Twitter can't beat news agencies: Study

WASHINGTON: A recent study revealed that news agencies continue to have an edge over Twitter in being first to provide news to viewers. 

According to the research, Twitter can only break news before newswires in rare incidences, but for major events there is little evidence that it can replace traditional news outlets. 

Twitter's can bring additional coverage of events, and for sharing news items of interest to niche audiences, such as local sports results. 

Scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow developed a software algorithm to track Twitter activity. They used it to study 51 million tweets over 11 weeks in summer 2011 and compared these with outputnews outlets for the same period. 

Newswires tracked included the BBC, CNN, Reuters and the New York Times, which seek to set the news agenda and break news stories ahead of one another. 

Scientists were able to examine Twitter messages relating to major news items. They also identified a large amount of minor news items that had featured on Twitter but had been ignored by the mainstream media. 

It was mainly for sport and disaster-related events when Twitter outperformed newswires for speed, the findings showed. 

The study, supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, is to be presented at the 7th International AAAI Conference On Weblogs And Social Media, in Boston, US, next week. 

Dr Miles Osborne, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, said that Twitter can bring added value by spreading the word on events that we might not otherwise hear about, and for bringing local perspectives on major news items.