Observations
Although I have made some notes about individual Tweeps on their respective pages here I also wanted to pull together some of my observations from the whole 24 hours of #Torchwood tweets and some subsequent interaction with the hashtag.
The Health of the #Torchwood Hashtag
The #Torchwood hashtag is, it turns out, suprisingly active even in the broadcast "off season" and several months after the initial release of the Children of Earth DVD in the UK. The hashtag also bridges fans across multiple areas - a few Tweeters explicitly giving their location as the UK but the higher proportion of Tweeters came from the US and specifically from existing Who-niverse fan communities.
Because activity on the hashtag is fairly constant it really did feel like an authentic field site and, particularly, like a busy bar with regulars, core community members and lots of occassional or one-off visitors. Consistent with this there are local campaigns and sub-communities in this group of fellow Tweeters.
Connections and Power Tweeters
I was expecting for some of my Tweeters to follow each other but I was surprised that following up these connections would produce two clear active groupings which I will call here "Creative #Torchwood Tweeps" and "Ianto Campaign Tweeps". The first group connected together abundant fan creations including short fiction, podcasts and an original (and very well produced) comic book. The second group were powering a much more time-specific concern for the continuation of the Ianto Jones character following his apparent death in season three of the show, Children of Earth.
Looking at the links from both groups of Tweeps I found an interesting connection: most of the #Torchwood Twitterers who are particularly active in fan production exist in a parallel community on LiveJournal where they connect and share their creations with each other. LiveJournal pages also connected some of the core Tweeps to the relative outliers and, indeed, to others who have subsequently Tweeted to the #Torchwood tag. Not only did this offer useful information about how some Twitter connections are made but also placed the fan practices in a wider context of personal lives, family, and the real world Doctor Who and Torchwood fan communities at conventions (which it appears several Tweeters may have met at). However the only really viral story on Twitter over the time period looked at seemed to be the appearance of @spastasmagoria on an @2minutetimelord podcast which was then shared onwards by Retweet from, amongst others, @michealdthomas. Here the number of followers was not an important factor in virally sharing and community discussion of the news, instead it was the specific quality of those relationships that was more important. Replies and interactions between accounts giving a much better prediction of this behaviour than the number of followers.
I was also expecting to see several Power Tweeters in the group - those with very high follower counts and ReTweet mentions - but it was only the rather one directional Twitter streams of @DrWhoNews and @TorchwoodForum that really had high numbers of readers. Because these are relatively impersonal accounts they do get ReTweeted to a degree but do not engage in dialogue and, it seems, may post too frequently (generally when any item is updated on their respective websites) to merit a higher level of attention / engagement with others.
Creativity & Fan Practice
When I began this ethnography I did so with an awareness of the passion and investment of fans in Torchwood and the wider Who-niverse and was expecting to find news and views activity of the type that @DrWhoNews and @Torchwoodforum both embody. I was not, however, expecting to find that within a group of 19 #Torchwood Tweeters I would find people who: write their own short Dr Who fiction (@Michaeldthomas); create regular podcasts - short (@2minutetimelord) and long (@legopolis) - as much about chatting through the fictional dynamics and characters of the Who-niverse with friends as they are about creating an item for distribution; have designed and written original comic books (@spastasmagoria); participate in fan video activity (@carmel141); and encourage contribution (@neurwen and @cinderblock42) to creating a communal afterlife (the Flat Ianto Project), an equine tribute (Ianto Jones Wants a Pony) and raising £10,000 for Children in Need (Save Ianto Jones) all centered on their passion for a fictional Torchwood character.
I was staggered and impressed by the level of enthusiasm of #Torchwood Tweeps and the level and quality of participation contribute to the sense that this space represents a real and vibrant active community who encourage and share ideas and use Twitter to bridge activity on many social sites.
#Torchwood and Torchwood the BBC Brand
Something I had noticed when looking at the profiles of #Torchwood Tweeps was that many used Torchwood images, branding or Doctor Who images for profile pictures and backgrounds indicating the importance and centrality of the series and the brand to their Twitter presence and sense of self. The BBC does make high quality images, clips and podcasts of Torchwood available for download by fans but there is substantial complexity in the intellectual property rights of such usage, particularly when items are being used widely and appropriatted in fan practices that includes slash fiction and indeed campaigns against the show itself.
Indeed there is a really interesting issue of ownership integral to fan movements like the Save Ianto Jones campaign. Campaigners believe that they are their enthusiasm for characters gives a certain sort of ownership and that it is almost an infringement of their rights to kill off a character. The writers voice may retain authority in programme making but the voice of fans can be a powerful marketing force for television shows like Torchwood - after all #Torchwood and the associated fan practices keep the profile of the show high throughout the year. Fan unhappiness combined with the appropriation of official images can create a more vibrant and engaging community than official or officially-approved BBC engagement practices causing an interesting potential clash of online cultures both entirely built around the same fictional context.
Modes of Participation
Looking across the Tweets I had collected on 1st November 2009, my random choice of observation day, I was initially disappointed as I felt there were a lot of announcements and repeated posts, and very few discussions through #Torchwood. However watching the tag further and looking in more depth at the Tweeters I found that the day I had picked was relatively representative of Tweets on a day with no connection to a live event (TV broadcast, convention appearance etc.). I therefore tentatively propose several modes of participation exhibited by the Tweeters which may apply to other groups but which I specifically observed in this ethnography:
Shouts - This is my term for information postings which are never intended for anything other than reading and (usually) clicking through to a source of further information. @DrWhoNews' prolific postings - and whole Twitter engagement - seems to fall into this category but so did some of the individual Tweets/groups of Tweets of more mixed personal/promotional Twitter accounts of @2minutetimelord or @spastasmagoria. Shouts might be ReTweeter but are not usually replied to and are written purely to promote an item and connect the follower to that item.
Chats - This is a term to cover genuine two-way conversations and engagements between Tweeps. It might usually result from a ReTweet or reply but may also simply be a post mentioning another Twitter by name or @username, or may simply be a post designed to get the attention of, and spark conversation with, a specific follower/small group of followers. Some of @cinderblock42's posts about Ianto Jones fall into this category but, more interestingly, so do the posts of slightly dubious accounts such as @lemon49josh. These posts are specifically designed to attract specific users, albeit in a very different/dubious way.
Cheers - These are named to reflect the positivity and enthusiasm of cheerleaders and refer to Tweets that promote other people's activities, particularly fan creativity. @michaeldthomas often posts Tweets that fall into this category as they promote the Doctor Who and Torchwood fan practices of friends, contacts and fellow online fans.
Wails - Although there are several substantial and successful campaigns on #Torchwood at the moment around the Ianto Jones character and fan disappointment I think these fit into the same category as other emotional responses to the show and this is my reason for the term Wail here. Wail relates back to the behaviour of babies and toddlers who wail to indicate a change or mood or comfort or to express emotion in order to gain attention and empathy or action. @ohjuuliet's enthusiastic Tweets about the characters of Gwen and Jack fit her as much as @neurwen's posts about Ianto Jones or @carmel141's sharing of her self-categorization in a Twitter directory. Review postings, reactions etc. can also fit into this participation mode.
Echos - Repeats, plagiarism or hacking can all fit into this mode or participation which has both a positive and subversive connotation. In the positive form this mode is about participation in sharing interesting materials via ReTweets (e.g. some of @legopolis' Tweets). The subversive application relates to the difficulties in distinguishing between authentic or fake Twitter accounts and Tweets: even if you cannot tell the status of a specific user it is possible to notice similar phrases used over and over again and it was clear that something peculiar was taking place with several of the familiar-looking #Torchwood Tweets even before @lemon49josh's account was closed down. This mode is about credited or uncredited reuse of Tweet content either manually or automatically (though the latter generally had very negative connotations).
Whispers - This is my term for low-impact Tweets with a low emotional level and for Tweets which are lost in the either of the hashtag. Frequently such posts will come from visitors to the hashtag community - as per the reception my own Tweet requesting #Torchwood Tweeps - but may also be the unresponded to "small talk" of the tag. @explorelearn and @rawrsomesauce both make postings of this sort: although they are tagged with #Torchwood the likelihood is that only their own friends will be interested in when they have switched on an episode or how they are switching sci-fi series DVDs etc. These are not posts without value but they are much more ephemeral presences in the hashtag.
Concluding Thoughts
I believe I have identified an ethnographically valid community in #Torchwood but I do think many of the interactions and relationships I observed would, perhaps, fit more validly into a wider examination of online Torchwood fan culture and communities as little of the #Torchwood activity sat in isolation from activity in connected online spaces.
I would like to close by thanking all who knowingly or unknowingly let me observe and experience their community. I really enjoyed the experience and may continue to keep contact through #Torchwood or some of the creative sites affiliated by the Torchwood Twitter Tweeps.