While newspapers may have flocked to get seen on Twitter, researchers have found that most simply use it to promote their own material.
Academics Marcus Messner and Asriel Eford looked at 180 of the top US newspapers and television stations' Twitter activity and analysed what was produced.
Presenting the findings at the Future of Journalism Conference in Cardiff this morning, Messen said, although 91% had Twitter accounts, only two thirds of those studied actually tweeted and that 98.5% of the hyperlinks tweeted, simply pointed to existing website content.
He said: "We found that more attention needs to be paid to community building. It needs to go beyond shovelware.
"Most content could be found on the website - it's like when websites started and newspapers just shovelled online what they had in the paper. Twitter needs to be engaged as online social network."
In a seperate study, Alfred Hermida also presented a paper on Twitter and what he identified as "ambient journalism".
He said the multi-faceted and fragmented news experience provided users with a personalised news service but that it was possible it will be replaced by a new micro-blogging service.
"What is the future of Twitter? There is a degree of hyperbole about the potential for Twitter. It is possible that something will come up and replace it, so rather than concentrate on one service, it's worth looking at the services it offers."
• The conference is being covered on Twitter using the hashtag #foj09. Alfred Hermida can be found @hermida, Marcus Messner is @marcusmessner and Sarah Hartley is @foodiesarah.
