Using Twitter to engage audiences

Micro blogging is on the rise in the last couple of years. One of the more known micro blogging platforms, Twitter, has been used on one hand for engaging audiences to participate in debates and showcased on traditional media (mostly television), and on the other hand to produce news material for journalists across the globe - we see a rise of politicians as well as political parties using Twitter to spread news of their activity, especially during election campaigns, which is a great, quick source of information for journalists.

Media and journalism in general is being evolved through the use of Twitter and other micro blogging sites. For example, broadcasting companies use Twitter to engage their audiences to participate and express their views, beliefs, rants, etc., and be heard (well, read actually) - many shows nowadays feature a live Twitter feed at the bottom of the screen where messages from Twitter users regarding that topic are displayed (user use hash tags in front of their keywords regarding a certain topic, to be filtered to a news feed where a debate is going on... for example #newmediaandsociety, #twitter, #microblogging in this case). A good example of engaging audiences that I came across lately is the NBA half time show on TNT. They regularly give shout outs to people who participate on Twitter regarding a certain topic. The hosts will select a post which is suitable to be aired, read it out loud, say from which user it was from and then debate over that topic for a while. This is a great use to engage users during the show. Only a really small percent will be selected, of course, but users have the tendency to pursue their 5 minutes of fame on national television and thus engage in the debate. Instant content for the broadcasting companies and a happy user who feels has a saying? Sounds like a win-win situation to me. I think Twitter will be used more and more this way in the years to come.