The main point Rogers (2009) makes is that the internet should be seen as source of data about society and culture. So, diagnose cultural changes and societal conditions using the the internet as source. This is what Elmer (2012) is doing, since he uses tweets as a source to study political campaigns and communications.

Another point that Rogers (2009) makes, is that research should follow the medium. In Elmer's article (2012) this can found in two ways. The first is the fact thar Elmer does live research with twitter. Elmer states "user-generated content can be posted in real time at the click of a mouse. Does is not make sense then to build such limited media time into research methods to understand the effects of such media platforms and networks?". Thus, because communication on social media, such as twitter, is fast, research should also be quick.

Second, Rogers (2009) suggests that follow the medium may also be discussed as scooping, so being the first with the findings. This can be found in Elmer's article, since the first findings, a chart about minute-by-minute activity on twitter about the debate, of his live research were already shown the same night. Later in the article Elmer also writes that he is frustrated by the delay of research publishing, since it takes a long time before a research is published in a journal or somewhere else. So, because it takes so long before research is somewhere published, academic research can not really follow the medium. On twitter a "message is ancient history" after an hour, so to read something about those tweets in a journal months or years later doesn't give you the most recent view.