1. Twitter as a Metajournalism Service: ACo-Tweet Network Analysis of the 2009Gaza ConflictK. Hazel Kwon, PhDDrexel Universitykk627@drexel.eduOnook Oh, MAUniversity of Oregononook@uoregon.eduManish Agrawal, PhDUniversity of South Floridamagrawal@coba.usf.eduH.R. Rao, PhDSUNY at Buffalomgmtrao@buffalo.edu

2. ABSTRACTTwitter is understood as a metajournalism service, a collectiveinformation system in which various types of information areretold and reinterpreted by users. The current study exploresthe use of Twitter during the 2009 Gaza conflict to find outwhat kinds of information providers are prominent in Twitternews sharing and how different types of sources areintegrated. Temporal analysis revealed that traditional bigjournalism still plays the most important news provider,whose role is becoming more prominent as time passes eversince the issue broke out. On the other hand, the co-tweetnetwork analysis revealed that, despite the central role of bigmedia, grassroot information providers, for example onlinecitizen journalism and NGOs, were well-integrated with thosetraditional actors, playing supplementary sources tounderstand the issue better. We conclude that Twitter showssymbiosis between mainstream and alternatives. 3. BACKGROUND: TWITTER AS METAJOURNALISMSERVICE A popular micro-blogging service One-to-many instant messaging service Effective social reporting in emergency/extreme situations(Farhi, 2009, Li & Rao, 2010, Oh et al., 2010a). Defined as a collaborative journalism service, orMETAJOURNALISM serviceo A symbiosis between the traditional mainstream mediaand ordinary citizens practiceso Horizontal and vertical Communication coexisto Importance of re-distributing and re-interpretingfunctiono Gatewatching, or information gatherer 4. Research Question(1) What kinds of information providers are in symbiosis throughoutthe process of news dissemination?(2) Among them, which media sources are prominently tweetedindividually or in conjunction with others?Topic: Israel-Gaza Conflict December 27th, 2008 to January 18th 2009PR War: Global attention through both mainstream and socialmedia1863 tweets that included external information outletsMethods Hyperlinked analysis (with only the top three domain names) Categorized (1) newswire agencies, (2) mainstream journalismmedia (3) online citizen journalism (4) Non-journalistic personalblogs or homepages and (5) Non-journalistic non-governmentalorganizations. Two graduate students coded data (Cohens Kappa k= .890, p < .001). 5. Over-time Tweet Patterns amongDifferent Information Types 6. 2-mode networks in TwitterCircle = Traditional Mass Media-based Journalism; Diamond = News Wire Agencies;Square: Online citizen journalism; Pentagon: NGOs; Triangle = Non-journalisticpersonal website/blogs.Co-tweetsacrossdifferenttypes 7. Co-Tweet Network Analysis Information sources are the nodes and their co-tweet relationships are thelinks (e.g. if BBC and CNN are tweeted together by a same person, this pairof nodes earns a link and is understood as the co-tweeted outlet). A co-tweet network(C) was generated from the two-mode network (M)composed of information outlets in the row and users in the column. Theco-tweet network among the information outlets was made by multiplyingthe two-mode network with its transpose (M):: C = M x M. 378 unique nodes included. Each pair of nodes was co-tweeted an averageof 3.23 times. The network is sparse with the density of 0.02. Among the348 nodes, 175 were isolates, indicating that they were not co-tweetedwith any other outlets. Centrally positioned nodes are wire service agencies (diamond) and bigmass media (circle). The most central top websites are :Reuter (1.000), BBC (0.735), NYT (0.541), Guardian (0.526), CNN (0.415),Dw-world (0.402), Telegraph (0.379), Haaretz (0.337), and Altertnet(owned by Reuter) (0.335) 8. Co-tweet Network Visual on Stage 4 9. Co-tweet Pattern among Source TypesMass media shows astrong relationship withwire service agencies,online journalism, andNGOs.Personal sources wereleast integrated in thenetwork. 10. Conclusion Temporal analysis :o The sold and influential status of traditional journalismmedia on Twitter.o This tendency is becoming more remarkable over time.o The role of professional journalism entity to createinvestigative storytelling. Co-tweet network analysis:o The traditional sources are coexistent along with othernew, alternative comers.o Strong co-tweet relationships with online citizenjournalism and NGOs : Active use of non-traditional newssources, as supplementary sources.o Possibility of diversifying interpretations of the event.