Internet

Just a decade or so ago, most of the fruits of academia were relegated to library shelves and narrow circles of specialists — journals and the studies within them were placed a long way away from the immediate reach of the public and the media.

The push for open government and open data by federal officials, as well as authorities across many states and cities, can seem an unmitigated good. Talk to journalists, however, and there are myriad areas where they believe government at all levels is still being less than transparent — and less than helpful in revealing facts that the public is entitled to know.

As of 2011, 83% of American adults own a cellphone and 35% own some form of “smartphone.” This equals more than 300 million mobile phones currently in use, up from 86 million just a decade ago.

Facebook users who post, upload and tag on a regular basis may be a source of amusement — or aggravation — to their friends. A 2012 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests that such active users can significantly impact the Facebook experience of everyone in a network.

The content of “tweets,” the concise nuggets of information that make up a Twitter feed, can include breaking news from the Middle East, information on the latest Pew Study — or what your friend ate for breakfast.  Studies have assessed the value of a tweet based on its number of retweets or whether it prompted users to unfollow an account; however, these studies could not capture a reader’s level of interest in the tweets themselves.