UCL and Twitter Collaborate on Live-Streaming Technology

UCL FIRST UK UNIVERSITY TO COLLABORATE WITH TWITTER TO BROADCAST LECTURE ON PERISCOPE.

On October 24 at 1pm Professor Daniel Miller, from UCL’s Anthropology department, lectured on the findings of the ‘Why we post’ study. This study was streamed on Periscope – a “live-streaming video app” owned by Twitter.

The ‘Why we Post’ study looked at how “social media is used around the world”. It involved “nine UCL anthropologists” spending 15 months in different communities around the world studying how social media impacted the way people live. 

A surprising finding the study made was that “social media is not making us more individualistic”. Instead, social media is being used to “reinforce traditional groups”, such as “family” and “tribes”, and is in fact being used to “repair” the holes created in these groups by “migration and mobility”.

The broadcasting of the lecture over Periscope is a continuation of the team’s research of social media. Professor Miller states that the streaming of the lecture “will be a really interesting experiment for us… I am looking forward to seeing… who we reach, how viewers interact with the lecture content and the impact it has on the learning of our students in the room”.

One of the features of Periscope that make it an interesting tool is that it allows “interactive two-way communication” in “real time” between the Professor and their online audience.

The audience can use the “chatbox” feature to ask questions or comment on the lecture and the heart feature to “like” it.

The Senior Director of Media Partnerships at Twitter, Lewis Wiltshire, said that Twitter was “excited to work in partnership with UCL.” He explained that Twitter believes that Periscope can be used as a “highly engaging and creative educational tool” as it “transports viewers to unique locations around the world to see compelling content in real-time.”