Reith 2009 in the Twitterverse
Post categories: Good Radio Club,ÌýReith,ÌýReith 2009,ÌýTwitter
21:54, Sunday, 21 June 2009
As I've explained in my previous blog posts, the 2009 Reith Lectures team was keen to extend the reach of the programmes beyond the traditional Radio 4 and World Service listeners.
A key part of our strategy was social networking site Twitter. We wanted to find people already talking about Professor Sandel and his work, or related ideas, and establish a community of listeners which could start engaging with the lectures' themes before the programmes were even broadcast.
Some people found being followed by a broadcasting legend rather unsettling. One user commended Twitter for its ability ""; another wondered if we were "".
But most people seemed pleasantly surprised to discover the programme's Twitter incarnation: "", "" and "".
We also wanted to collaborate with our colleagues who run , an exercise in "social listening" which invites people to tune in to particular radio programmes while logged into Twitter, and then share their comments. And we promised to let you know how it went.
I write this after the first transmission of the second Lecture, and although the experiment has not quite followed the path we intended, it has in fact completely exceeded our expectations.
We had issued invitations for a event during the first Reith lecture repeat on Saturday 13 June. But the Twitterverse had other ideas. Ten minutes before the first transmission of the opening lecture on Tuesday 9 June, a few messages ("tweets") started to appear, urging people to listen.
That trickle became a torrent, as users spontaneously twittered about Professor Sandel's lecture on the moral limits of markets. Some were already following our feed, but most were not. As radio producers, it was electrifying to see the tweets come in - we were effectively watching people listening to the programme.
The comments were almost universally positive, praising Professor Sandel's arguments, timeliness and approach: "", "", "not to be missed", "", "really exceptional", "challenging yet inspiring".
Or as one particularly vivid tweet put it afterwards, "".
Many people made explicit reference to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's public service broadcasting remit:
""
""
There were some critics - one listener was " - no new ideas, or new ways to approach the 'ethic with a busted gut', unhelpful". Another wondered whether " [republished]?". It was.
What was also fascinating was the number of unprompted references to listening to the podcast or via iPlayer. Lots of people who had not been following our message stream were so keen to recommend the programme that they published their own links to the podcast, website etc. Many heard the original transmission but wanted to listen again online.
We were able to build on the tremendous response generated by the first lecture - helped in part by in the Guardian, which highlighted our "new-fangled" approach to promoting this year's lectures and the "overwhelmingly positive" response.
Our band of followers continued to grow - sometimes a tweet about Reith was a user's first, suggesting they may have signed up to Twitter just to participate. And the appreciative messages kept piling up.
In Twitter's world, popular topics are given a hashtag (ie "") which users include in their tweets, thus allowing all related messages to be easily aggregated. As the number of people using grew, so did our sense of an increasingly engaged community.
The culmination of the week of the first lecture's broadcast was to be the planned event during the Saturday night repeat.
As a warm up, one user proved you can say much within the famously tight 140 character limit of Twitter, summarising the lecture in a few pithy messages: "markets replace moral judgements with costs" and "".
As before there was a real sense of occasion as we watched the debate unfold in real time. There was a small but dedicated group of active participants joining in across the world - from the UK to New Zealand, Berlin and Tehran. But by tracking the number of people who followed the related content links we posted during the programme, we know that a much larger group was watching (and clicking) in silence.
And more clever technology meant that people who missed the debate could recreate it afterwards, prompted by recommendations from users - many of whom had not apparently taken part the night before: "".
The event went very well. In some ways it didn't quite match the excitement of the informal "" which exploded into life so unexpectedly during the first lecture - and indeed during the second as well. But in terms of plans-not-going-to-plan, the result is pretty good.
As I write this, we have almost 850 followers. In turn they have hundreds - or in some cases thousands - of followers of their own, many of whom find themselves knitted together across the globe by a common interest in the unashamedly challenging thoughts - or "High brow shiznit" - of the Harvard Professor who wears this year's Reith laurel.
- The Reith Lectures home page and the 2009 lectures on the Radio 4 web site.
- The Reith Lectures 2009 podcast.
- Follow on Twitter.
- Professor Michael Sandel's biography on the Radio 4 web site.
- Scroll to the bottom of this page for a video of Professor Sandel discussing the lectures.
- Professor Sandel on the Philosophy Bites blog.
- Lots of useful additional material on the .
- Shiznit .
- , by Steve Bowbrick, illustrates the response to 5.
Comment number 1.
At 21st Jun 2009, forexman wrote:Twitter is amazing. As a [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]trader I use it a lot for real time news about the financial markets. I find it a very useful tool. This is a great post!
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Comment number 2.
At 22nd Jun 2009, Briantist wrote:This is a marvellous read.
"As radio producers, it was electrifying .. we were effectively watching people listening to the programme" is a great Tweet quote.
It would be marvelous to know if there was more of this going on. Radio 4 is a very live radio station a lot of the time (Today, STW/Midweek/IOT, Woman's Hour, Y&Y, WOW, PM, and the other two news programmes).
Often people Tweet about the radio, it makes the listener feel much more appreciated if their Tweet stands some (and a glance is better than no) chance of been looked at in the studio somewhere.
Another great thing would be for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã to keep archives of the appropriate programme's Tweets with the show in the /programmes pages (after spam filtering, of course).
But, well done. Good lectures, intelligent use of Twitter, fantastic feed back.
(Don't forget to promote the "tremendously cerebral" In Our Time after the Lecture, mind!)
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Comment number 3.
At 22nd Jun 2009, hoodiagordonii wrote:Today most of the online users daily using anyone of the social networks. Twitter is the most popular among all of them. The usage is also very good and it is very useful for internet followers. This post will so useful for them.
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Comment number 4.
At 22nd Jun 2009, TV Licence fee payer against Ö÷²¥´óÐã censorship wrote:"A key part of our strategy was social networking site Twitter."
No it is not, anyone would think that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is a partner in "Twitter Inc." the way the Ö÷²¥´óÐã keeps plugging this commercial website, if you want to go beyond the traditional World Service and Radio Four then you have your own websites and you also have access to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã interactive (Red Button) services - sop actually Twitter isn't a key part at all, it's just that 'Twitternitus' (a virus that spreads, typically, among the workplace) has infected the Ö÷²¥´óÐã...
More people do not use Twitter than do, so please Ö÷²¥´óÐã, stop all this free publicity for a commercial website.
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Comment number 5.
At 22nd Jun 2009, 8GlencairnD wrote:Sure, Twitter is a commercial enterprise. But the Ö÷²¥´óÐã seems to be equally generous with its plugs for Facebook and other commercial enterprises.
And if you don't want the Ö÷²¥´óÐã to plug any commercial enterprises at all, that would leave us with practically no sports coverage. (Wouldn't that be a shame.) This weekend we've had constant plugs for something called Formula One, whatever that is.
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Comment number 6.
At 22nd Jun 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:'using Comic Life, natch' - Who writes this nonsense ? If people speak in a language other than English on the Today programme by using acronyms and jargon, they are challenged about it. Here it seems to be actively encouraged. It is not cool, it is not big, it is not clever - it is just nonsense. Stop it.
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Comment number 7.
At 22nd Jun 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:"As I write this, we have almost 850 followers."
Aha, there it is, hidden away near the end. Eight. Five. Nought.
But because they use terms like "High brow shiznit" [no, I don't know what it means either...] they are clearly to be venerated far more highly than the millions who listen to Today, or the hundreds of thousands who listen to PM. I suspect many of you people need to get out of the metropolis and the wi-fi cloud which is scrambling your brain cells, and get a bit of a reality check out in the countryside, where some real people live.
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Comment number 8.
At 22nd Jun 2009, kleines c wrote:I am relieved to read that you are a real person, lordBeddGelert. As far as Twitter is concerned, Jennifer, I feel that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has to adopt a multiplatform approach if it is to break down the Digital Wall.
I am not personally particularly keen on 'Twitter', although I recognise its attractions. You cannot be omnipresent, so you inevitably select your media, including radio stations.
I am sure that if the Baron (Reith) were still alive, he would want his lectures twittered on 'Twitter', and in many other places where people talk online, and indeed, off. Cheers (late lunch)!
;)
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Comment number 9.
At 22nd Jun 2009, TV Licence fee payer against Ö÷²¥´óÐã censorship wrote:#5. At 10:26am on 22 Jun 2009, 8GlencairnD wrote:
"Sure, Twitter is a commercial enterprise. But the Ö÷²¥´óÐã seems to be equally generous with its plugs for Facebook and other commercial enterprises."
I'm equally critical of such plugging.
"And if you don't want the Ö÷²¥´óÐã to plug any commercial enterprises at all, that would leave us with practically no sports coverage. (Wouldn't that be a shame.) This weekend we've had constant plugs for something called Formula One, whatever that is."
There is a big difference between incidental inclusion and deliberate promotion...
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Comment number 10.
At 23rd Jun 2009, Paul Murphy wrote:#6
The Comic Life that Steve refers to (on the Flickr version of the diagram) is a piece of software that you use create comic strips:
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Comment number 11.
At 25th Jun 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:If anything proves the utter fatuity of this obsession with twitter I've yet to see it..
Mind you, there is a rather good cartoon in Private Eye which nearly gets there...
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