Who's On Twitter

There's a mini-tempest in a teeny tiny teapot about what The New York Times journalists are on, or not on, or who rarely use, Twitter.  As if anyone cares. 

Still, for fun, I applied the same question to my own Department of Journalism at Grady College (note, we've combined with broadcast journalism, so the list is long below, and I've bold/italicized those folks). Let's take a look, but I'm not about to create a jillion little screenshots. Instead, below I list the faculty members in alphabetical order and, if on Twitter, how many tweets that person has created as of Tuesday afternoon. Each name should link to their individual faculty bio in case you don't know who they are, what they teach, or what research they do (if any).

• Lee Becker (524 tweets)
• Valerie Boyd (not on Twitter, best I can tell)
• Dodi Cantrell-Bickley (not on Twitter)
• Michael Castengera (174 tweets)
• Charles Davis (our dean, 301 tweets as his new dean handle)
• John Greenman (not on Twitter)
• David Hazinski (2 tweets)
• Keith Herndon (730 tweets)
• Barry Hollander (um, me, 5,404 tweets)
• Ann Hollifield (not on Twitter)
• Tom Hudson (120 tweets)
• Janice Hume (department head, not on Twitter)
• Mark Johnson (5,449 tweets, our #1 Tweetmeister)
• Bill Lee (not on Twitter)
• Vicki Michaelis (838 tweets)
• Kent Middleton (not on Twitter)
• Ivanka Pjesivac (not on Twitter)
• Leara Rhodes (not on Twitter)
• Chris Shumway (1,831 tweets)
• John Soloski (18 tweets)
• Welch Suggs (3,019 tweets)
• Pat Thomas (1,202 tweets)
• Bart Wojdynski (985 tweets)

You'll notice our digital/broadcast folks aren't big Twitter users, which kinda fits as they tend to not be as digitally involved as some of us who have nothing better to do with their time. Several are not even on Twitter, or if they are I couldn't find them. A few are on Twitter but have sent either two (really?) or 18 (really?) tweets.

Now, in fairness, many people use Twitter not to send or interact but as radar to keep up with those they follow. Think of it as a news feed, a way to keep up with what's breaking. That's one of the weaknesses of the NYT criticism above. Not everyone uses Twitter as a platform. Some use it, instead, as a wire service, as a feed, as radar, not as a way to blather away as some of us tend to do. In all, 13 are on Twitter (some, barely), 10 are not.  Not sure what that means.

And it sucks that I'm second to Johnson in number of tweets.  

Sigh. Just 46 more tweets and I'm #1.