Twitter rock star, “American Idol,” by 366,061 tweets.
In just one season, “Scandal” was tweeted about 4.3 million times, making it ABC’s most social show.
But the expansive influence of Twitter is not just limited to entertainment.
According to Pew Research Center, more than 50 percent of people have learned about breaking news via social media instead of traditional news sources.
Some of the biggest news stories that have broken in the past few years have been announced on social media first, including the announcement of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Osama Bin Laden’s death and the Egyptian uprising.
In recent news, Twitter led the march quickly after the Asiana airliner crash at the San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.
While cable news networks relied on aerial footage and scrambled to fly their reporters to the scene, Twitter users who were around the airport immediately after the crash had already uploaded images directly from the crash site. The networks then began posting images from Twitter alongside their aerial images.
Twitter also made music news this week when rapper Jay-Z, who is usually very private, went from tweeting once a month to tweeting more than 150 tweets on Monday alone.
Hova used Twitter to promote his latest album, “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” which was released on Tuesday. The rapper answered questions about the album as well as many miscellaneous questions (e.g., “What’s your favorite pasta you’ve had in 2013?”).
Needless to say, the Twitter has successfully made itself a tool that almost every medium is reliant on, and its reign over media does not seem to be letting up any time soon.