This short story about an extramarital affair was entertaining and raised pertinent questions about Facebook
Twitter reached new levels of maturity and embroilment in old media on Tuesday. In the Afternoon Reading slot, Radio 4 broadcast Between the Tweets, a short story by the excellent Jojo Moyes; the first in a series of tales inspired by the social media network. It's a sign of how unchartered Twitter is for some listeners that the network had to explain on its website what a tweet is.
The story itself was a well-observed account of a married, fading television presenter being accused on Twitter of having an affair. The woman making the claims, Blonde_Becca (Moyes omitted to check, and there's a real account of that name, oops), is persistent and anonymous. Her profile picture is just "two blue eyes and a peroxide fringe" and her knowledge of the presenter's anatomy suggests they have indeed been intimate. He has, she explains, "a scar on his left buttock the same shape as ET's head". There were lots of nice, funny lines: "This is killing negotiations with ITV2", the presenter tells a reputation manager.
But the story's theme raises interesting questions about how far radio stations should embrace new technologies. Radio once thrived on phone calls, and then texting seemed to occlude that. Facebook had a moment, but never really changed how radio worked because the interaction was over on Facebook, rather than on-air. Twitter, though, suits radio rather more: both have a conversational feel and some radio presenters are especially busy, funny tweeters, enriching the listening experience. Jeremy Vine , still relatively new to Twitter, has a quote of the day from each show: a quick, simple idea that's a great connection with listeners.
Yet it can exclude some of the audience, and that's the risk. If you're not on Twitter, and a presenter keeps slavishly mentioning it, it feels alienating and quite the opposite of how radio works. The challenge is to use it to enhance the core strengths of radio; another secondary communicative option, but nothing more than that.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/sep/27/between-the-tweets-radio-head
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