Tweet Tweet, Twitters #3 Chick, Ellen Degeneres (Media Meditation #1)

How did Ellen get to be the #3 Twitterer?

I am rather new to Twitter but one of the first people I choose to follow was Ellen Degeneres’s, TheEllenShow. I choose to follow her after my roommate mentioned how she followed her and really enjoyed her tweets. Since then I have seen her Tweets all over my wall, and it occurred to me how smart she was being. Ellen was tweeting about up coming shows, fun events, articles, or other various things that either she or her Twitter team thought was interesting enough to share. What I believe really skyrocketed her followers was when she decided to hold contests or leak special information specifically on Twitter for her followers. This gave them the opportunity to win prizes and connect more with Ellen and the show.

Here is a video of Ellen discussing the beginning of her Twitter experience. She started just like everyone else hearing about Twitter through a friend. Even if in this case that friend was P.Diddy.

Ellen Talks Twitter



So many people are on Twitter now, updating their Tweets every couple of minutes. I found this article called, Tweeting by Thinking, through Magic Hats Twitter, and after reading it I couldn't help but think of the book Feed. In Feed they all had "feeds" installed in their heads which is like basically a computer hooked up to your brain. In this article a man was able to send a Tweet simply by thinking. It really hows how new technology can affect us and make us think differently and create even newer technology off of it, which could be used in so many different ways.


While reading Media Society, I came across the term Technological Determinism on page 305, which according to the book means, "an approach that identifies technology, or technological advances, as the central casual element in processes of social change".

Twitter has spawned a new level of social networking online and it has effected social change. Ellen brought about change to her show and the amount of followers and their interaction with the show through Twitter. TheEllenShow on Twitter was getting so popular that Ellen had to create a whole team dedicated to running her Twitter account.

Ellen Degeneres Twitter Team




Here Are some of the examples of how Ellen Tweets, these came right from her Twitter account:

*TheEllenShow: Attention Los Angeles Followers: Who wants prizes! Less than a half hour! Grab your red dresses & O Mag & get to The Grove! Santa's Workshop

--Ellen earlier Tweeted and let everyone view video and photos of her photo shoot with Opera for O magazine. Later when the magazine was published she had this promotion through exclusively Twitter. Here is the video from the Photo shoot with Opera.



* TheEllenShow: My tweets are real! RT @furtherpeace Are you really Ellen, or someone posting for Ellen?

*TheEllenShow: Want more footage from my trip to Chicago? Here's me having some fun in the Rockies: See it @ThisISGMC

*TheEllenShow: Everyone that who participated in my twitter challenge today got tickets to 12 days! Thanks for playing. It pays to follow me!