Special Lecture

TV Live-Tweeter: An Empowered TV Viewer

Tuesday, October 14, 2014
5:15 pm to 6:00 pm
Kai Huotari

TV Live-Tweeter: An Empowered TV Viewer

TV Live-Tweeter: An Empowered TV Viewer

In his doctoral dissertation, Kai Huotari studied how TV live-tweeting influenced the TV viewing experience. He interviewed 45 live-tweeters and analyzed more than 4,000 TV live-tweets sent in the U.S. in 2011–12. The study identified four distinct groups of users live-tweeting about TV programs (fanatic TV live-tweeters, systematic TV live-tweeters, sporadic TV live-tweeters, and active Twitter users), four main categories of TV live-tweets (courtesy tweets, outlet tweets, selection tweets, and analysis tweets), described several TV live-tweeting practices from preparation practices to reading and writing live-tweets and to the use of Twitter functions, and revealed that a TV live-tweeter is an empowered TV viewer who can, by experientializing live-tweeting into his or her TV viewing, personalize and control his or her TV-viewing experience better than before, express him- or herself more fully, and reach a large enough audience and acceptance for his or her ideas.

Kai Huotari has a Doctor of Science in economics and business administration from Hanken School of Economics, a Master of Science degree in computer science from Helsinki University of Technology, and a Master of Arts degree in filmmaking from Ecole Supérieur d’Audiovisuel / Université Toulouse Le Mirail. Huotari is the co-location centre Manager of EIT ICT Labs Helsinki and a scientist in the digital content communities research group at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT. In 2010–2012, Huotari was a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley School of Information. Previously, Huotari worked in media and film industries in Europe. In addition to the area of his doctoral dissertation, Huotari has studied gamification, especially form the point of view of marketing. His latest article on the topic will appear in The Gameful World, a book that will be published by MIT Press in fall 2014.

Last updated:

August 23, 2016