Why Twitter Influences Cross-Cultural Engagement

Twitter functions as a real-time information network, but has become increasingly influential in the area of cross-cultural engagement. The diversity of the site’s user base and its open architecture have led a wide range of cultural groups to use Twitter to raise awareness about issues that matter to them, highlight certain aspects of their culture, or just have a laugh.

Of course, that’s hardly unusual in the world of social technology. What’s different on Twitter is that a wide range of cultural activities are taking place in full view of others who are often unfamiliar with the cultural mores they are observing. This inevitably leads to some level of cultural exploration. Joel Johnson of Gizmodo, whose own exploration was somewhat questionable, observed that “the joy of discovery that can come by weaving a stranger’s life into your own.”

On some level, this isn’t surprising, since we already use Twitter experimentally for all kinds of things unrelated to culture. We might be intrigued by a comment we see in the Trending Topics, and we visit the person’s profile to see if it’s someone we want to follow. Or we see a Trending Topic we’ve never heard of and want to know what’s going on. We learn about the news of the day, what’s going on with friends, and pop culture, so it’s a natural next step to look at people across cultures.

With that in mind, let’s examine why Twitter, moreso than other popular social networks, has become a hub for intercultural engagement.

A Step in a New Direction

Justin Flitter, a New Zealand-based customer advocate for Zendesk observed several benefits of intercultural communication on Twitter. “[It] makes cross-cultural communications more open and fluid,” he notes. “Accents, tone, body language and other subtleties are reduced when it’s just text on screen,” which can make it easier to interact with others across cultural differences. Apps like Twinslator, Tweetrans and Twanslate allow you to tweet in other languages, and Twanslate’s Firefox add-on translates others’ tweets into your language of choice.

But even without the third party apps, there is a universality of shared experience that underlies interactions on Twitter. Nancy Perez, CEO of Social Media Wired, sees Twitter as a place of shared human experience, noting that “the interests, behaviors, thought processes, speech patterns and daily commonalities of life translate [Twitter] conversations into the universal language of humankind.”

Flitter also points out that shared interests often trump separators like cultural context and jargon on Twitter. Twitter chats (here’s a list of them) are an excellent example of shared interest. People across a wide range of cultural contexts convene at regularly scheduled intervals to discuss topics that are of personal or professional significance to them. We also see this phenomenon during major events that cut across cultural contexts, like the Superbowl, World Cup, political events and entertainment award shows. People interact across cultures because they’re all interested in what’s taking place.

Open Design

The openness of Twitter’s architecture helps users explore the various cultural groups tweeting around them. User connections are made asymmetrically, so that we can begin the process of learning about others even without reciprocal engagement. The trending topics function semiotically as a signal to users that some issue, person or event is generating major interest in one of Twitter’s many communities. They’re also an implicit invitation for users to weigh in on the issues du jour. “Twitter is like the ticker tapes you see in Times Square,” says Halley Suitt, chief editor of Communispace. “It’s entertainment and it’s a voyeuristic medium.”

Dave Peck, a social media strategist at Bullfrog Media, likes this open aspect of Twitter and points to its facilitation of connections and learning as beneficial. “The concept of Twitter as a communication tool is truer to the idea of ’social networking,’ because by definition it is a system of interrelated conversations that help us to meet, learn and discover.” Learning new information, whether about people, institutions or events, is the essence of Twitter.

In addition to connections, Twitter’s search function and an array of third-party apps make it easy for users to tap into the vast amount information available through the site. These apps serve a range of purposes, from the aesthetic (Twistori, Twitpic) and the connective (Tweet O’Clock, WeFollow), to the utilitarian (Hootsuite, Tweetdeck) and even the comedic (Billie Tweets, LOLquiz). The wide range of services available to Twitter users is another indication of the breadth of diversity on the site.

The openness of Twitter has played a role in all kinds of cultural events, from the profound to the lighthearted. In the face of political elections and unrest, Twitter allowed those sympathetic to the plight of Iranian citizens to document news and events using the #iranelection hashtag. During the World Cup, Brazilian fans and supporters tweeted Cala Boca Galvão (“Shut up, Galvão”) to express their annoyance with well-known sports commentator Galvão Bueno and his constant stream of chatter during the matches.

Supporters and detractors of Proposition 8 in California used #Prop8 to highlight news and updates in the voting process and subsequent legal challenges. Black Twitter users protested Slate’s use of a brown Twitter bird in an article about black people on Twitter, posting absurd statements about and artistic variants of the #browntwitterbird — including one with dreadlocks!

What’s really interesting about these topics is the diverse user bases that they enveloped. The groups tweeting on these topics weren’t monolithic; they were a mixture of people, some with an interest in the issue, other casual observers, and occasionally jokesters who wanted to point out humor or irony in the situations at hand.

B.Y.O.C. (Bring Your Own Culture)

Open architecture is only one of the site’s benefits. Another is its bring-your-own (or create-your-own) culture ethos. Gaurav Mishra, a social media strategist based in New Delhi, India, observes that each user’s Twitter context is self-developed. “Each one of us curates our own community on Twitter,” he suggests, “by following friends, strangers, celebrities, news feeds or hashtags.” Part of bringing your own culture occurs by developing your social graph.

Twitter’s own cultural identity isn’t singular — it’s more like an amalgam of overlapping, diverse identities. So it’s fitting that the site allows users to express various aspects of their cultural backgrounds. In the U.S., discussions on culture tend to center around ethnicity or gender because those distinctions are readily visible. But the cross-cultural interactions on Twitter include numerous other dimensions of difference: age, political affiliation, religion, sexuality, abilities, national and regional origin, economic status, military service, physical size — you name it. It’s refreshing for users not to feel boxed into a defining characteristic.

Twitter is also a blending of our online and real life worlds. Most users’ Twitter streams include contacts from their offline networks along with new connections made through the site. Sonya Donaldson, editor of Tech & Sensibility, recognizes this dual nature of community found on Twitter. “[I] see Twitter as being segmented, and to some extent reifying offline social connections as much as it is helping us make new ones,” she notes. So it’s up to us; we can stay within our social circle or make a foray into new relationships. But the potential for intercultural interaction is there.

I Tweet, Therefore I Am

Making connections is only part of Twitter’s culture; it’s also about users making a statement of their existence. “It’s sort of like ‘I tweet, therefore I am,’ ” said Suitt, remarking that that people and communities use Twitter as a way of letting the world know that they exist.

It follows naturally, then, that a large part of communication on Twitter is “shout outs,” as Suitt describes them. The @messages and the retweets are all in some sense a form of publicly recognizing others. Suitt points out that when Kanye West joined Twitter, he immediately began posting messages that literally said “shout out to ____,” directed toward various Twitter users. And he did so numerous times.

What difference does a shout out make? It’s an affirmation of sorts; an acknowledgement that another person is present. For individuals and groups that feel ignored — or even people just having a bad day — being recognized can be gratifying in its own way. This makes Twitter an attractive outlet for every kind of agenda, because it gives a voice to people whose causes might have otherwise received limited attention. So it’s not surprising that groups feeling marginalized are increasingly active on Twitter.

It’s Not Utopia

While Twitter has the potential to change how we engage interculturally, it’s not a cross-cultural utopia. Users aren’t holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Stereotyping and culturally divisive language still exist on the site, just as in real life. Recent articles about cultural groups on Twitter reinforce stereotypes related to gender and ethnic populations, including white people. There is still a long way to go in terms of intercultural understanding on the site.

Documenting cross-cultural interactions and engagement on Twitter is useful because it encourages others to move past boundaries and bridge gaps using their social graphs. As Johnson put it in his article: “You should follow a few people on Twitter who aren’t like you.” To that I would add, more than a few. And while you’re following them, it’s worth remembering that Twitter provides a very incomplete picture of cultural norms. But despite this limitation, Twitter remains a useful starting point for intercultural connections.

While Twitter’s abbreviated format makes it easily accessible for many, it can also be a drawback when it comes to intercultural engagement. Joe Gerstandt, a diversity and inclusion strategist, notes that “Some conversations simply need more than 140 characters,” and he adds that “cross-cultural communication can involve a fair amount of context and complexity.” So even though users are bringing multiple layers of identity to Twitter, it’s difficult to explore the depths of those layers online. Instead, Gerstandt suggests using Twitter to initiate intercultural exchanges and a combination of in-person and online interactions to forge deeper cross-cultural connections.

Ultimately, Twitter is a useful tool to facilitate cross-cultural interactions, but the lion’s share of the responsibility to engage across boundaries still falls on us. As Mishra observes, “[H]uman beings have a strong tendency to prefer the familiar, so we pay attention to people with a shared context and treat the rich Twitter public stream as background noise … in practice, Twitter’s ability to promote cross-cultural communication is limited by our own willingness to engage in it.”

More Twitter Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Customize Your Background for the New Twitter
- Kanye West and How Twitter Has Changed the Way We Communicate
- HOW TO: Help New Users Stay Engaged on Twitter
- 10 iPad Apps for Twitter Power Users
- Top 10 Twitter Tips for Bands, By Bands

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