Tracking conversations and trends online has become something of a craft since social media took off, and it's a powerful way to pick up on breaking news and what has captured the public imagination. Why, one Susan Boyle was the most common term on Twitter for more than a week - before being beaten down by swine flu.

    There's a swathe of social media "monitoring" tools being pushed by rather annoying marketing firms obsessed with tracking "buzz" about a brand or product.

    For a web-savvy news organisation, top trending terms on sites like Twitter and Google's search trends can dictate the news agenda too - watch what people want to read about, and do quick turnaround news stories to meet that demand.

    But this week, it's all about swine flu. "Swine flu symptoms" is the most searched-for term on the Guardian site today, while Swine Flu, #swineflu and Mexico are the most common terms on Twitter, where the subject accounted for 2% of all messages yesterday, according to Nielsen.

    While that reflects public interest and the news agenda, it also highlights how many of us turn to the web as our first source of information. The web is famously treacherous as a self-diagnosis tool; a perfect example of how a little information can be dangerous; some Twitter users have been spreading message about not eating pork (it's not possible to catch swine flu from eating infected meat).

    Evgeny Morozon on Foreign Policy is rather po-faced about what he calls "Twitter's role in facilitating an unnecessary global panic". As ever, Twitter is reflecting real-world behaviour and not driving it. He reels off eight irresponsible tweets but takes them all without context; if anyone you followed had posted any of these, wouldn't you have taken them to task?

    "If my reading list on Twitter was only restricted to the individuals who had produced the posts above, by now I would be extremely scared and probably feeling a great urge to post a scary Twitter update myself," he writes. That's a very big "if" though - most of us don't follow a whole group of idiots - and are also capable of recognising a joke when we see one.

    "In moments like this, one is tempted to lament the death of broadcasting, for it seems that the information from expert sources – government, doctors, and the like – should probably be prioritised over everything else and have a higher chance of being seen that the information from the rest of one's Twitter-feed, full of speculation, misinformation, and gossip."

    隨著社會(huì)媒體的飛速發(fā)展,在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上跟蹤會(huì)話(huà)和趨勢(shì)已經(jīng)演變一種工藝,這是一種解構(gòu)和重建重大新聞的強(qiáng)有力方式并吸引公眾的想象力。你看,蘇珊波伊爾(《英倫有才人》選秀中以一曲《悲慘世界》中《我曾有夢(mèng)》而一鳴驚人的47歲英國(guó)平民大媽)在Twitter網(wǎng)(即時(shí)信息的一個(gè)變種,允許用戶(hù)將自己的最新動(dòng)態(tài)和想法以短信息的形式發(fā)送給手機(jī)和個(gè)性化網(wǎng)站群,而不僅僅是發(fā)送給個(gè)人。)上榮登榜首一個(gè)多星期,然而豬流感一來(lái),她的席位就立刻被打退了。

    作為嫻熟網(wǎng)絡(luò)的新聞機(jī)構(gòu),Twitter網(wǎng)站或者谷歌搜索趨勢(shì)能夠指引新聞條目--它們能知道人們想要看什么新聞,并且迅速轉(zhuǎn)身作新聞故事,以滿(mǎn)足人們的這一需求。

    但是這一周,所有網(wǎng)絡(luò)新聞千篇一律地是關(guān)于“豬流感”。“豬流感癥狀“是今天衛(wèi)報(bào)網(wǎng)站上被搜索最多的條目,而”豬流感“,“豬流感和墨西哥“是Twitter上最常出現(xiàn)的狀態(tài),根據(jù)尼爾森數(shù)據(jù)顯示這些信息狀態(tài)占了昨天所有信的百分之二。

    雖然這反映了公眾的興趣和新聞機(jī)構(gòu),同時(shí)也顯示出了如今我們很多人將網(wǎng)絡(luò)作為第一手信息的來(lái)源。網(wǎng)絡(luò)是臭名昭著的死我診斷工具,是證明不完全的信息可能會(huì)很危險(xiǎn)。一些Twitter使用者已經(jīng)開(kāi)始散步諸如不能吃豬肉的消息。(其實(shí)通過(guò)吃豬肉感染豬流感根本是不可能的)

    咨詢(xún)專(zhuān)家莫諾佐夫(Evgeny Morozov)在《外交政策》(ForeignPolicy)上表示,Twitter可能在這次來(lái)勢(shì)洶洶的豬流感疫情中加快散播負(fù)面消息,全球有可能因此而陷入不必要的恐慌。 和以往一樣,Twitter只是反映了現(xiàn)實(shí)世界的行為而不是在驅(qū)使現(xiàn)實(shí)世界。 他一口氣說(shuō)出了八個(gè)極不負(fù)責(zé)的Twitter上的留言,如果你twitter上的好友發(fā)出了這樣的言論,你難道會(huì)去指責(zé)他們嗎?

    莫諾佐夫?qū)懙?“如果我twitter的狀態(tài)閱讀清單上只有這些人張貼出來(lái)的狀態(tài),我現(xiàn)在一定是恐慌至極難以自拔,而且很有可能自己會(huì)去更新一個(gè)嚇人的Twitter信息,” 盡管這只是一個(gè)的“可能”,因?yàn)槲覀儾豢赡苤粫?huì)跟著去看一群傻瓜的狀態(tài),但卻能讓我們看到一個(gè)笑話(huà)調(diào)侃時(shí)能認(rèn)出它來(lái)。

    莫諾佐夫還說(shuō)道“在這樣的時(shí)候,人們會(huì)被吸引區(qū)悲嘆廣播宣傳的實(shí)質(zhì)上的死亡,因?yàn)檫@些信息看起來(lái)是來(lái)源于專(zhuān)家--政府,醫(yī)生等,比起那些在只是待在Twitter上,被猜測(cè)、誤導(dǎo)和留言充斥的人們,他們應(yīng)該能考慮到更多并有更多的機(jī)會(huì)能看到事實(shí)。”