By Michael Bugeja, director, Greenlee School, Iowa State University

Several years and re-accreditations have passed since journalism and communication schools began revamping their curricula to incorporate convergence. Given the economic downturn, it is time for curricular re-assessment—this time because of budget cuts. Many programs face two choices: lose courses or lose people.

Accredited journalism and mass communication programs may be suffering more than other academic units because seats in our skills classes and laboratories should be set at 15 and should not exceed 20, according to the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Moreover, those classes usually must be taken sequentially to meet pre-requisites for students to advance in the degree program. Colleges can demand higher enrollments in disciplines with relatively few majors, or cancel those classes. In our discipline, all that does is extend graduation rates.

There is another specter related to convergence troubling or being overlooked by administrators of journalism and mass communication programs: curricular expansion. A few institutions (to remain nameless) were early adopters, adding a bevy of new media courses to catalogs that, for the most part, focused on technology, software and audio/visual/text presentation. Some schools added a “new media” sequence to their stable of old media ones, especially programs offering Bachelor of Science journalism degrees (BSJ).

Many programs added new media to existing courses. The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication fell in that last category. In anticipation of a new Ph.D. in science, technology and risk communication, the faculty at the Greenlee School opted to streamline courses and add digital techniques to existing courses such as Fundamentals of Photography taught by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dennis Chamberlin whose syllabus states:

“Photojournalism is a technology-driven medium and has always been very dependent upon advancements made in the photographic industry. In the past few years the computer and digital technology have played an important role in changing the way photojournalists work—and we will focus on improving digital photo skills so that you will be able to move on to the next level if you should choose. These recent changes have changed the profession to the extent that single images printed on paper have become overshadowed by the need for images and multimedia packages for electronic distribution. We will address this. …”

In introducing computer and Internet technologies into photojournalism, we didn’t have to add to our existing curriculum a course such as “Pixel Painting” or “Multimedia Packaging for Photojournalists.” Ours was a flexible curriculum with a relative few core courses such as Reporting and Writing for the Mass Media and Law of Mass Communication. We had emphases, though, in print (newspapers and magazines), electronic media, public relations, science communication and visual communication.

In general, curriculum grows without curtailment. Emphases aspire to be sequences, sequences to majors, majors to departments, departments to schools and schools to colleges. New hires often invent courses to feed research, and promotion and tenure documents usually reward those who add courses to the curriculum in the name of innovation, overlooking those who innovate in existing courses. As a result, curriculum spreads like kudzu through catalogs.

If you’re interested in other ways curriculum grows, read “How to Fight the High Cost of Curricular Glut” in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Here are ways to streamline curriculum in response to the economic downturn without increasing teaching loads for your faculty:

1. Restrict enrollment to non-majors in skills classes. Otherwise they take seats in low-enrolled courses, requiring you to add more sections.
2. Uphold standards such as an English Usage Test or other pre-major or grade requirement to eliminate students unsuited to our disciplines, freeing up seats for those willing to do the work.
3. Revisit or adjust for articulation agreements with community colleges with easier standards, such as no English Usage Test, allowing students to progress in your program until a graduation check indicates that they still need to fulfill basic requirements, but cannot.
4. Invest in academic advising so that your first-year majors or pre-majors have undergraduate plans of study before their sophomore year. Advising takes time but is the most effective way to ensure that classes have sufficient and/or optimal enrollment.
5. Encourage innovation in existing rather than in new or experimental courses. That may allow you to cut those early adopter stand-alone convergence courses or new media sequences whose methods by now are being duplicated in other, more traditional classes.
6. Cut or schedule less often courses with minimal enrollment or high drop rates that often indicate lack of interest in the subject matter.
7. Use the rubrics of seminars, workshops and independent studies for timely topics or ones that may generate enough enrollments only if offered once every few years.
8. Encourage your students to take classes in other disciplines to exceed (rather than merely meet) the accreditation minimum of 65 semester hours or 94 quarter hours in the liberal arts and sciences.
9. Eliminate the silos of sequences and use Occam’s razor to simplify degree programs in the name of academic truth: the more courses in the catalog, the more we have to teach them.
10. Remind faculty that curricular streamlining not only will decrease workload and save jobs in a slumping economy but also free up more time for research to meet promotion and tenure requirements.

By Brad King, Ball State University

“There is no there there.” - Gertrude Stein

Social media doesn’t exist. At least not in the way it’s normally discussed.

I’ve made this statement to countless technologists in the past few years without much pushback. We discussed the evolution of modern technologies, the philosophy of digital tools and the rapid expansion of software applications now available for the “humans,” the name for which I’ve long dubbed those who prefer pushing buttons to learning underlying architectures. (In other words: normal people.)

Yet when I’ve taken this argument out to the masses, nothing I’ve said — short of my decade-long writing against Apple’s technology tactics — has generated more heated conversation than my statement about social media. The response has always been the fiercest from media practitioners who have built entire cottage industries around selling a quick fix to people in search of easy answers to the technological revolution.

My position seems even less defensible when you consider that I teach two courses with the term “social media” in the titles: one in the digital media minor at Ball State University where I teach and one with the New York Times Knowledge Network as part of a partnership with my university and that news organization.

If I truly believed my statement, the rational objector would point out, why would I build courses around the idea of social media, training people to do the very thing I say doesn’t exist?

The short answer is this: I believe in the bait-and-switch.

The long answer is a bit more nuanced than that and requires us to travel back to the dawn of the modern, digital networked age: 1945.

***

By July 1945, the end of World War II was near. The Allied powers dealt the Germans and Italians haymakers in April, and by month’s end Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler were dead. As major combat in the European theater closed, the Allies began a relentless march toward Japan. The outcome of the war was no longer in doubt (although the particulars of how it would come to an end were still unforeseen).

With peace looming, scientists began to wonder what would happen next. Many had been pulled away from their research, directed to create modern technologies that may aid the Allied forces. What would happen, many wondered, after the war?

Vannevar Bush, one of the scientists who organized the Manhattan Project and who held great political sway, penned the article “As We May Think” for The Atlantic where he articulated this problem. The explosion of research and information had reached a tipping point. It was impossible for the modern scientist to keep abreast of all the research and information being created in their field. The war, the consolidation of scientific power and the practical applications were coming too fast.

That flow, he said, was only going to get worse, which was bad for society because information is only beneficial if people can find and access that information in a rational way.

His solution: Instead of sending all of these scientists back to their labs, why not search for a way to create an organization that would allow for a greater sharing of information and research? Better yet, he argued, why not begin to develop technologies that would allow those scientists to search and retrieve information more quickly and more efficiently so they could spend more time thinking and less time digging?

Why not, he suggested, build a network of information that used software tools, which hadn’t been made, to help publish, store, search and retrieve information in ways that make us more efficient — better — thinkers?

***

Fifteen years later, J.C.R. Licklider — the grandfather of the Internet — expanded on Bush’s thoughts in his work “Man-Computer Symbiosis.” Licklider argued that computers would need to help people find information in real time.

Just as important, Licklider said modern digital technologies would need to do more than simply complete tasks humans directed it to do. Modern software technologies would need to learn the kinds of problems humans didn’t even know they had and offer solutions to them. These technologies, he said, needed to help create the kinds of serendipity that is the hallmark of creativity.

While my summarization of his work sounds suspiciously close to artificial intelligence, Licklider clarified his thoughts in “The Computer as Communication Device” in 1965. He viewed the technologies not as free-thinking machines but as technologies more akin to the types of collaborative filtering you see today whenever you purchase a book from Amazon.com and are immediately prompted with a series of books that people who purchased the same book also bought.

***

By the early 1970s, young hackers at MIT and a handful of other universities around the United States were building the early software tools that would power the Internet and eventually lead to creation of the World Wide Web.

In his work Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, author Steven Levy chronicles the development of these ingenious software programs who built the beta version of the modern, digital networked world on the principles of Bush and Licklider (although it’s relatively clear that this wasn’t a pre-planned event as much as a continuation of the battle to create the best network and software).

Some of the guiding principles that evolved during this development — the Hacker Ethic as Levy dubbed it — contained ghosts of the thinking that Bush and Licklider laid out: decentralization of power, open protocols, and tools that were easy to use in order to create art and beauty.

What emerged through the late 1970s as these software tools began to make their way across the globe and more people engaged with the network was the birth of the Intergalatic Computer Network that Bush first described and that Licklider conceptualized and named.

***

Which brings me back to where we started: my contention that social media doesn’t exist.

For many, social media has come to be defined in two ways: either as a series of software tools (e.g., “Twitter is social media”) or as a series of platitudes and techno-babble (e.g., “social media is Web 2.0 applications that allow for two-way communication”). These strike me as wildly inaccurate and intellectually lazy definitions, the very kind that, if my students used them, would immediately raise my blood pressure.

Instead, I’ve argued that to make sure our students can navigate the world of emerging, social technologies, we must define the actions of so-called social media through the intentions of the philosophical and practical developers of the Internet. When I speak of social media during the bait portion of the bait-and-switch, I say this:

We’re in the human evolutionary stage of the modern, digital networked world. Today, humans now have the ability to do the thing that Bush and Licklider pushed for years ago: an ability to use technology to think better.

Today, we can:

• Use digital tools
• Publish and share our creations
• Store and archive information
• Search and retrieve that information
• Use a real-time network
• Aggregate and visualize information and data
• Make better decisions

During the switch portion of my class, I explain to my students that they will not be learning tools. They will be learning how to find all the tools available,  figure out which tools to use, when to use them and why to use them. (The best example of why it’s important to teach the philosophy of tools and not the tools themselves: Brian Solis’ “Exploring the Twitterverse” chart. I could teach an entire semester just on the ways we can use Twitter.)

None of this is new. What is new is that humans can now easily use these tools. Without the foundational knowledge that this is what the network has always done, they believe they have discovered something.

But the term suggests an understanding that people don’t innately have. It suggests that a familiarity with the tools gives them a functional and foundational understanding of the ways in which these tools can be deployed for things that don’t yet exist.

This is how the network was designed. This is how the network and the software technologies that sit on top of the Internet have always worked.

Twitter and Facebook will eventually go away, just as Friendster and MySpace have stepped to the side before them. What name we call the software is irrelevant. What matters is learning what we can and should be doing with these tools in order to think better as Bush and Licklider imagined.

Interesting Texts on How and Why Tools Work:

• Tools for Thought, by Howard Rheingold
• Mediactive, by Dan Gillmor
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Katie Hafner

Brad King is an assistant professor of Journalism and an Emerging Media Fellow at Ball State University. He is also on the advisory boards for South by Southwest Interactive and Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press.

by Jan Slater, University of Illinois

It seems we just were together at the annual conference in Denver. What a wonderful conference it was! Some 2,189 delegates had much to choose from with our 372 sessions and presentations of 853 original research papers.

Every August, we come together to share our experiences, our ideas, and our scholarship. We are supercharged for those five days and that electricity carries us into the new academic year.

So here we are in November. The leaves are changing (falling in some places), the days are shorter, the nights are cooler, and our semester is past the mid-point and moving a bit too quickly to its completion. We are bogged down with grading mid- terms, revising that journal article one more time, advising dissertations, serving on numerous committees within our pro- grams and universities, calming anxious seniors that there will be a job for them, and trying to keep up with the changes happening within our disciplines and within our own universities. It is easy to forget that energy we enjoyed post Denver when we get overwhelmed with all that is happening in our worlds. For that very reason, we need to keep connected through- out the year. This is essential as we manage our current challenges and plan for the future of what an education in journalism and mass communication will look like.

As I announced in Denver, we will be hosting a series of regional Idea Summits throughout the year to discuss “Keeping Journalism and Mass Communication Education Relevant in a Changing World”. To me, this is one of the most important topics requiring our attention. While we are making incredible strides in managing the lightening speed changes occurring in our industries, we continually face new challenges in classrooms and on our own campuses. How do we keep journalism and mass communication education relevant in this sea of change?
Never before have we witnessed such a collision of factors — economic markets, media changes, amounts of available information, sources of information, consumer control, and budget woes that are driving the industries we serve as well as the institutions we call home.

Never before has there been a more challenging time to prepare the next generation of journalists and communicators. Never before has journalism and mass communication been more important. Educating the next generation of journalists, storytellers, scholars, and communicators is vital for the preservation of our values and principles that are grounded in this country’s heritage. We have an obligation, not just to our students, but also to the citizens of this country, to advocate the process of journalism not just the product of journalism. To do that we must be relevant to the networked world of news, information, media and strategic communications.

Therefore, there is no better time for us to have intensive and inclusive conversations about how we provide JMC education that is important and impactful. To do this, we need all to participate in this conversation – teachers, scholars, administrators, high school educators, and professionals.

The purpose of the Idea Summits is to bring professionals and professors together to generate ideas that we can employ to build a stronger partnership and provide better preparation for the next generation. The first Idea Summit will be in Dallas in February, followed by ones in Chicago in March, San Diego in April, and Washington, D.C. in June. More information will be coming so you can begin to plan which Summit you can attend.

In the meantime, start focusing on what a JMC education provides. It is so much more than reporting, broadcasting, advertising, public relations, etc. JMC education teaches people skills, oral and written communication competencies, and technological prowess; we teach fact finding, the critical thinking aspects of sorting out depths of information and making it accessible; we teach analytical skills, accuracy, culture, societal impact; we teach constitutional law, history, equality, ethics, curiosity, storytelling, and most of all we teach truth- telling.

What other educational endeavor crosses so many disciplines in its teaching and preparation? Our students can work in any business because of the values and competencies we teach. We need to emphasize all the strengths of what we teach, and reinforce that the basic foundations of JMC education teach life preparation and citizenship. No matter what is happening in the media industries, a JMC education is relevant preparation for a multitude of career opportunities.

While we may not have a clue as to what jobs or experiences are available to our students by the time they graduate – we must ensure that we have prepared them for anything.

So, let’s start the conversation. Only together can we be successful. I hope you will plan to attend one or more of the Idea Summits. And I hope you will plan to submit a paper and attend one of the upcoming AEJMC regional meetings – the Midwinter Conference in at the University of Oklahoma March 4-5, and the Southeast Colloquium at the University of South Carolina March 17-19.

What you can do right now is start Idea Groups within your own department, college and university. Engage alumni, other departments on your campus, professionals, your students and faculty. Start your own conversations about how to improve what we do and how we provide value to our institutions, our industries, and our students. Email me at president@aejmc.com if you’d like to be part of the Idea Summits. Let’s work on ways to keep the conversation going.

While the challenges are many, the opportunities are greater. There’s never been a more exciting time in our profession. We must embrace that excitement and be fear- less about whatever comes next. Let’s get to work.

By Vivian Martin, Central Connecticut State University

Like their counterparts at large universities, faculty in smaller Journalism and Mass Communication programs are challenged with integrating multimedia storytelling and social media into their curriculum. The task is configured a bit differently than it is in larger programs though, so a priority for the Small Programs Interest Group (SPIG) continues to be programming that helps members respond to the need for changes in curriculum and teaching. After surveying our membership in 2008, we had a pretty good blueprint for how to proceed, and we have hit on a few things that seem to work.

The Best Practices showcase pre-conference in Denver, which featured five presentations chosen through a competition and attracted 35 attendees, is one of the ways we’ve helped our membership navigate this multi-wired world. The pre-conference format allows us to give more in-depth attention to issues ranging from when and how to introduce the first audio and video reporting assignments to the senior capstone. Some of our panels in Denver featured lesson plans on blogs and Twitter, as well. But the pre-conference seems to be in keeping with the ways in which faculty in smaller programs are used to stretching resources. During planning for the 2009 Boston conference, SPIG, in the spirit of trying to do more with our small number of chips, combined a couple of panel proposals on multimedia issues and created a pre-conference for Boston. With the membership’s urging, we decided to go for something bigger in Denver and expect we’ll be back with more pre-conference in the future.

The teaching content offered in the preconference would probably be useful to most any JMC educator. The challenge in small programs differs due to structure and mission. Although a few members teach in ACEJMC-accredited programs, many are in programs where they are the only fulltime journalism or public relations professor;in some cases that one professor teaches both, with three or four courses a semester alongside service and research. Structurally, the curriculum in programs with just a journalism minor or one faculty member who teaches journalism or public relations practice has fewer courses in a sequence. So, while a larger program might be able to spread the introduction of multimedia across several reporting courses of varying levels, the curriculum at a small liberal arts college might have Basic Reporting course and Advanced reporting and a few other regular specialties. The professor has to take care of multimedia in different ways than would a colleague in a larger program, where students might get three sequential reporting classes and separate multimedia reporting classes. When SPIG members get together we talk about multimedia strategies in curriculum where we may be the only one teaching.

And yet there are some real advantages to being small. People in smaller programs can and have made curriculum changes without having to deal with as many obstructionist colleagues (though they are in small programs, too). On the positive side, members are collaborating with colleagues in computer science, design, art, and other areas, relationships that may be easier to build on smaller campuses. What is apparent after each conference is that SPIG members like being where they are—in programs where they can roll up their sleeves and make immediate changes in the lives of the students.

At this year’s convention, Commission on the Status of Women members renewed their commitment to young scholars by supporting a mentoring initiative that will begin in the coming months.

The mentoring initiative includes an annual networking lunch and a coordinated mentorship program. Both activities are aimed at helping junior female faculty succeed in the academy.

“The CSW mentoring initiative will be beneficial to new faculty like me, who are in the beginning stages of publishing, creating teaching portfolios and planning for the tenure and promotion process,” said Katie Place, assistant professor, Saint Louis University.

The networking lunch will be held each year during the AEJMC Annual Convention, and CSW will subsidize the lunch to assure affordability. The goal of the lunch is to build collegial friendships so that women in the association will be better acquainted with each other, know who’s who among us, and establish informal working relationships.

Fifty scholars attended the first networking lunch that was held in Denver during the 2010 AEJMC Convention.

Stacey Hust, incoming chair of CSW, said the lunch is a unique opportunity for convention goers. “There are not too many events at the convention that specifically promote networking” Hust said. “I know a number of assistant professors who left the lunch with the e-mail address of at least one, if not two, senior faculty who are interested in helping them succeed in the academy,” she said.

In the coordinated mentorship program, two people – a senior mentor and a junior mentee — will be matched to achieve something specific. The program will feature an online application process that will be administered by two coordinators. It’s anticipated that it will take 1 to 2 years to formally establish the mentoring program.

Mentoring has long been considered beneficial to new female faculty members, regardless of their profession. Recent results from one of the first randomized trials of mentoring in academia found that the mentored female faculty published at a greater rate and were more likely to publish in top-tier journals than the non-mentored faculty (Blau, Currie, Croson, & Ginther, 2010, American Economic Review).

Erica Weintraub Austin, professor and director of the Murrow Research Center for Media and Health Promotion in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, said it is important for assistant professors to identify a mentor early in their careers.

“I think the most important things young scholars can do to develop leadership skills is to observe and practice,” Austin said. “In many cases, how leaders approach issues can be more important than the decisions they ultimately make.”

The CSW Mentoring Initiative was designed to facilitate such learning opportunities among faculty members. A three person committee developed the initiative and included chair Carolyn Byerly, Howard University, and members Dustin Harp, University of Texas-Austin and Dara Murray, Rutgers.

Check out next year’s program to find out when CSW will hold its networking lunch. If you’re interested in participating in our mentoring program, please look to our Facebook page (Commission on the Status of Women, AEJMC) or our Women’s Words newsletter for an announcement. Details should be coming soon.

By Vanessa Shelton, University of Iowa

Assisting high school journalism students and teachers seems like a natural partnership for AEJMC and ASJMC members. It’s a no-brainer, so to speak, in the eyes of Scholastic Journalism Division members.

Many of us are journalism faculty assigned to teach classes and direct programs designed to lend that crucial support to high school students and teachers. Those classes and programs come in various forms, from the scholastic media association and workshop offices maintained at universities and colleges to offering classes on methods of instructing secondary journalism. For some colleges, that outreach may consist of inviting the secondary students to attend programs or meet guest speakers on campus, or simply faculty visiting the high schools to address relevant topics.

College and university journalism educators have resources, knowledge and experiences that can benefit their high school counterparts in achieving their educational aims. What’s more, the high school teachers may be alumni – great alumni relations! Well-prepared journalism teachers generally result in accomplished student journalists.

Motivations for journalism departments to embrace high school journalism teachers and students were the topic of a panel discussion in an ASJMC session during the AEJMC Convention in Denver. The reasons for this partnership ranged from the altruistic of service to better the community, to the practical of student recruitment and accreditation standards.

Perhaps the reasons to create the partnerships encompass all of the above, to some degree or another. The Scholastic Journalism Division, nonetheless, believes there’s a need for more involvement with high school news media programs. It’s a win-win endeavor. Here’s a glimpse at what scholastic journalism educators shared in the panel session.

First for the practical reasons: In effect, when college-level journalism educators work to enhance high school journalism they are growing their own – and for their respective universities. Turns out those journalism students are among the best students on campus, according to research conclusions Jack Dvorak of Indiana, and his co-investigators have found over the years. They determined that high school students who staffed their school’s newspapers or yearbooks scored in the highest percentiles on the ACT in subject areas other than math. It wasn’t clear whether the journalism endeavors at the high school level produced the outstanding achievement test results, or that scholastic journalism attracts these top students. But, what we can all take away from the research is the students engaged in journalism at the high school level are excellent achievers as a whole. They are the types of students most universities and their journalism departments want to see. They should be encouraged and recruited.

Not least among the reasons to be involved is the ACEJMC accreditation standard to assist area high schools and community colleges. What’s more, the Scholastic Journalism Division has learned through its Innovative Outreach to High School Journalism awards program that frequently the goal of these partnerships is to develop more interest in the news media among minority students. Thus, the programs can result in a more diverse student body at journalism schools, and universities/colleges.

During the panel discussion, those in attendance informally compared notes: About 25 percent of the students attending summer journalism workshops at several universities later returned to campus as college students.

Now, let’s turn to the more altruistic goals of assisting scholastic journalism programs. In a nutshell, students and the community benefit when there are strong journalism education programs in high schools. Journalism education offers students individually some invaluable lessons, from the obvious – proper use of grammar and spelling – to the intangible yet valuable – critical thinking and logic. High school students attend their school board meetings and report on budgets. These students, early on, also understand how to access public records and what their First Amendment rights are. They’re well prepared for civic engagement before their 18th birthday.

For the shear educational benefits afforded to high school students, we should do all we can to assist the news media programs at area high schools and community colleges. In this economically challenging time, budgets are being cut and teachers laid-off. It’s not uncommon for student media and journalism classes to fall under the axe. Likewise, college journalism programs are stretched and stressed as well, and sometimes react by withdrawing support for high school outreach programs. The rationale may include the ease of making budget adjustments on such “non-essential” staff or the loose affiliation with the core mission of the university.

Scholastic journalism educators, such as those on the ASJMC panel, urge a more sober and holistic assessment of the educational values, as well as practicalities, of high school journalism partnerships. Such a longer, deeper view will reveal the investment in the partnerships will yield dividends both altruistically and practically for years to come.

By Jennifer A. Palilonis, Ball State University

After talking to a number of people from across the country at the AEJMC convention this year, I realized just how many of us are developing new courses that focus on multimedia and cross-platform storytelling. Of course, anytime we rethink curriculum, it’s a trick to balance the foundations of good journalism, more software and technical training, and how to determine what tomorrow’s journalists need to be successful.

In my own work, one question keeps arising: How much should students specialize in one form of storytelling and how much should they know about the others? We can’t train everyone to be experts at everything. But these days, they certainly need to be more versatile than ever before. As the journalism graphics sequence coordinator at Ball State, I have had the opportunity to teach a number of digital storytelling courses, and I have also engaged in research on how informational graphics can be used in multimedia news packages. And it seems to me that while many educators have begun to focus on teaching writers about video and photographers about audio, most have been slower to expose all journalism students to information graphics reporting.

Perhaps this is because in the past, graphics reporting has required high-end illustration skills, and animation has required deep knowledge of programs like Adobe Flash. Or perhaps it’s because we are unaware of how rich graphics reporting can be as a multimedia story form. So let me share two thoughts that might help move this forward at your schools.

First, we can, and should, train all journalism students to be aware of and know how to use all of the different storytelling tools available to them. As we all try to navigate the changing media landscape, I think we should consider whether our courses/curricula include how conceptualize, research, illustrate, animate and edit multimedia graphics to make our students more versatile, well-rounded journalists. Specifically, there are a few types of graphics you might want to consider exposing students to in the future. Instructives allow a user to click through the steps of a process and explain how something happens or works. Narratives offer a vicarious experience by combining audio voiceover with rich animation. Simulations and games are usually a representation of real-word phenomena and are also highly immersive. And data visualizations combine data sets with interactive maps, charts and diagrams. Although they are based on hard numbers, data visualizations can often be beautiful and creative. In the very least, students should be aware of these story forms, as well as when and how to use them.

Second, Interactive visual storytelling tools are maturing quickly. In fact, there are a number of open source tools available that make it easier to create sophisticated graphics with little to no knowledge of illustration techniques or programming. For example, GeoCommons (http://geocommons.com/) allows users to upload data and merge it with several types of map files. Maps that once required specialized skills to produce, can be created and shared online in minutes. Likewise, tools like Many Eyes (http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/) and Protovis (http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/) do the same for complex charts and data visualizations. Suddenly, any journalist can churn out a visual representation of a data set in minutes.

Of course, some students will illustrate and program graphics, while others will only be able to brainstorm graphics potential and use open source tools to create visualizations. Regardless, we should be addressing information graphics in our multimedia courses because if we don’t, we are severely limiting the number of tools our students are equipped to make use of in their work.

By Paola Banchero, University of Alaska Anchorage

When a group of AEJMC members petitioned to establish the Religion and Media Interest Group in 1996, they set out to do fulfill four main purposes: 1. to serve and study the religion media; 2. to serve and study the needs of journalism educators who work at institutions with religious affiliation; 3. to encourage research about the relationship between religion and the media; 4. to demonstrate that media researchers, practitioners and educators recognize the value of religion in society, and to dispel stereotypical perceptions to the contrary.

All these years later, it’s obvious the interest group has taken its mission further afield, though those four purposes still inform our research, teaching and service. A look at the research presented at the past couple of conferences and the Journal of Media and Religion show the diversity of interests of religion and media scholars. If there is one overriding trend it is that scholars have learned how closely religion aligns with culture, is part of culture. Media also permeate and become part of culture. Thus, it makes sense for us to talk about eco-theology, the movement among religious peoples, including evangelical Christians, to stitch together an environmental ethic with their concepts of the moral obligations humans have to protect the earth. It also makes sense for us to look at entertainment media and glean what the theologies of Glenn Beck to “Lost” to “The Simpsons” mean to our media and culture. If audiences are integrating faith into an increasingly large part of their lives, it’s up to media scholars to ascertain what that means for media.

Jim Trammell, of Highpoint University and past chair of the interest group, said the value of religion and media research to other scholars is that the research covers how ideology influences the way we use and interpret media.

“We all have a set of beliefs and ideals (be they grounded in religion, politics, or whatever) that shape the way we understand the world. Those sets of beliefs influence how we approach media differently,” he said. “It is reasonable to believe that liberals have a different set of expectations about media than conservatives do. Evangelicals have different media buying habits than fundamentalists do. Your perspective on the role of media in the free exchange of ideas is probably different if you are British than if you are American. But aside from identifying these differences, it is worth considering what it is about being liberal, or evangelical, or British that influences how we use media.”

As diverse as RMIG’s scholarship has become, there is room to expand the research agenda. At the Denver conference, RMIG teamed up with the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Bisexual Interest Group for a panel entitled, “Sex, Religion and Media.” Dane Claussen, who moderated the panel, pointed out that since the publication of his book also called, “Sex, Religion and Media” in 2002, few research undertakings have linked all three subjects. The panel yielded ideas for future directions in this area. The panelists, Jason Shepard, Cecile Holmes of University of South Carolina and Tien-Tsung Lee of University of Kansas and Gary Hicks of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, each offered an enriching perspective. Shepard looked at the reaction to the gay male kiss on television and how the FCC may respond to complaints about the graphic nature of such kisses. Holmes discussed the lack of understanding in newsrooms about forgiveness when it is framed as religious redemption, a common theme in news stories about leaders who have “sinned,” especially in a sexual context. She described situations in which reporters were incredulous about calls for forgiveness, from the Catholic Church sexual abuse crisis to the Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker sex scandals of the 1980s. Lee and Hicks looked at public opinion about gay men and lesbians and how religiosity is one factor predicting anti-gay attitudes.

Another area ripe for exploration is religion as it is used and shaped in relation to media outside the United States. Possibly the most downloaded issues of the Journal of Media and Religion have been its Volume 7, issues 1 and 2, which focused on Iran. The issues contained such articles as “The Role of Media in the Threats and Opportunities of Globalization for Religion.” However, a still small fraction of papers submitted to the interest group center on religions, audiences or media outside our national borders. Researchers are branching out from Christianity as a main area of interest and regarding other faith traditions as worthy of exploration. Others are contextualizing other areas and explaining them as religious in nature. For example, a person’s devotion to a sports team could be viewed as religious in nature: it is ritualized, often rooted in culture, and is acted upon through media.

The Religion and Media Interest Group seeks to address how religion colors, heightens, and changes mass communication. Join us in that exploration.

By Mary Beth Callie, Regis University

CIVIC & CITIZEN JOURNALISM | One of the most rewarding parts of my tenure as vice chair and now chair of the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group has been the opportunity is to learn from its founders, who are still active in the group. In 1994, when the University of Missouri’s Ed Lambeth founded the Civic Journalism Interest Group and became its first chair, two of its future chairs—Jan Schaffer and Cheryl Gibbs — were on the front lines of the civic journalism movement, which emerged in the late 1980s.

Meeting and working with people such as Ed, Jan and Cheryl has been not only personally rewarding, but also a way of understanding how what started out being known as the public or civic journalism movement continues to strive for approaches to journalism that enhance our democratic way of life.

Looking back at the movement, Lambeth sees the interplay of “creative introspection, professional action, and entrepreneurial scholarship.” Over ten years since they began working with journalists to develop techniques for getting beneath the surface of civic life, Rich Harwood and Jan Schaffer still demonstrate that interplay, as they work toward improving the depth and breadth of news available to citizens.

Harwood’s Institute for Public Innovation, for example, makes its webinars and resources widely available to communities and organizations. The institute also recently partnered with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on its “Community Engagement Initiative” (CEI),with 12 public radio and television stations. Harwood proposes that stations turn outward instead, seeing themselves not as traditional broadcasters but as “community-based leaders with media assets,” spanning boundaries. The CEI includes regular coaching to teach the journalists “community conversation” and authentic engagement practices.

Schaffer, now head of the J-Lab Institute for Interactive Journalism, emphasizes collaborative multi-media partnerships and networking to encourage community engagement in public issues. At J-Lab’s annual luncheon at the AEJMC 2009 convention in Boston, attendees learned about innovative consortiums formed by regional news organizations, such as the Ohio News Organization, which shares stories, in order to avoid duplication and create new possibilities for coverage. About a month later, J-Lab presented this year’s top Batten award for journalistic innovation to The New York Times for its range of digital initiatives. This year, J-Lab will support a Networked Journalism pilot project in which five traditional news organizations will each work with at least five hyperlocal sites.

J-Lab has also supported a recent study of perspectives and behavior in relation to traditional and new media, with a focus on women news consumers and creators. The study finds a changing definition of news, in which both creators and consumers seek to build and participate in community, not just cover community from afar.

Initiatives such as Harwood’s and Schaffer’s reflect a current application of many of the values asserted by the earliest civic/public journalism theorists and practitioners. In 1989, a long-term readership crisis motivated James Batten, CEO of Knight-Ridder, to advocate a renewed sense of public service, with the daily metro newspaper entrusted to connect communities and engage citizens in public life. Studies then had shown reader migration to the suburbs and eroding loyalty to place, competition with commercial television, and the failure of profit-centered newspapers to reinvest in newsgathering and innovation, all coming together to spur the crisis. In response, Batten recognized that newspapers had intellectual and economic resources to rethink their practices.

Batten found an intellectual framework in the research of the Kettering Foundation, particularly Rich Harwood’s Citizens and Politics report (1991), the work of scholars James Carey and Jay Rosen, and editors, such as Jack Swift, Cole Campbell, Buzz Merritt, and Tom Warhover. A conversation between Batten and Rebecca W. Rimmel, president of the Pew Charitable Trusts, led to the formation of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, headed by TV network journalist Ed Fouhy.

Schaffer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her business reporting with the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined the Pew Center, later becoming its executive director when Fouhy left for work on another project.

The civic journalism movement, as the above narrative suggests, emerged from collaborative relationships and networking of passionate editors and journalists, theorists, educators, and foundations, drawn together to conduct innovative experiments.

Early public journalism experiments pioneered practices that helped news organizations to “move beyond the limited mission of telling the news to a broader mission of helping public life go well.” as Davis “Buzz” Merritt describes in Public Journalism and Public Life. (1998). “When public life is going well, true deliberation occurs and leads to potential solutions.”

Rosen describes how journalists began “moving about in civic space — in their imaginations and their work” to begin “public work” that included asking what kind of map citizen-readers needed, and helping the public to recognize common ground. Gibbs recalls that Harwood’s 1994 report, Meaningful Chaos: How People form Relationships with Public Concerns, was pivotal in her own rethinking of journalism and public life.

Harwood worked with Campbell and Warhover at the Virginian-Pilot and Buzz Merritt at the Wichita Eagle to develop a mindset, practices, and reflexes that centered on supporting “community conversations” and problem-solving.

Inspired by the cultural ecology of David Mathews, Merritt and Harwood collaborated to examine how ideas move through communities. In their assessment, “newspapers didn’t know how to get into communities and neighborhoods to find authentic stories, without a story in hand,” Harwood recalls. Merritt and Harwood’s approaches for mapping and tapping civic life were then synthesized into a workbook, edited and published by the Pew Center. The workbook supported several rounds of seminars that began in Denver in 1999, when journalists and editors newspapers gathered to learn how to map the layers of civic life.

Past, Present, Future

At the 2008 AEJMC convention in Chicago, in a pre-conference panel sponsored by CCJIG, Lambeth stressed that civic and public journalism is still equipped to play a leading educational role, focused on “the really big topics that people are concerned about,” and helping to “break the public policy deadlock.”

On the same panel, Jay Rosen described how the story of civic and citizen journalism depends on the frame that we use: “In the 300 year view, the episode of civic journalism is part of a continuing struggle to bring more people into the political process–to give them roles as participants; to open up politics and discussion beyond the confines of a limited class, ” Rosen explained. From the view of 1988, Rosen added, civic journalism is an “early warning system ” that foreshadowed present conditions.

Today, from a civic and citizen view, the question still remains how traditional news organizations and hyperlocal sites will navigate the “whys” and “hows” of providing needed information, context, and connections for their communities…putting community first.

Thank you to Ed Lambeth Jan Schaffer, Rich Harwood, Cheryl Gibbs, and Jack Rosenberry for conversing with me to prepare this piece. Thanks, too, to Aaron Leavy of the Harwood Institute and Anna Tauzin at J-Lab.

Recommended reading:

Mar. 12, 1009 Civic/Public Journalism Bibliography by David Shedden, Library Director of the Poynter Institute, available at http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=1223

Jay Rosen, What Are Journalists for? (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999).

Edmund B. Lambeth, Philip E. Meyer, and Esther Thorson, Assessing Public Journalism. (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1998).

Theodore L. Glasser, Editor, The Idea of Public Journalism (New York and London: Guilford Press,1999)

Cheryl Gibbs and Tom Warhover, Getting the Whole Story (Guilford Press, 2002).

Carmen Sirianni and Lew Friedland, Civic Innovation in America: Empowerment, Public Policy, and the Movement for Civic Renewal (University of California Press, 2001)

Rich Harwood, Making Hope Real (2007)
Five key factors for creating transformative change in communities.

Tanni Haas, The Pursuit of Public Journalism. (Routledge Publishing, 2007).

Jack Rosenberry and Burton St. John III. Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press. (Routledge Publishing, 2010).

There’s much debate about the future of journalism these days, much of which I find uninteresting. Too often ideas and analysis flow great distances from the front lines. This, of course, is my bias: I’m rarely interested in the thoughts and ideas of those who haven’t rolled up their sleeves and done the dirty work to transform the world from one of atoms to one of bits.

That transformation is more subtle than simply a transition from static paper to interactive digital “page.” The implications are profound as we begin to understand the nature of network communication, linked information systems, open architectures and social inter-connectivity. Even the most basic idea of budget meetings, where editors and reporters “decide” what the news will be, should be overhauled and re-imagined in this network world.

Our most basic ideas will not hold in this networked era. For traditionalists, this is blasphemous. For the digerati, this point is mundane. What is certain, though, is that the world journalists exist within has — and is — changing rapidly.

To help see this change, I’ve asked people who are working in the media sphere — journalists, public relations practitioners, producers — to talk about their experience in the modern newsroom. Here are their stories:

Jason Pontin, Editor and Publisher, MIT’s Technology Review

In 2004, I went to work for Technology Review as the company’s website producer. It was an interesting time for the nation’s oldest technology magazine. We were in the middle of a radical overhaul of the property that included: building a daily website, re-imagining the monthly magazine, combining the two editorial visions and expanding the intellectual property across other platforms (e.g. conferences, foreign publishing).

Six years later, the overhaul and transformation is nearly complete. The last step: solidifying user payment models. Pontin discusses how the company evolved and how that has shaped its emerging pay schemes.

Caitlin Thompson, Online Producer, Time Magazine

While I refuse to use the term “digital native” to ascribe skills to younger generations because they just “get” technology, Thompson has spent the bulk of her career working online and thus has an interesting perspective on traditional media. She is one of the new breed of journalists, those who can easily navigate between atoms and bits. Here she talks about the conflicts that arise between traditional and emerging journalists and the mistakes that the digerati make as they move deeper into the newsroom.

James Poniewozik, Television and popular culture critic, Time Magazine’s TunedIn blog

When I first approached James for this, his response: I’m not sure what I have to add to this, I’m just a writer. Of course, that’s exactly the point. The changing media landscape, both from amateur publishers to the ever-moving blogosphere, make cultural critiques all the more important — and difficult. We now move at the speed of clicks. Ponziewozik discusses the life of a critic in a world where everyone can — and does — offer their own take on the world at large.

David Cohn, Founder, Spot.Us

I met David just after he launched Spot.Us after being awarded a grant from the Knight News Challenge, the yearly competition meant to suss out the most innovative ideas in journalism. The idea behind the project: a freelance-like approach to developing stories; however, instead of pitching to an editor, the writer’s can pitch to the world. Reporters set a fee for reporting, and those people who are interested in the project can donate money. If the goal is reached, the reporter starts the story.

The Spot.Us team then looks for syndication partners to help promote the stories. The idea is to help build a sustainable model for long-form and investigative journalism, provide writers with an outlet to build a viable career and ensure that newspapers have access to the more expensive journalism.

Mike Orren, President, Pegasus News

I first met the Pegasus News team at South by Southwest Interactive several years ago. My initial response to their business plan: obviously a ridiculous failure waiting to happen. Fast forward to now and Pegasus News is still around, finding its footing somewhere between traditional news and the cultural weekly newspapers that focus on happenings and events in town. The company built much of its underlying technology, enabling users to get very directed and personalized information. While the editorial staff isn’t spending the bulk of its time and money chasing down stories, the Dallas-Ft. Worth readers can get an excellent snapshot of what is happening in their neighborhood and city every day.

Kevin Dugan, Fouding Co-Editor, The Bad Pitch Blog

I moved back to Cincinnati in 2006 and happened to meet Kevin when we were both invited to speak in a class at Northern Kentucky University, where I happened to teach. He’s won several public relations awards for his work and for The Bad Pitch Blog, a quirky look at the good and the bad happening in the public relations industry. He’s also one of the people behind Cincinnati’s Social Media breakfast, one of the most successful satellite groups in the country. Here Kevin talks about how social media is changing the interaction companies have with news organizations and with customers. This is one area that should concern the media a great deal: why does anyone need the news media anymore?

Eliot Van Buskirk, Editor, Wired’s Epicenter

I met Eliot nearly a decade ago when I first started working at Wired. He covered the emerging MP3/digital music market at Cnet’s News.com, one of our main competitors at the time. He continued his coverage of the nascent market as it evolved and grew into its modern adolescence. Today he covers the confluence of music, business and popular culture at Wired. What’s so interesting, though, is his approach to crowdsourcing, how he uses emerging technologies to gather information and how he manages a working group that is spread across the planet.

Joanna Geary, Web Development Editor, The Times in London

Joanna is a Twitter find. I started following her sometime before the summer of 2009 (who can really be sure of these things) and when I visited London, she was kind enough to give me a quick tour of the Times. She introduced me to several folks at the organization who were looking at ways to optimize the data and information at the paper. This was long before the run up to the company’s new paywall, but even then there were discussions about what such a piece of software may look like in terms of the business (but not revenues). After all, there are many ways to make money and if, as many netizens (myself included) are right, the page view and other traditional metrics are actually quite useless. Here she talks about the changing new media landscape.

Dan Gillmor, Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism + Mass Communication at Arizona State University

For years, Dan Gillmor wrote the must-read technology column from Silicon Valley in the San Jose Mercury News. For anyone involved in the dotcom era, Gillmor’s work helped define debates about technology and society at large. He was one of the first journalists (that I can recall) who crowdsourced his work, gathering tips and leads using his blog and allowing his extensive network of readers help him shape his thoughts and ideas. He authored We the Media, one of the first examinations of the “social media” phenomenon before settling into his current gig at Arizona State, where he continues work on Media-active, his second book about tackling the phenomenon on networked publishing platforms, journalism and citizens.

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Brad King is an assistant professor of Journalism and an Emerging Media Fellow at Ball State University. He is also on the advisory boards for South by Southwest Interactive and Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press.

By Suzy Smith & Terry Heifetz, Ball State University

Social media has changed the way we interact within our communities. We use it to keep in touch with our families and friends, to connect with people who have common interests, to inform our social and professional groups about upcoming events or happenings, and even to share instant information about our feelings, our whereabouts and even share advice about places to go and things to do.

The news media has a long history with social media, although it is not obvious to most. From the early beginnings of the industry news has encouraged interaction between the audience and the news organization. Letters to the editor and phone call-in shows to the broadcast station are just two of the many ways that audiences in the past have played a part in interacting with the news. Technological advances have now made that interaction instantaneous. Discussion boards, twitter feeds, citizen journalism websites and Facebook groups, what we call social media, are among the many new outlets that provide audiences a way to take an active role in the news industry.

As educators it is our responsibility to both inform students on how to use these tools as well as encourage students to come up with new and exciting ways to use the tools. For colleges and universities that can sometimes be a challenge. Faculty members that are not as technologically savvy are hesitant to use these devices in the classroom. University rules and regulations are often unable to keep up with the changes in technology and therefore following the program set forth by the university can sometimes inhibit using all of these new technological advancements. Even students are sometimes hesitant to use social media in the classroom. They may use it for personal reasons, but often never think about it as a tool to help them in the classroom. Overcoming these obstacles is key for educators and students to maintain an understanding of the ways in which technology and social media can be used in ways that not only help build better understanding of the curriculum, but also of the world around us.

Social media is all about building communities. At its roots news is about building and informing communities. So it seems like a natural fit. As a professor teaching in broadcast journalism and news, it is essential to prepare students for what they will encounter once they begin working in today’s newsrooms. A colleague and I saw a need and found that social media could fill that need. News Directors across the state commented on how prepared Ball State students were for a world of reporting, but time and time again they said the one area students were lacking was in their live reporting skills. This created both a dilemma and an opportunity. The dilemma was trying to find a way to provide students with this experience without the cost associated with purchasing a live remote truck, which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The opportunity was finding a way to provide students with this experience utilizing new technologies and social media to achieve it.

What we created was a way to use social media to help facilitate communication to and about communities, even using it in a way that provided an experience students wouldn’t have otherwise received. Using Skype we gave students the chance to produce and perform live reports for the nightly student produced newscast. Without a live truck students at Ball State University were never able to practice a craft that is so prevalent into today’s broadcast news industry, by using Skype they now could. Because stations are using Skype, or other software like it, more and more as a less expensive alternative for live reporting, we were preparing students for things they would experience as they began working in the industry. But the use of the social media in the class didn’t stop with just the live shots. Skype also provided countless opportunities for students to interact with professionals in the field. Reporters and producers shared their expertise with students via Skype, even offering advice on how live shot reporting changes when using a broadband based social media tool. It also opened up the discussion to other ways in which social media could be used in the news business. One pair of media professionals invited to talk with the class spoke at length about ways in which Facebook was being used by their organization to build that sense of community not only among those that watched the newscast, but also with those that produced the newscast. Soon students were talking about ways in which various social media tools could be used not only to interact with the audience, but also as news gathering tools for their stories; often discussing when and how sites such as Linkedin and Facebook can or cannot be trusted. It really was wonderful to see students leading their own ethical discussions.

Skype proved to be a game-changing tool in many ways. Not only did it provide an economical way for students to do live shot remotes, a skill that was lacking in their education, but it also opened up and built connections to media professionals in a way that a telephone conference call cannot. The community building that is inherent in social media, occurred in a couple of different ways with the use of Skype in our classroom; reporters built communities with their audience and students built communities with media professionals.

Skype wasn’t the only social media tool that we used in this class to educate our students. YouTube proved invaluable as a teaching tool; primarily showing students examples of good live reporting work, and of course more often examples of very poor work. We also use a variety of websites including http://www.advancingthestory.com/, which also provided a number of examples of good work.

By Joe Bob Hester, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

JOMC 279, Advertising and Public Relations Research, is a required course for students majoring in advertising, public relations, or strategic communications in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The primary goals of this course are for students to learn 1) to conduct research and evaluate information by methods appropriate to the advertising and public relations professions, and 2) to apply basic numerical and statistical concepts.

During the spring 2010 semester, I integrated social media, specifically Twitter, into all aspects of the course. I had previously used local/regional businesses as “clients” for a research project in the course. However, the benefit of working with real clients carried with it some fairly serious drawbacks, particularly the difficulty in finding appropriate new clients each semester. A previous instructor in the course had always used Super Bowl advertising as the topic for the research project since the course was usually taught in the spring semester. Now that the course would be taught year round, I was looking for a research project topic that would be appropriate regardless of semester.

Social media fit the bill for four primary reasons: 1) the growing use of social media in advertising/PR, 2) there’s an actual need for research on the topic, thereby providing a publishing opportunity for students, 3) advertising and public relations students may not be receiving enough information about social media in the regular curriculum, and 4) the topic is sustainable and can be used for many semesters.

Students were required to learn to use Twitter as one of their personal and professional social media tools. They used Twitter for class communication, both student-to-instructor and student-to-student. Industry research reports and studies about social media were used as examples in the course when discussing a variety of research topics such as content analysis, questionnaire construction, data analysis, etc. The public relations coordinator responsible for the Pizza Hut Twitter account, the company’s “Twitterologist,” was a guest speaker in the course and discussed Pizza Hut’s use of third-party research services and development of social media strategies. In addition, class exercises and projects all revolved around social media in some way, with a particular emphasis on how brands use social media for advertising, public relations, and other marketing communication purposes. These exercises/projects included an original research project examining brand use of Twitter and a research proposal building on past social media research. Specific exercises/projects from the course are detailed in the following sections.

Creating/Using Twitter Accounts: At the beginning of the course, more than one-half of the class did not have a Twitter account, so the first Twitter exercise was to create professional Twitter accounts (or to improve their existing accounts). Class discussion focused on the importance of using a real name and photo, providing location and web info, the bio section, and even a custom background. Selected resources:

• Michael Hyatt’s Beginner’s Guide to Twitter http://bit.ly/5TEbW
• search.twitter.com
• twitter.com

Data Collection / Analysis with Followers: Once students had created accounts and followed each other, they began a 4-week exercise in which they were required to find and follow a minimum number of Twitter accounts while keeping detailed records about these accounts (# following, # followers, # listed, # Tweets). The students kept similar records on any accounts that followed them back. Once collected, the data were used in several assignments that introduced spreadsheet use and data analysis concepts.

Reliability in Content Analysis: Students read a report by Pear Analytics, which concluded that 40% of tweets are “pointless babble.” Using the methodology section of the report, students attempted to recreate the coding scheme used in the report and then coded a random selection of 100 tweets from the Twitter public timeline. Coding reliability (percent agreement) ranged from a low of 65% to a high of 95% (mean = 80%), levels that would typically not be considered reliable for a content analysis, and lead to a spirited discussion about the need for clear operational definitions and coder training. Resources:

• Twitter Study Reveals Interesting Results About Usage – 40% is “Pointless Babble” http://bit.ly/DoKIL
• Pear Analytics Twitter Report: Criticisms of the coding methods http://bit.ly/CYPrW
• twitter.com/public_timeline

Investigating Brand Activity on Twitter: Students read several research reports that described the growing prevalence of Twitter usage by brands (for example, “The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America’s Largest Companies,” http://bit.ly/aq2rGG). The majority of these reports do not go much beyond a simple description of the number of brands using Twitter.

This class research project was a content analysis of a sample of brand Twitter accounts to determine how brands in particular product categories use the social media tool. Students collected and analyzed the 500 most recent tweets from 35 different brands. They developed operational definitions and created coding criteria for a set of measures of brand activity on Twitter: volume, constancy, and participation. Data analysis was not complete at the time this summary was written. However, because the data set is now available, students in the summer session of the course will be able to analyze them and publish the results on a blog created for the project.

Research Proposal for a Future Class: It is not unusual for students in a research methods class to be required to write a research proposal. However, in this instance, the proposal was required to be a social media project that the next group of students in the course could use as their research project. For this semester, the research proposal was required to investigate the followers of brands on Twitter. Proposals were not limited to a particular research methodology, and students submitted proposals for surveys, content analyses, focus groups, and in-depth interviews.

Results After One Semester
Overall, I was very pleased with the results of integrating social media into the course. Once the Twitter accounts were set up, students readily used them. For example, a Twitter hashtag (#JOMC279) was assigned for the course. Students used the hashtag to ask questions and get answers from the instructor.

• @jbhester can we use third party websites like Twellow, Twitalyzer, etc. in our #JOMC279 proposal?
• Bring something to write with. RT @student: #JOMC279 Do we need to bring anything to the final?

Students also used the hashtag to connect with other students in the class.

• starting to get worried about this #JOMC279 Final. We need to make some serious study groups. Anyone interested?
• RT @student: Can’t help but smile at the #JOMC279 tweets today about our Twitter research proposals.

Sometimes students just made comments about the class.

• …I have “United Breaks Guitars” stuck in my head on loop… http://bit.ly/cllbbl ….thanks @jbhester …#jomc279
• Arrrgh, struggling through research proposal for #JOMC279 – at least it appears I’m not alone
• Although my research question is slightly difficult for #JOMC279, I’m actually really interested in it! Hope this doesn’t take TOO long.

My personal favorite:

• GOD THEY JUST STARTED TALKING ABOUT VALIDITY ON THE X-FILES. I can’t escape #jomc279 …

(NOTE: In the previous examples of actual tweets from the class, student Twitter account names have been changed to @student.)

Assessment of student projects indicates that in addition to learning the traditional research components of the course, students also learned a great deal about Twitter and social media. Informal discussions, online and offline, with students confirm this. At least two students interviewed for and accepted social media internships during the semester, and many others expressed interest in jobs working with social media.

In terms of student-instructor interaction, reading the students’ tweets allowed me to get a better feel for how well the class was going each week, whether students understood readings and lectures, etc. In one instance in particular, the stream of tweets after class indicated that many of the students did not understand the day’s lecture material (sampling distribution). I used these tweets in the next class period to promote class discussion, answer questions and clarify concepts.

However, it should be noted that Twitter is like email on steroids. Once students begin to use it, it becomes a 24/7 tool for them, and their expectations for instructor interaction increase. Instructors who want to add Twitter to their course need to be prepared for dealing with these expectations.

In the coming semesters, I plan to to refine the course content, exercises, and projects to continue to incorporate emerging social media practices and technologies into this course. The research course is a natural fit for introducing students to the world of social media for both today and tomorrow.

Marie Hardin, Penn State, led a recent online chat on sports journalism and social media with guests, Malcolm Moran, Knight Chair for Sports Journalism and Society; Viv Bernstein, New York Times contributing correspondent for sports; Megan Hueter, founder, Women Talk Sports; and Brad Schultz, associate professor and researcher on sports reporters and new media. The following offers a selection of highlights from the chat.

View the full unedited transcript of “Sports & Social Media: Issues & Predictions” at AEJMC LIVE.

Predictions?

Sada Reed: Journalists will have their own social media sites; people turn to them like they would their friends, family, for information.

Malcolm Moran: Professional athletes will breeze by the crowd waiting at the locker and say, “Check my tweets.” But when that happens, they will fail to realize the information can always come from someplace else.

Viv Bernstein: I think more athletes, leagues, etc., will turn to social media to control the message, and more teams and sports leagues will turn to social media to cut out the middleman – reporters – in controlling that message.

Dan Vecellio: There will be Facebook, Twitter and blogging channels on TV with analysts breaking down social media 24/7. A new type of CNN/Fox News/ESPN

Brian Moritz: A profitable online model is unveiled, saving newspapers and journalism as we know it.

Megan Hueter: I see the sports viewing experience as a possible convergence between live TV, gaming, social media, etc. But that large of change requires public policy and business to change as well. [...] In the meantime, I see hyper-local content, mobile options, and small media empires forming from blogs.

View the full unedited transcript of “Sports & Social Media: Issues & Predictions” at AEJMC LIVE.

By Gary Hanson, Kent State University | Radio-Television Journalism

Not long ago, I was visiting with the parent of a prospective student who asked me what kind of media job his daughter could get after she finished our program. Given the troubled times for media companies, the question was right on target and gave me a bit of pause because he was really asking what skills his daughter will need to succeed in a world that is increasingly information and communication based.

The media world is not as bleak as it seems. More content is being produced now than ever before. Video is no longer just on television, it’s on YouTube; audio is more than radio, it’s a podcast; media writing is not just on a printed page, it’s on Web sites and blogs.

I’m reminded of something one of our faculty members said in job interview several years ago. His presentation was the first time that I had considered the significance of the decoupling of media content from media distribution. He made a convincing case that the significant changes and innovations were on the distribution side. He argued, and I agreed, that students don’t always understand the channels in which content can be distributed or the specific audiences who use the channels.

I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that the students in most of our journalism programs live 21st Century lives as media users, but when they come into student newsrooms, they often produce content in a form that has more in common with 1970 than 2010. Broadcast students still produce traditional 30-minute news broadcasts and 90-second television news packages. Print students produce broadsheet newspapers and traditional-looking magazines. Sure, we’ve added Web content, Twitter and social networking, all of which are examples of the new delivery channels. But there is something about the 1970’s model that we may be losing – the focus on journalism’s content.

I thought about these points as I answered the parent. The way to best help his daughter is to look forward at the cutting-edge technology of content delivery and backward at the fundamental tenets of content – strong reporting and good storytelling.

This series of articles is an opportunity for AEJMC’s divisions and interest groups to examine how each fits into the association’s mission. For the Radio Television Journalism Division, it may be the recognition that the words in our title (radio, television and journalism) are no longer an exclusive franchise. Video and audio are not solely the purview of just broadcasters any more – the changes in content creation and delivery have changed that forever. The skills to produce our kind of stories are in demand by everyone who does journalism.

RTVJ sees this as an opportunity for collaboration. Not just at convention time when we produce jointly sponsored program sessions across our disciplines, but back home in our day jobs with colleagues in our own colleges and schools. We need to engage in collaborative research, innovative teaching and entrepreneurial programs across our disciplines. The fruits of that collaboration will put us in an even stronger position to help the next parent and student figure out how best to prepare for a career in the world of communication and information.

By Patricia Swann, Utica College | Public Relations

United States invented the modern-day profession we know as public relations. The United States has also pioneered the creation of public relations education.

Public relations educators in the United States have long rallied around Public Relations Society of America’s Commission of Public Relations Education report, “The Professional Bond,” which endorses a five-course standard. Those courses include principles of public relations, research methods, public relations writing, internship, and an additional class in campaigns or case studies.

But how is public relations taught globally? This question is beginning to be answered in a new study entitled “A First Look: An In-Depth Analysis of Global Public Relations Education” sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America Foundation and conducted by Elizabeth L. Toth, Ph.D., and Linda Aldoory, Ph.D., both from the University of Maryland and members of AEJMC’s Public Relations Division. This report is the first of a three-phase study.

The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 20 educators from undergraduate and graduate programs in various global regions. The researchers also examined their institutions’ Websites for curricula information. They found that nearly three-quarters of participants expressed some version of the five-course standard mentioned above. All study participants unanimously supported the need for research methods and internships/professional experiences.

But there were some cultural differences:

For example, in Nigeria there is a strong emphasis on relationships and politics, which is tied with the country’s focus on health and development. In New Zealand there was a similar focus on development and solving social problems, while also looking globally for public relations strategies. In China, participants talked about Confucian traditions and the ongoing framework of harmony working within public relations and other professions in the country…

The researchers found a “moderate” influence from public relations in the United States and Europe, using Western perspectives and theories for public relations, textbooks, and the five-course model.

Toth and Aldoory’s research found a desire for the “development of a basic tool kit for public relations educators that simultaneously offer some global perspectives and understandings of today’s public relations, but also allows for local, cultural distinctions for teaching in the discipline.”

Part of this educator tool kit might be a Website with case studies, test banks, uploaded interviews with professionals, campaign ideas, recommended/rated textbooks, educator blogs, and a listserv that would allow public relations educators around the globe to connect and exchange ideas, offer partnerships and travel opportunities.

The educator tool kit is a smart idea to expand the body of knowledge and forge new partnerships and friendships. Different perspectives, such as China’s use of Confucian traditions and Europe’s interest in social responsibility, are worthy of consideration as our world continues to grow smaller and smaller…but the need for excellent public relations grows larger and larger.

To view the research report “A First Look: An In-Depth Analysis of Global Public Relations Education” go to http://www.prsafoundation.org/research.html.

By Bill Cassidy, Northern Illinois University | Newspaper

How to best offer our students the skills and knowledge needed for success in their careers is undoubtedly important to all the divisions and interest groups of AEJMC. Given the tumultuous nature of the industry, not to mention the media landscape, most—if not all—journalism schools, departments, and programs have made changes in their curriculums.

I think the issue of curriculum change and development is particularly important to the Newspaper Division in large part because traditional newspaper writing and editing courses have been the backbone of journalism curriculums. But, in today’s environment, that simply won’t do.

For the past two years, I and my dedicated journalism colleagues at Northern Illinois University have worked long and hard to update our curriculum in a way that would appeal to the rest of the faculty in the Department of Communication, university officials, and better serve our students. We are all happy that our new curriculum was approved and goes into effect in the next school year.

I won’t go into all of the changes made. But, basically we’ve “opened up” the curriculum which allows our majors to take courses in several different areas. While we never had formal tracks in our program, gaining substantive experience in more than one area made graduating in four years difficult. We will also offer additional courses focusing on the important role journalists play in our society.

So, while we’ve made some significant and much-needed changes in a program that was clearly outdated, there’s still a ways to go. But, in what direction?

Answering that question recently became much more daunting for me after I read a story about changes made by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in their undergraduate program.

“Instead of moving to a convergence-based media program as some journalism schools have done, MU is doing the exact opposite,” the story read.

Say what? Talk about throwing a curve-ball.

Actually, based on the story and after a quick perusal of Missouri’s new program, I think there is much to admire about it. But, it made me realize that this business of curriculum change and deciding what needs to be offered is tough. In fact, I dare say I may have a case of curriculum fatigue.

I’ve read that journalism programs should make sure students learn statistics and survey methodology. We should work with computer science departments to develop cross-disciplinary courses, and make entrepreneurship a vital part of our programs. Furthermore, we should make blogging part of nearly every writing course, not to mention Twitter. The list goes on.

While these are all excellent ideas, I wonder how do we incorporate them all into our courses and programs, especially when you throw in the fact that many students—at least at the three universities where I’ve taught—are lacking in some of the basic journalistic writing skills?

My head hurts just thinking about it.

That said, however, I won’t give up the fight trying to figure these issues out.

By Todd Chambers, Texas Tech University | Media Management and Economics

Wow. Have you heard the news? Television is making a comeback! From viewers spending more time in front of their new HDTVs (Stelter, 2010) to double-digit increases in spot television advertising revenues (Elliott, 2010), it appears that the good ole’ days are back. Despite these positive indicators for an important cog in the media wheel, significant challenges remain for an industry struggling to stay relevant to younger media consumers. It’s within these challenges where new theoretical and applied research studies can inform the next generation of media management and economics teachers and scholars.

In addition to the implications of policy and regulatory issues, the adoption of digital television by the industry and the consumer has provided numerous opportunities to think through some of the research opportunities in management and economics. Just on the consumption side, media managers are constantly trying to justify ‘new’ strategies for new ‘revenue streams’ from an active audience that is using multiple media concurrently. From applied studies related to managing multiple media platforms to theoretical studies about competition in local television markets, the digital era provides unique prospects for scholarship.

For teachers, digital television offers numerous topics related to news, advertising, public relations and electronic media. Resources from federal government agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and industry organizations such as the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association can provide excellent starting points for class discussions and case studies related to pricing, budgets, and competition. Specific reports from the FCC such as their annual video competition reports (http://www.fcc.gov/mb/csrptpg.html) can provide exhaustive information about trends facing the television, cable and other video industries.

There is no question that television is just one screen in this new multi-screen media environment. New topics related to mobile television, competition from portable media devices, video games, and new models for pricing programming will dominate the literature and the classroom, as they should. In fact, thinking about the interesting implications of media business models focusing on monetizing “free” content has been and will continue to be a challenging concept for the next few years. If you are interested in a book for the summer that provides an overview of the new media economy, I’d encourage you to pick up a copy of Chris Anderson’s Free: the future of a radical price (2009).

The good ole’ days aren’t coming back. Digital television is one of several media platforms that have ushered in new ways to think about media management and economics. As an industry, the next generation of viewers will continue to challenge the relevancy of television. Despite the challenges, digital television will continue to anchor or at least be a partner as one of the primary delivery platforms for information and entertainment content. As such, its value as a topic for teaching and scholarship has specific value for a variety of disciplines within the journalism and mass communications community.

Web resources you might be interested in:

• Federal Communications Commission (www.fcc.gov)
• National Association of Broadcasters (www.nab.org)
• National Cable & Telecommunications Association (www.ncta.com)

References:

• Anderson, C. (2009). Free: the future of a radical price. New York: Hyperion.
• Elliott, S. (2010, May 26). Ad spending turns up in first quarter, tracking service says, after
  many quarters of declines, New York Times, Media Decoder Blog. Retrieved on May
  26, 2010, from http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/ad-spending-turns-up-in-first-quarter-tracking-service-says-after-many-quarters-of-declines/
• Stelter, B. (2010, May 25). Crystal-clear, maybe mesmerizing, New York Times. Retrieved on
  May 25, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/media/24def.htm

By Jack Breslin, Iona College | Media Ethics

In reflecting on our first decade as an AEJMC division, the Media Ethics Division leadership must continue to attract and inspire members with an open and engaging dialogue about crucial media ethics issues.

This on-going dialogue should not only promote relevant and innovative scholarship, which MED’s panels, research sessions and publications have demonstrated over the past decade. But this ethical “marketplace of ideas” must also inspire students and professionals to create their own ethical identities to discover insights and solutions for existing and new ethical challenges in our global media environment.

From AEJMC’s early days, individual scholars pursued media ethics research as various disciplines sponsored panels and attracted research papers on the topic. There was talk of a full-fledged division, but no official movement developed, even as events in journalism focused on ethics in the profession and college courses in media ethics increased. The founding of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics in 1984 and “boot camp” teaching workshops by Ed Lambeth (Missouri) also focused more attention on the discipline.

AJEMC’s Standing Committee on Professional Freedom and Responsibility formed an “Ad Hoc Committee on Ethics,” chaired by Cliff Christians (Illinois) in 1982. Yet the idea of a separate media ethics division still met opposition from those who insisted the topic got enough attention among existing groups.

In 1997, Bill Babcock (Southern Illinois, Carbondale) and Michelle Johnson organized a group of media ethics veterans into an effort that gained Interest Group approval at the Baltimore 1998 convention, followed by division status in New Orleans the next year.

From that handful of scholars, MED has flourished with 291 current members who come from all AEJMC’s divisions, interest groups and commissions. In addition to attracting a growing number of research papers submissions, MED has become a sought-after division for panel co-sponsorship, as the various disciplines recognize the need and value of media ethics in scholarship, teaching and the professions.

To sustain that growth and relevancy among mass communication disciplines, MED faces several significant challenges. In countering the “common sense” approach to ethical decision making, our scholarship must encourage application of the philosophy and theory of ethics. Mere moralizing or ad-hoc “best practice” codes will not provide consistent, workable or theory-grounded ethical solutions.

Interdisciplinary research and dialogue also offer theory and applications outside mass communication. MED has consistently met this challenge with its longtime relationship with the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, which promotes interdisciplinary study and teaching of ethics in such diverse areas as business, social services, medicine, law, and media.
With many media institutions and individuals focused on survival, how can MED convince current and future practitioners about the value of ethics? By expanding its ethical scholarship and teaching within traditional mass media professions, such as advertising, public relations, broadcasting, film and journalism, MED must address the global media environment and “new” ethical issues, particularly intercultural clashes, created by the Digital Revolution.

By Renee Hobbs, Temple University | Mass Communication and Society

On October 2, 2009, the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy released their report, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.” Among the main recommendations, the Commission urges that the nation (1) maximize the availability of relevant and credible information to all Americans; (2) strengthen the capacity of individuals to engage with information; and (3) promote individual engagement with information and the public life of the community.

In particular, the report recommends that digital and media literacy be integrated as critical elements of education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state and local education officials. Young people, in particular, have a special role to play in efforts to develop the digital information and communication capacities of local communities. Other recommendations call for universal broadband, open networks, transparent government, vibrant local journalism, public media reform, and local public engagement.

The report acknowledges that many efforts will be needed to bring digital and media literacy to all Americans. Simple access to media and technology does not necessarily lead to media literacy, which is defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communication messages in a wide variety of forms. The report points out, “It may be tempting for teachers and administrators who are themselves uncomfortable with new media to view digital and media competencies as ‘add-ons’ to basic learning in ‘reading, writing and arithmetic.’ They are, however, new forms of foundational learning.”

The report calls for a federal initiative to assess the quality of digital and media literacy in the nation’s schools and for efforts to incorporate digital and media literacy education into institutions of higher education to prepare future teachers. In the fall of 2010, a white paper will lay out specific recommendations to help communities develop initiatives to bring digital and media literacy to all its citizens.

The report emphasizes that Americans need to maintain a commitment to enduring information ideals, including the values of openness, inclusion and engagement. At a time of rapid technological change, when more and more ordinary citizens are adopting the roles of both producers and consumers of information, it is important to develop strategies to help people acquire the knowledge, skills and competencies they need to participate fully and responsibly.

Developed by an impressive blue-ribbon commission including leaders from new and traditional communications businesses, local communities, nonprofits, and government, with an impressive level of community involvement and participation, the report was developed after months of study and deliberation. The Commission was led by co-chairs Ted Olson, former Solicitor General of the United States, and Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. Peter Shane, a distinguished law professor at Ohio State University Law School, is the Commission’s executive director. The Knight Commission is the first major commission on media since the Hutchins Commission in the 1940’s and the Kerner and Carnegie Commissions of the 1960s.

The report, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age,” is available at http://knightcomm.org

By Jennifer Bailey Woodard, Middle Tennessee State University and Ilia Rodriguez, The University of New Mexico | AEJMC Minorities and Communication

The election of Barack Obama, a black president, symbolizes to many of our students that the United States is now a fair and color blind society where there is no need to discuss issues of diversity and racial relations. Therefore, they do not see the need to be bothered with class assignments like creating a diverse source bank or ethical case studies on how to enter multicultural communities and report on them.

Our nation wants to be one that is finished with the problem of racism, but unfortunately we are not yet at this point in our history. On the contrary, a cursory view of recent events offers ample evidence of the pressing need to address race and diversity issues in our teaching, research and advocacy.

Consider the implications of statements made by Rand Paul, the GOP’s and Tea Party-backed Senate candidate for Kentucky, when he recently said that a central piece of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was wrong. He told MSNBC news show host Rachel Maddow that he agrees with most parts of the Civil Rights Act, except for the one (Title II) that made it a crime for private businesses to discriminate against customers on the basis of race. It is his opinion that private businesses be allowed to discriminate against whomever they want because it’s their right as private entities. In the ensuing, mediated debates on Paul’s position, Fox news anchor John Stossel agreed with Paul and went on air declaring that the section of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 that applies to business should be repealed. Stossel employed a twisted logic to explain his point: “It’s time now to repeal that part of the law because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won’t ever go to a place that’s racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I will speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.”

Another case in point: Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070. Since April 24, 2010, news coverage of the signing of SB 1070 into law has brought to center stage a debate on the legalization of racial profiling against Latinos. As citizens and civil rights groups inside and outside Arizona have begun to protest, organize boycotts, and challenge the law in the court system, other reports indicate that 17 other states are filing their own versions of SB 1070. And while SB 1070 has generated plenty of media attention, other recent decisions by Arizona state officials are signaling equally disturbing trends but remain relatively invisible on the national scene. Take, for example, recent decisions by the Arizona lawmakers to curb the teaching of ethnic studies courses in elementary or secondary schools (House Bill 2281) and the Department of Education’s move to exclude teachers with a “heavy accent” from teaching English classes.

These mediated debates on repealing the Civil Rights Act, using racial profiling as basis for law enforcement, or banning ethnic studies courses not only raise profound questions regarding our understanding of equity and civil rights in the 21st century, but also underscore the importance of interrogating the role of mass communication in the mediation of social relations in a culturally diverse and conflictive society.

By Gary Ritzenthaler, University of Florida, Ph.D. Student/Instructor, @gritz99

Introduction

At the 2009 AEJMC Convention in Boston, I presented a paper (written with David Stanton and Glenn Rickard) entitled, “Facebook groups as an e-learning component in higher education courses: one successful case study.” (See the paper here or presentation slides here.) The paper described a study we did in 2007 regarding students use of a Facebook group as a course component. That 2007 study, in turn, grew out of my experiments in building social media websites for a college audience, undertaken as a part of my master’s degree on social media, completed in 2006.

In each of the semesters since that study I have been attempting to answer the questions of how to integrate social media tools into the classroom. In this outline I hope to summarize some of the things I have found that worked and some of the best resources I have used.

Courses

Since 2007 I have been able to teach four separate courses that integrated social media tools into the class. Here are short descriptions and links to course sites; these sites are the most thorough way to learn about some of the things I have been trying out in the past few years.

• Social Networks and Social Media (2008): In ‘08 I was allowed to create this survey summer class on social media, which featured a Ning group, Facebook page, del.icio.us list as course components integrated into class. In addition to using these tools, of course, we also studied several more.
• Social Networks and Social Media (2009): In this re-tooled version of the class we explored a Huddle group, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn groups, and Diigo groups as course components. In both courses we spent the first part of the semester on history and survey and the second part on issues, but the final part of the semester involved planning, building, and promoting a social media project.
• Storytelling and journalism skills in new media (2009): This was a skills-based class focused not only on social media but on multimedia creation, blogging, etc. I went back to Ning for this course to try out the new “apps” and see if they would allow me to create everything I wanted in one platform. We also worked with Blogger, WordPress, Posterous, Vimeo and several other social tools.
• Technology, Change and Communications (2010): This was a low-level elective with a more historical/philosophical approach on “the study of media revolutions.” I weaved together several Google tools for the class, including Google Wave.

Course Resources

For my Social Media class, the main text has been Clay Shirky’s 2008 book, Here Comes Everybody. Students in all of my classes have given it high marks for both content and readability. To supplement the text we watched some additional Shirky videos like his ‘09 TED talk and ‘09 visit to Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, and there are several other links for those students who want more.

For defining what “social networks” and “social networking” are, I have them read boyd & Ellison’s “Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship,” which, though it was published in ‘07, is still about as close to canonical as anything I have seen. Each semester I pick a relevant and current piece by boyd and assign that as well.

Another staple of my courses is a sampling of Michael Wesch’s work, starting with his excellent video on YouTube and including the other videos on his YouTube channel if they come up in our discussions of social media issues.

A final required author in my courses is Henry Jenkins’ work on participatory culture. Usually we read a chapter or two from his book Convergence Culture, but I like to include pieces from his blog as well, and again offer a video of his 2007 talk at Google for summarizing his work.

(The PBS Frontline special Digital Nation, from Feb. 2010, was a big favorite with my students this semester, so that may be a core source in coming semesters.)

Beyond those core sources, I change the readings every semester (and occasionally during the semester) to keep pace with new viewpoints on the themes of the class. My delicious links for the class and related diigo group contain readings assigned to the class in the past (as well as many others). The course sites on the first page contain descriptions of where these links are used.

Unique Topics or Assignments

Here are a few places where I think I have created some unique approaches to topics related to social media and their effects on our culture.

• focus: the “Digital Nation” episode includes segments about multi-tasking and being “always connected.” After watching the episode students are given specific tasks that involve long periods of intense focus and they write in a “diary” about the challenges they have completing these tasks and their reactions to those challenges. I like to do this in the beginning of the semester because this exercise leads to good discussions about Facebooking in class and similar lifestyle issues.
• class digg: I use this for extra credit readings, videos, etc. Students submit links and vote the links they like the best to the top – this gives the other students initial feedback on which links to read and review for extra credit.
• wiki writing test review: I encouraged the students to collaborate on study notes for an upcoming test using a wiki. This caused a surprising amount of frustration among the students but led to an understanding of collaborative writing and why Wikipedia shouldn’t be used as a credible source.
• tracking a trend: In almost every semester there has been a topic that allowed us to discuss the usefulness and dangers of Twitter as a news source: the Iraq elections in 2009, for example. Some students got actively involved, others just watched. What I’ve learned is that the discussion of Twitter’s usefulness improves when the students are seeing information and misinformation battling in real time. The trick is planning the course so I can accommodate these events when they happen.
• the naked generation: Students start with “the Naked Generation,” a post by Caroline McCarthy on how much we expose of ourselves voluntarily and the new kind of social media stars McCarthy describes. We read a selection from Gabler’s book, Life the Movie, an earlier look at the same topic. We discuss what drives these people and what drives out culture to revere them. This assignment usually leads to:
• managing identity: Students try to find as much information as they can about themselves; we look at sites like spokeo.com, read about privacy issues on FB and in general and discuss. Then the students use tools like claimid.com, Google profile, and Facebook controls to manage their identity.
• team projects: After looking at several successful startups and also a famous failure, students in my social media class always plan and design projects. For example, in 2009 the students adapted a WordPress blog into a social media site based on the question, “If you could ask any living person one question, what would it be and who would you ask?” (I think they were driven along this path by a visit by Frank Warren from PostSecret and a class infatuation with the work of Jonathan Harris.) In addition to getting a variety of questions from users, the students planned to then seed the site with answers wherever they could find them. The projects teach students how planning is different for social media sites and allows them to answer the question, “what makes a successful social media site?” for themselves.
• bowling together: In 2009 I had a fairly small class, so when I assigned students readings on social capital, we discussed the readings online, then met for the next class at the campus bowling alley and (in between bowling frames) discussed what was different about social capital in online contexts with a UF grad student doing her research on that topic. In addition to helping the students understand the concept of social capital I think it helped build some in the class. (Students who could explain why it was appropriate for us to meet at a bowling alley got extra credit.)
• redesign the course: My last assignment encourages the students to redesign the course for extra credit. This isn’t an invitation to bitch – it is a challenge to them to use everything they have seen to create something better. I frame the assignment as, “You’ve seen how social media are changing everything, including education. How would you redesign this course to adapt to those changes?” I invite them to use as many of the tools we have explored in their answers as they want. Often the end-of-semester crush prevents them from really digging in to this assignment, but when they do the results are always interesting.

There’s more, but I hope that provides some of the flavor of the different experiments I have tried in my courses over the last four years. I still consider them experiments, and perhaps I won’t ever find a full set of solutions, but I try to make it as fun as possible for both the students and myself as we explore the possibilities.

AEJMC asked teachers to share some of their best practices for incorporating social media into the classroom, including suggested articles, exercises, tools and more. For more great ideas, visit the AEJMC Social Media in the Classroom blog.

By Yanick Rice Lamb, Howard University, Associate Professor/Sequence Coordinator, @yrlamb

Students use social media in their daily lives, but they don’t always think about using those skills as journalists. We are revamping how we teach Copy Editing to place a greater emphasis on Interactive Editing for newspapers, magazines and the Internet in print, on the Internet and on mobile devices. Social media is also a key part of the curriculum. However, we stress the importance of solid reporting, sound editing and high journalistic standards so that students don’t focus on speed, bells and whistles at the expense of quality.

We teach the traditional skills of copy editing as well as top-editing, assigning and skills traditionally used in other editing positions. It is important that students understand the changing, and in some cases expanding, role of copy editors in the context of downsizing, outsourcing, revamping to two-touch” operations and the growing reliance on technology. We also looked at copy editors who shifted into social media positions, such as Carla Correa, who is now a community coordinator at the Baltimore Sun.

For those who don’t plan to become editors, we explain that reporters with good self-editing skills tend to be better writers and that reporters, especially those who blog, are often expected to turn in cleaner copy, write headlines and summaries, and make their copy “sticky” — through social media and other interactivity.

The Basics

First, we discuss how students are already using social media and help them translate these practices to copy editing. We emphasize that journalism is increasingly a two-way conversation with readers. In the past, we printed stories and readers wrote letters to the editor. Now, the conversation often starts long before reporting and editing, for example, in seeking reader input for stories, story ideas and other leads to information.

Through discussions and examples, we help students understand how the Internet works and its potential. We discuss the differences between print and online stories, as well as the headlines. They learn about social media policies; Search Engine Optimization; how, where and when readers consume information; audiences for various news outlets; how to interact with the audience; how to tailor information to them; online comments; forums, chats, list serves and other types of community; crowdsourcing; mapping; interactive databases; and different ways to extend the conversation: Digg, StumbleUpon.com, Del.icious, Reddit, Mixx, Delicious, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Skype, Foursquare and Buzz.

Exercises

Preliminary discussions focus on how students use social media. We also ask them to cite examples in which they or other members of the public learned about news via Facebook, Twitter and other social media. We critiqued uses of social media, examined best practices, and employed social media techniques in classroom exercises and for publication. Here are examples of exercises to stimulate critical thinking, news judgment and creativity:

Using Twitter

A Power Point presentation on something as seemingly narrow as Twitter? Imagine that. As it turns out, Twitter is useful in helping students focus on the focus of a story. It also assists them in writing headlines. We discussed using links, keywords, hashtags, facts and quotes within “tweets” to tell readers about stories, provide updates or share information. We also explained how journalists also use Twitter to monitor beats, solicit ideas and information from readers, or build their personal or company brand.

To practice, students were directed to one of the many sites that shorten links to create “tiny URLs” that take up less space within tweets. We suggested http://101.gs, which not only shortens the link, but also shows users how many characters they have left. We encourage students to leave a little leftover space so that “followers” can re-tweet their tweets. “U don’t hv 2 write lk ths n twts,” we remind them, discussing style and showing examples from different publications. Afterward, students can then cut and paste their tweets into their classroom and homework assignments, or send them out to “followers.”

These are examples of tweets that we discussed from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Miami Herald and Heart & Soul magazine:

• To #mammogram or not to mammogram? Find out what experts say about the revised guidelines. http://tiny.cc/JEpoK
• HaitiRecoveryﾊﾊ”Haiti’s Children Adrift in World of Chaos” By Deborah Sontag – http://nyti.ms/a9yM84
• jacquiecharlesﾊﾊSinger Julio Iglesias arrives in #Haiti @ noon. Former Prez Clinton asked him to be Goodwill Ambass b/c fears focus on #Haiti will dwindle.
• Sandra Day O’Connor: ‘Don’t know’ if Bush v. Gore the right decision http://bit.ly/bACOHx #SCOTUS

Lessons From Haiti

The use of social media related to the earthquakes in Haiti provided teachable moments, from the vantage points of users and journalists.

• What types of tweets came from everyday people?
• How did journalists use Twitter?

Facebook

How are publications represented on Facebook?

What Would You Do?

Students were assigned to explain how they would improve three articles and headlines in the campus daily, write online headlines and summaries, suggest follow-up articles, write 140-character tweets and give examples of how they would enhance interactivity through social media and multimedia techniques (i.e., video, audio, hyperlinks, graphics).

One Topic: Three Ways

We asked students to bring in examples of how various sites present the same topic. How do they differ? What works? What didn’t?

You’re the Editor

As a long-term assignment, students had to come up with three story ideas and explain how they would enrich them with social media and multimedia. One idea was for the campus website; the second was for a community-focused website; and the third was for a national student magazine. After we gave them feedback on the ideas, they had to find writers; assign and edit the articles; write the headline, summary and tweet; and execute the social media and multimedia plan.

Questions on the midterm and final included:

1. Explain the differences between headlines in print and online.
2. What makes an ideal summary for a story on the Web?
3. How are the roles of editors changing?
4. Explain SEO.
5. How are news organizations using Twitter?
6. Write a print headline and an online headline for article below. (One article was on the D.C. Council’s reprimand of Marion Barry; the other focused on flights disrupted by the volcano.)
7. Write a summary for the Web.
8. Write a 140-character line for Twitter.
9. How would you make this article interactive?

Resources

• “Think Like an Editor: 50 Strategies for the Print and Digital World” by Emilie and Steve Davis (Wadsworth Publishing, 2010)
• “Journalism Next” by Mark Briggs (CQ Press, 2009)
• American Society of Copy Editors: http://www.copydesk.org
• Short and Tweet @ 101.gs: http://101.gs
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com
• Mashable, the Social Media Guide: http://mashable.com
• News University: http://www.newsu.org
• Poynter Institutes: http://www.poynter.org
• The Editor’s Desk: http://editdesk.wordpress.com/
• Breaking Tweets: http://www.breakingtweets.com
• Teaching Online Journalism: http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/
• SEO for Journalists: http://seoforjournalists.blogspot.com/http://seoforjournalists.blogspot.com/

AEJMC asked teachers to share some of their best practices for incorporating social media into the classroom, including suggested articles, exercises, tools and more. For more great ideas, visit the AEJMC Social Media in the Classroom blog.

By Serena Carpenter, Arizona State University, Assistant Professor, @drcarp

I design and teach Online Media, which is the required foundation skills online/Web reporting class for journalism and public relations students at the Cronkite School. I focus my social media efforts on helping them understand how to connect content to online users and build their online reputation. To accomplish this goal, I weave social media throughout my assignments and lectures. I have highlighted my major social media exercises for my class.

Blogging
My classroom material designed to challenge students’ beliefs about online communication and content creation. Students bring their biases to the classroom, and it is my job to confront those biases to prepare students for the working world. I face the most resistance from students on the subject of blogging.

I address this resistance by first educating them about the blogging culture. Many active bloggers are educated, middle-aged, and financial stable people who share their in-depth knowledge or interests with other Internet users.

Instructors can influence the attitude of many students by encouraging them to engage with other bloggers. In my class, students are required to blog about a topic of their choice. However, I have found that the act of blogging is not enough to adequately demonstrate the impact of blogging. Students must also:

1. Create a blogroll: They identify people considered experts in their chosen blogging area and add them to their blog site. This search process helps them learn that many bloggers produce information for the benefit of other internet users.
2. Comment on blogs related to their topic. Comments drive traffic to their blog, which builds community. The commenting assignment helps them more quickly understand the norms of the blogging community. Their comments must add informational value to the other bloggers’ posts. Comments should not say “nice post” or “good job.” On the date that each blog post is due, students email me: 1) the commented blog post URL and 2) their actual comment.
3. Measure traffic: Students are required to sign up for Sitemeter to measure traffic to their blog. This step helps them more precisely learn the makeup of their readers, including how people find them.

Microblogging
To use Twitter, a microblogging application, students must do more than sign up for an account. The norms of Twitter such as unique language used among Twitter users leads many new visitors to abandon their account after their first tweet. Thus, educators must demonstrate the informational value of Twitter. I have students:

1. Post informational tweets and links. They first have to develop themselves as an informational resource before they should follow other Twitter users. They are taught that many people will not follow them unless they have something to contribute to the Twittersphere.
2. Promote their blog posts on Twitter. Traffic to their blog can increase if enough people share or retweet their blog post URL.
3. Live-tweet with hashtags. I arrange speakers via videoconference (Skype) from other geographic locations to speak to my class. They direct questions to the speaker by posting their questions along with a class hashtag (#305s) on Twitter.
4. Post photos to Twitpic. In a photography exercise, students share their photo work with each other by posting their Twitpic pictures on their Twitter account with the class hashtag.

Final Reporting Projects
I encourage students to add “social media share” buttons (e.g, addthis.com) to their online articles to encourage visitors to share students’ work with their friends. On their final reporting projects, I also have students create a contact page where they post their URLs from their social media accounts to encourage journalistic transparency.

Final Social Media Assignment (Instructions/Tips provided to my students).
Students are given two months to complete assignment.
Step 1 – Identify your goals

1. Think about whether reach, reputation or engagement is your goal. Write down specific objectives related to your social media efforts. For example, a goal could be to get more social media mentions of your blog, find sources, increase readership, build reputation, find new story angles, etc. Goals encourage you to be efficient and focused with your social media efforts. Goals will change or expand over time. Understand that each social media application serves different functions dependent upon community members.
2. Be tuned into your online presence.

   a. Google your name, company, etc. in quotes (e.g., “Jane Doe”) and screen capture a .jpg of your Google results. Screen-capture your web presence by pressing command+shift+4 (Mac) to create .jpg of a section. You can capture multiple sections of your results. You can also use http://www.superscreenshot.com/ or http://www.PDFmyURL.com to capture the entire page. You will capture the results again when you hand in the social media assignment.

   b. Set up Google alerts for your name (e.g., “Jane Doe”; “Doe, Jane”), company name, employees, etc. PR Sarah Evans suggested other useful tools to monitor your online presence that are not required for this assignment: 1) BlogPulse Conversation Tracker feed to monitor blog comments, http://www.blogpulse.com/ conversation, 2) mentions in video http://video.google.com/, 3) monitor discussions http://www.boardtracker.com/, and 4) view your reputation with http://www.quarkbase.com.

Step 2 – Establish your credibility

1. Complete your bio on numerous sites. This includes the same picture, credentials, and URLs on every site. Hand in your URLs on the due dates. Sites can include LinkedIn, BrightFuse, Twitter, Flickr, MediaGeeks, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Profile, SlideShare, Delicious, FriendFeed, FaceBook, MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Favstar, OpenSalon, NewsVine, Twtjobs, etc. FB, YouTube and Twitter are the top three (right now).
2. Find influentials. There are several ways to find thought leaders: http://alltop.com/, https://twitter.com/invitations/suggestions, http://listorious.com/, http://www.postrank.com/all_topics, http://technorati.com/, http://blogsearch.google.com/, and through blogrolls.
3. Listen. Each topic and application has its own culture. You must observe before participating.
4. Share useful information before seeking friends or contacts. People will evaluate you based on your content and bio. You must participate regularly and thoughtfully to see a return-of-investment (ROI). People like frequent and shorter form content.
5. Interact with other users, ask them to share their stories, submit photos, design and create videos, logos, etc., ask and answer questions, acknowledge other members’ contributions to the group, and comment on other blogs. Focus on becoming part of the read-write web culture.

Step 3 – Set up FREE metric tools. (Top three most important for this class.)

1. Bit.ly (Monitor link traffic)
   Shorten your links in bit.ly to track clicks and how your links are shared.
   a. Provide the most frequently clicked 10 links including the number of clicks.

2. TweetStats. Provide your average tweets per day
3. Sitemeter (Traffic analyzer)
   Track your blog site traffic. Useful site to see the location of users and how they found your site, including keywords.
   a. Select previous 12 months and provide the visits and page views for each month.

4. Google Analytics (Traffic analyzer)
   a. On the Dashboard, select a date range for each month. Provide the visit number for each month.
   b. On the Traffic Sources Overview, place the top three keyword search terms used to find your site. Most users use 1-3 terms

5. YouTube Insight (Traffic analyzer)
   Tracks how people get to your site, the content clicked on, average pages per visit, etc. for your Web site.

6. Feedburner (Subscribers)
   a. Provide the number of people who subscribe to your blog via RSS.

7. FriendFeed (Subscribers)
   Subscribe to multiple feeds related to one individual.
   a. Provide the number of subscribers.

8. Google Alerts and Tweet Beep (Monitor brand and conversations)
   a. Set up an alert for your name, company, or blog in quotes.

9. SocialMention (Monitor brand and conversations)
10. Tracks mentions related to your name.
    a. Enter your Twitter ID and/or name in quotes. Select to search “all.”
    b. Provide your strength, sentiment, passion, and reach numbers from Social Mention.

Step 4 – Measure your efforts. In tables, record your numbers. Numbers are only one measure of influence. It is also important to see whether mentions are positive and negative. This can be referred to as sentiment analysis or opinion mining. You could also do a thematic qualitative analysis based on comments related to your company; however, this is not required for this class. Under themes such as negative, positive, satisfaction, and useful, place comments under each heading to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Step 5 – Identify trends and readjust social media efforts. Which applications do you most enjoy? Which applications serve your goals best? Is traffic up after posting? Where are your customers? Think about how much time you put into connecting and how often you are mentioned within each culture.

Reflection Paper. Write a double-spaced four-page paper on lessons learned. I do not want you to simply list what you did, rather focus on what you have learned and your understanding of online communication and relationship building. Think about how this knowledge influences how you will create content in the future. How does this influence your field? How will this knowledge influence your future? How is online content different than offline? What were your perceptions before and after this assignment? What will you keep up following this assignment and why? These items are not included in the four pages: 1) list of your URLs, 2) tables displaying traffic data, and 3) before and after screen grabs.

AEJMC asked teachers to share some of their best practices for incorporating social media into the classroom, including suggested articles, exercises, tools and more. For more great ideas, visit the AEJMC Social Media in the Classroom blog.

By Vanessa de Macedo Higgins, The University of Texas at Austin
with collaboration of Thomas Hanitzsch, University of Munich

International Communication • Comparative communication research, an inherent part of international communication studies, is receiving increasing attention from communication scholars, funding organizations and publications. Technological, political and economical developments of the late 20th century, combined with increased global media and transnationalism, have elevated the subject of comparative research to new prominence.

Comparative communication research has also faced its share of critics. There are those who doubt the accuracy of cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons, who fear reductionism and the lack of theoretical base in such studies. In a wide range of studies, cross-national communication researchers have recently undertaken major efforts to address such methodological and theoretical challenges. These projects bring innovation and a better understanding of communication phenomena, cultures and initiatives.

I recently interviewed Thomas Hanitzsch, professor of communication studies at the University of Munich and author of several pieces on comparative communication studies, to get his insight on some important advancements in the field. According to Hanitzsch, “There is a growing awareness of the fact that most of our research is of western origin. And even within the west, concepts are often differently understood in different national settings.” He added that, “Universality of concepts and measurements is something that cannot be assumed but must be established. Researchers have become much more careful in the cross-cultural application of their concepts.” Hanitzsch pointed out that equivalence of concepts, method, administration and meaning are essential in such studies.

Among other methodological challenges raised by comparative communication studies is the identification of the unit of analysis. If communication and information flow across national borders, then would the nation be a proper unit of analysis? Some claim that if the subject being analyzed surpasses such borders, then perhaps other cultural, geographic or linguistic units of analysis would be better. On the defense of the nation as the unit of analysis, the argument is that that policies, structures and cultures are still very much based on the nation.

Hanitzsch sees a trend toward sophistication and reflection among those who are embarking in the study of comparative communication. “Today, many researchers see the urgency of situating their studies in a theoretical perspective that guides their research strategies (design, selection of cases etc.) and facilitates their interpretations. Data analysis has also become much more sophisticated with important methodological inventions,” he said. Such innovations include “fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, as well as various statistical techniques to model cultural differences such as scaling, multilevel modeling or multi-group structural equation modeling.“

One of the important advancements made in comparative research mentioned by Hanitzsch was the establishment of “collaborative links to other disciplines that have a much longer tradition of comparative research, such as sociology, political science, psychology and anthropology. We are fast learners, though it takes time to catch up and incorporate the new conceptual and methodological know-how.”

Facilitated by conferences such as those promoted by AEJMC, as well as by communication technologies, communication scholars have formed and maintained international networks for collaborative efforts within the communication discipline. Hanitzsch said that technology has also made it easier for the management of large international projects, including his own cross-national comparison of 22 countries.

There are currently several innovative and ambitious projects underway in our field. Hanitzsch offered a selection of some comparative research he finds particularly innovative. “Space allows pointing to only a few examples: Daniel Hallin and Paolo Manicini’s work on western media systems has proved extremely influential, and it inspired others to do similar work. Drawing on surveys from 90 countries, Pippa Norris recently explored the field of global media and cultural convergence. Akiba Cohen and Pamela Shoemaker just published the results of their ‘News around the World’ project, and Jesper Strömbäck has done a lot comparative research on election coverage across countries. In the area of journalism research, David Weaver and Lars Willnat are recently putting together the second edition of the ‘Global Journalist,’ and our own project, the ‘Worlds of Journalisms’ study, has already grown into a collaborative endeavor of researchers from 22-nations.”

Hanitzsch offered some helpful resources for comparative studies, such as the Freedom House, IREX and Globalbarometer Surveys. Together with Frank Esser, he is also editing a handbook of comparative communication research, which is scheduled to be published in 2011.

With careful consideration to methodological issues and thorough analysis, comparative communication research promotes better understanding of our own media and communication system, as well as the increasingly necessary understanding of other cultures (and the intersection of both). Such research is also important for testing the generalizability of theories. With some of these recent innovations and a more careful look into the restrictions and challenges of comparative communication research, scholars are forging a path, as diverse as the field of communication itself, to new endeavors.

Vanessa de Macedo Higgins is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include Brazilian Studies; Race, Sex and Gender; Global media; and Intercultural Communication.

Thomas Hanitzsch is Professor of Communication Studies at the Institute of Communication Studies and Media Research, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany. Hanitzsch is the founder of the ICA Journalism Studies Division and co-editor of the Handbook of Journalism Studies (Routledge, 2009).

By Robert Gutsche Jr. and David Schwartz

It seemed impossible.

How could we go 24 hours without touching our laptops? Could we use our smart phones only for making and answering calls? Could we really live off of an iPad for all we do?

Those were the goals, anyway – to see how much we could do over 24 hours without any other device. Just the iPad.

So, for two days last week, the two of us, both journalism educators, avid news-users and news men, attempted to use Apple’s iPad for all of our electronic communications needs.

It worked – kind of.

These, then, are the major points from our iPad experience, and our thoughts on what it could do for journalism and journalism education.

Teaching
First of all, the next time someone tells you that journalism students are not interested in print, they haven’t really been talking to students. Not ours, anyway. Even before the iPad, our students at The University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication have been extremely interested – and excited – about the written word. Of course, they want all of the multimedia experience, but they also want to tell good, accurate, meaningful stories.

The iPad just pushed that excitement to new heights. As students learn about reporting and writing, for example, they can now interact with almost any media outlet in the world right in their laps. With the whisk of a finger, they interact with the media, they see how convergence should really work, where images and movement, audio and words combine for a new experience – one that they want to be a part of.

Within seconds, anywhere within a working WiFi area (3G iPads will soon be available), we can show our students good and bad news writing. We can swish from a narrative lede on one screen to a poor one on the next. Students can be introduced to news outlets they hadn’t heard about before, and we can do all of this in an informal setting, not stuck in front of a computer.

Creating
With the iPad, students now have the opportunity to not only produce content, but to design it. The striking colors, interface and mobility of the iPad encourage students to converge to share ideas, make changes with a tip of the finger, and roam the halls, the classrooms and the internet to compile their designs.

Writing
Let’s be frank: If you type with two fingers, the iPad’s for you. If you use all of them, it might be a bit tricky. Taking notes, writing grant proposals and rewriting a paper draft is perfect on the iPad. We both struggled at first to get the typing just right, and soon after that, once we were comfortable with typing, we could adequately complain about the software. Conferences with a student can be done all on the notepad app and emailed directly to the student’s inbox, along with a link to the story we were discussing.

Reading
We don’t want to talk about the future of newspapers. Only to say this: The papers have never looked better. In fact, both of us found ourselves reading more, including story jumps. For whatever reason (maybe because jumps on the iPad are just flicks of the finger), the text, embedded video and audio, and ads are easier on the iPad than even a subway tab. And it’s not just reading. NPR’s App, for instance, shows radio like it should be: Sassy, stylish, relevant and revealing.

Final thoughts
This essay is not a commercial for the iPad. It is costly. It is limiting. It is a bit heavy. It is not perfect. Our message is not to tell you to go get one. (David, for sure, is waiting a generation or two before purchasing his own.)

Instead, our experiment tells us three main things we want to share:

One: You can’t go all day with just one communications device. We both broke the rules. Robert needed his laptop to chat on Facebook and gchat, and that couldn’t happen on the iPad. David reverted to Twittering via iPhone because its compact size lends itself more to transportability.

Two: More devices don’t mean less trouble balancing things. Sitting at a microfilm machine, Robert listened to his iPod Touch, needed to use his laptop to transfer PDFs from the scanner, had his BlackBerry ready for a call and wondered why the iPad couldn’t make it all the more easier. Today’s technology has brought us fewer cords, but more things to carry.

Three: Most importantly, our experiment opened our eyes to where journalism has gone – and where it is going. Print isn’t dead, neither is content. iPads, and other soon-to-be-available tablets, represent a new beginning.

Robert Gutsche is a Ph.D. student at The University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication and is a co-founder of the nonprofit Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism (www.iowawatch.org).

David Schwartz, a former reporter and editor, is Executive Director of the Iowa High School Press Association (http://www.uiowa.edu/~ihspa/) and an adjunct instructor at The University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

By Jennette Lovejoy, Ohio University

Similar to Breed’s (1955) description of how newsroom socialization happens by “osmosis,” graduate students also learn by keenly listening and watching the habits, routines, and accepted norms of the faculty and administration at their respective institutions. Open faculty meetings, job talks, interactions at the copier, advising, and co-authoring research papers are a few ways we are molded and shaped into academicians. At conferences, we give paper presentations side-by-side tenured faculty and our peers. We receive feedback on teaching evaluations as if we were faculty. When submitting a manuscript, we receive the same peer review as if we were all endowed chairs. We hope.

There is value in this equality; it allows us to know and experience the world of academia as a student with the clear reality of what it may be like in a faculty position, if we watch and take the time to listen and work with faculty who are willing to share their time, insights, and expertise with us. So much of navigating class schedules, teaching loads, research agendas, and leadership involvement is being able to watch someone else do it, ask questions, and learn through the process so that there are not disillusions or unrealistic expectations.

I’ve come to realize the importance of thinking outside the day-to-day crunch. I am lucky enough to work with an advisor who demonstrates persistence, constant teaching refinery, foresight in planning for conference deadlines, and consistent manuscript preparation for the “pipeline.” Without the big picture, I get easily consumed by term paper deadlines, comprehensive exam preparation, and getting grades turned around, not to mention writing the dissertation.

As graduate students, we hear a lot about the idealism of balance between work and life, but we also need to hear about how to find balance within our work so that we exit our programs competitive for the job market. We may have a new class prep every term, while taking four graduate classes on top of that, yet we still need guidance and encouragement to present our research to colleagues outside of our institution, to sit in on research presentations at conferences, and to get our feet wet in the manuscript submission process.

It may feel overwhelming, but that is where the faculty socialization and guidance becomes key. How transparent can our advisors and mentors be with us? How honest and inquisitive can we be in return? Department cultures and faculty/student relationships are variable and there is not a standard protocol, yet we should be certain that we are getting out of our programs what we want to. Sure, as stated earlier, some of the learning takes place by osmosis, but much requires a unique combination of active pursuits and mentoring.

Not only is it key (and perhaps very beneficial) for faculty members to involve us, but we may need to initiate contact and reach out to faculty, to inquire about potential co-authoring ventures, or volunteer time to be a part of a grant project. In turn, faculty members may think broader about how to create opportunities for graduate students and how to utilize us a resource for energy, new ideas and budding knowledge, and an enthusiasm for tackling challenges.

References:
Breed, W. (1997). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. In D. Berkowitz (Ed.), Social meaning of news: A text-reader (pp. 107-122). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

By Elliot King, Loyola University Maryland

History • Among the widespread upheaval underway in journalism is a redefinition of the role of the academy in journalism education. Outright scorn for the study of journalism in college and universities has long been one of the odd and rather remarkable features of the journalism profession. It is hard to think of any other professional occupation in which it practitioners denigrated what students could learn if they studied a field as their undergraduate majors. Students interested in journalism were urged by professionals to study something else. The journalism was best learned on the job, the argument went.

Well, those days are over. Nobody pretends that any organization has the time or resources to teach entry-level journalists the tools of the trade. In fact, the opposite is true. The most common entry-level position in broadcast news is that of a backpack journalist, somebody who can report, use the camera, and edit the package. These are skills learned in journalism school these days, not in the field. In fact, for the first time, I have heard several job seekers report that people in the field are telling them to get masters degrees in journalism and master’s degrees give people a big advantage in the job search.

But teaching skills is only a very small part of what the academy is being call on to do in this time of crisis. The new technology is posing a challenge to the entire culture of journalism. Increasingly, what journalism is and what journalism should be is not being defined in the field. It will have to be defined, at least in part, in the academy. These was a time when different newspapers and other media organizations used to have their own newsroom cultures. For a long time, the name Henry Grady really meant something at the Atlanta Constitution—and it meant something long after Henry Grady had passed away. The Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, even the Baltimore Sun had long and storied histories. Recently, a veteran columnist for the Sun recalled the thrill she felt when she first started at the Sun and sat at H.L. Mencken’s desk. Young journalists could learn the lore of their newspapers from seasoned veterans.

These days, seasoned veterans more likely to take buy outs (if they are not laid off) than acculturate younger journalists. And I think that it is telling that the names of Grady, Medill and others live on as the names of journalism schools, rather than as living memories in newsrooms.

With the utter devastation to and depletion of the senior ranks of journalists, it is up to the academy to define journalism and draw our students into its culture. Journalism cannot be reduced to a set of technical skills. It is a way of looking at the world, a way that has changed over time as conditions have changed. Those of us in the academy are the only ones now positioned to take the long view of what journalism was, is and should be. We are the stewards of the culture of journalism.

Ironically, the academy is not that well positioned to teach the new technical skills currently in demand. As soon as we could get course about Web design on the books, we had to worry about blogs and then Twitter. As soon as we got non-linear editing suites, we had to worry about mobile devices. What we are well-positioned to do is to educate our students that as they become journalists, while the tools they have at their disposal are new, the way that journalists go about doing their jobs, and have gone about doing their jobs, and why they go about doing their jobs the way they do, is anchored in a long and contentious history. While convergence and citizen news and instant feedback may be new, people have thought about, and worried about, the role of journalism in society for a long time. Some have even given up their lives for their belief in the need to bear witness as a journalist.

In 2005, Michael Yon, a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces went to Iraq with the intention for staying for a month and blogging about his experience. He wound up being embedded with U.S. troops longer than any journalist. When he first started, Yon has remarked, he did not know the “rules of journalism,” but over time he came to see himself as a journalist. That is the challenge for the academy in creating and maintaining the culture of journalism. How do we get our students to see themselves as journalists? If we can succeed there, it will make little difference if they deliver the news via print, broadcasts, Web, blog, Twitter or whatever comes next. They will see the world as journalists.

While journalism may be being reinvented today, it is not being reinvented for the first time. Journalism is being fashioned from something that already exists. Helping our students understand what exists and why it exists will help them fashion the future.

Elliot King is a professor of communication at Loyola University Maryland, and author of Free for All: The Internet’s Transformation of Journalism. The book provides the first comprehensive account of the origins, challenges, triumphs, failures and impact of online journalism. His teaching areas include news writing, free speech and expression, media culture, public affairs, research experience, reporting on urban affairs.

By Tony DeMars, Texas A&M University-Commerce

The mission of the AEJMC Internships and Careers Interest Group is to research and discuss how JMC educators can help college students get into media and media-related careers after graduation. In tough economic times, this may be even more problematic than usual. Even worse, as we struggle through a tough economy, we also struggle with what mass media has become and will become.

How are media companies and job options changing? We all know legacy media are undergoing significant changes. Newspapers continue to struggle, in part because of how citizens access news and in part because of a loss of traditional revenue sources. Local market TV stations are likewise finding competition and technology issues eroding their audience. A recent college graduate’s experience is one good example of today’s realities. This student completed a degree in broadcast journalism about three years ago and was hired into a reporting position in a medium/small market, then moved within just over a year to a medium market, then to a Top 10 market. This upward movement within such a short period of time represents how much faster good TV news talent can move up today. She now sees an even more drastic reality, reporting that her station has laid off several good people in recent months. Further, while she has never had to one-man band herself, the last three reporters hired at her station are all one man band reporters—making one-third of her salary—and are much younger. The newest hire had just recently graduated from college. Again, this is in a Top 10 TV market.

In recent years, mass communication programs have been trying to redesign their curriculum to deal with ‘convergence.’ The focus was on how traditional media were working with each other and with Internet sites for new partnerships in newsgathering and distribution. Now, it has become obvious that there is much more going on than that. We have moved from the ‘audience’ using the media in a ‘lean back’ style to having ‘users’ involved in a ‘lean forward’ style. News or entertainment content creators no longer need traditional media outlets to get content to an audience. Educators and administrators in journalism and mass communication programs know this. What we may not know, here in the middle of the paradigm change, is how to adjust what we teach and how we advise our students toward getting into internships and careers.

The reality is, there still are plenty of internships and media jobs available, but the skills expected of graduating students and the places where they might be working are evolving. Media managers note that new hires need to be able to handle a wide variety of tasks and be very technology and computer savvy. Yet, these same managers also remind us that the basics are important. We should still be emphasizing good writing in mass communication programs. We should still help students understand the importance of networking and paying their dues. Managers still expect employees who are self-motivated and have a good attitude. In a time where there is a sense among educators that students coming into college sometimes expect a fun, easy job that makes a lot of money, media jobs are looking for people who can easily manage a variety of duties and put in a productive workday. The starting jobs may not be at a lower level than in the past in smaller markets, but salaries are clearly declining in larger markets, and work expectations are become more demanding. Maybe the concern should not be how many people can get jobs. Maybe the concern should be how many good students will want to do more work for less pay.

Tony Demars is an Associate Professor & Director, Radio & Television Division at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

By Lori Blachford, Drake University

Magazine • I have a bad case of the apps. Symptoms: shrinking wallet, trance-like episodes, thumb cramps. I’m not alone. Apple reports that iPhone and iPod Touch owners have downloaded more than 3 billion applications since the App Store launched July 2008.

And it’s not just Apple (although, iLovers by far rule the category with more than 100,000 options); apps are a growing business for all mobile devices. The Motorola Droid phone, which was introduced in November, already has surpassed 10,000 apps and is growing fast. Intel is working on apps for its netbooks.

There’s something for everyone. Apps can be fun (Lightsaber Unleashed; when you need the Force with you), practical (iHandy Level; no more crooked shelves), informative (DunkinDonutz Locator; name says it all), educational (NASA; great photos), and downright silly (iDragPaper; try to pull toilet paper off the roll in record time).

All those, and thousands more, including news junkie favorites like New York Times and NPR, are free. Other choices are available for a fee, starting at $1. For $29, you can even have the AP Stylebook on your phone. Can you say business expense?

Besides offering a new reason to put off grading, what significance do apps provide for journalism educators, especially those who specialize in magazines? Apps are an important evolutionary step in information delivery. They allow a publisher to reach readers in a whole new space, not just on the couch or the computer. Apps go where the phone goes: to the grocery store, on vacation, to the ballgame.

At a time when students must embrace an entrepreneurial attitude to survive in the rapidly changing media landscape, apps offer a great playground for new ideas. Stanford already offers a 10-week course in iPhone Application Development. But even without a course on the subject, we should all be talking about the role apps can play in service journalism and brand loyalty.

Good models already exist.

Some publications repackage information for mobile distribution. Wired has a product review app that includes video critiques and demos. Epicurious.com has an app with 27,000 recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet, including ingredient lists and user rankings.

Others offer services beyond their standard content. Parents.com has an app with interactive flashcards for toddlers. If you wonder whether that qualifies as service, you’ve never had to entertain a squirmy 2-year-old at a church service.

GQ tried a new approach, turning the January 2010 issue into an app. I mean the whole thing; even the masthead. For $2.99, you can thumb through (actually using your thumb) pdfs of every spread in the magazine, ads included. Of course, the 2 x 3-inch screen can’t compete with the look of the 8 x 10 7/8-inch glossy magazine. Where the app wins is in multimedia offerings: more photos, behind-the-scenes videos, audio interview excerpts, interactive links to advertisers and featured products.

For a subscriber, the app doesn’t make much sense, but for someone who has never read the magazine or who usually buys random copies on the newsstand (at $4.50 an issue), the app has value.

But is it the model for the way we’ll read magazines in the future? Not likely. The surge of e-readers that will hit the market this summer is going to be the next step toward digital distribution. E-readers (or tablets or whatever name they go by) are closer to magazine size so the graphics can be equally glorious, not to mention animated.

Still, apps are here to stay since cell phones rule our world. And the apps development race is well underway. Magazines need to move quickly to not only meet but also anticipate the needs of readers. Those apps will dictate the way journalists gather information and the way publications separate themselves from competitors.

Expect more emphasis on audio and video; the phone screen is too tiny for long-form articles. One of my favorite features of the GQ app was a collection of audio outtakes from an interview with William Shatner. We hear the interviewer laughing and stumbling over a question. Shatner eats while he answers questions. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s fun.

And what better way to spark innovation than by having a little fun? You can get students’ creative juices flowing with Creative Whack Pack. It’s called a “creative workshop in an app.” Cost: $1.99. Thumb massage not included.

Lori Blachford is an assistant professor at Drake University. She has made her living as a journalist for more than 20 years. Blachford worked for newspapers, including The Des Moines Register, for seven years before moving to magazines. She started as a copy editor for the Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications, then moved on to writing and editing for a variety of titles in that same group.

by Manuel Chavez, Ph.D., Michigan State University
and Amy Schmitz Weiss, Ph.D., San Diego State University

The Elusive Challenge of Infusing Public Input in the News Process

It is no surprise to see how media companies in the United States are solving their economic problems, especially as related to the print industry: layoffs, hiring freezing, page reduction, international bureaus closings, and ultimately draconian newsroom reductions. The crisis has been more severe here than in other parts of the world mainly because of a voracious economic model that relied heavily in captive traditional advertising. And yes, as one travels to countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia is startling to see the vitality, size, and variation of newspapers and weekly magazines, simply put: newsstands and traditional press kiosks are alive and well.

There is one international example that shows a successful form of news production with public input that stands out in these challenging times. It is surprising if not paradoxical that a news organization in Mexico for almost twenty years has practiced the inclusion of the public (readers and community members) into the process of creating more attractive and relevant news products from print to websites.

Grupo Reforma is a family-owned organization of four major newspapers in Mexico’s largest cities. El Norte in Monterrey was the first newspaper founded in 1938, decades later in 1993 under the leadership of Alejandro Junco, the group established the daily Reforma in Mexico City to create an alternative to the national newspapers offerings. In 1997, in Saltillo they launched Palabra and a year later, in Guadalajara, they opened the newspaper Mural. In addition, Grupo Reforma recently launched midday tabloids, called Metro, to have a total weekday circulation of 550,000 in 2008.

A Model for Including the Community in the Practice of Journalism

El Norte editors during most of the 1980s perceived a disconnect between the community and the newspaper. That concern led the publisher to create a model that could incorporate readers into the news decision-making process. The original objective was to have a pool of reviewers who could bring up their concerns, comments, ideas, suggestions, and criticisms. These connections generated, however, an important shift in the editorial process: news products that have active input from readers and their communities, the empowerment of citizens, and the re-connection of journalism to the public.

In 1991, El Norte created in Monterrey, the first editorial council to connect the community it served with the newspaper. The two primary objectives of the council were to help the newspaper determine what the readers wanted to see published and to obtain readers feedback. The council provided input about their interests but it also reviewed the newspapers for errors, omissions, biases, and ethical issues.

Now newsroom staff at each section in all of Grupo Reforma newspapers – hard news sections, feature sections and zoned suburban editions – recruit a voluntary editorial council of citizens. Members of the councils are not compensated. Each council is composed of twelve individuals who are readers, opinion leaders, and experts on the area of each newspaper section. Every week, the councils provide a direct assessment of the news printed during that week and also they recommend topics, perspectives, and angles about issues that are relevant to them. The newsroom takes very seriously the input provided by the community and section editors follow up on those recommendations and report back to the council on the status of each of them.

In 2004, Grupo Reforma established a new layer of participatory journalism – thematic councils. The thematic councils are comprised of experts on national topics – education, trade, energy, agriculture, tourism, environment, security and rule of law among them. For these councils, the main objective remains the same – advise the newspaper. This is mostly a pool of academics, policy makers, and practitioners who contribute with their expertise to the preparation of investigative reports for the newspapers. Primarily two newspapers – Reforma in Mexico City and El Norte in Monterrey – recruit and consult thematic councils. Reforma houses four thematic councils and El Norte houses three.

Under the new trends in media technology, Grupo Reforma has evolved with the times and has also developed an editorial council for their news websites. Just as the other councils have done, the website council provides suggestions, comments and advice to the organization on how they can improve the website’s design, presentation and interactive features of the website in today’s digital age. Needless to say, Reforma’s websites are attractive and friendly.

The Factors of Success of the Editorial Councils

In addition to the formal structure of community involvement – including a system for recruiting and rotating council members in and out – there appear to be three factors in the success of the editorial councils of Grupo Reforma: (a) the adoption of the notion that community input and community review and editorial follow-up should be an institutional part of the news process; (b) the development of democratic rules and deliberative procedures of the councils that provides equal participation to all council members; and (c) the strong and deep commitment of the publisher.

The Challenges for American Journalism

American newspapers can learn from the Groupo Reforma model. When more communities engage in a strong partnership with the news media, newspapers gain credibility and citizens are more infused with a sense of civic responsibility. The result – as practiced in some Mexican cities – is shared news production, an empowered community, accountable media; and from the corporate perspective: a vibrant, growing, and profitable media industry. To empower communities and to shift the agenda to non-traditional actors is a real change in paradigm that requires a new vision of journalism.

Moreover, as innovations and technology pose new challenges and opportunities for the news media industry, the example of the editorial councils at Grupo Reforma demonstrate the community’s involvement as an opportunity in this transformative digital age to make sure that the news process is inclusive at all levels. It is a model that strengthens journalism one community at a time.

Manuel Chavez works on issues of international relations, security, democracy, and the press. He studies models of access to information, accountability and transparency, especially related to the news media in Latin America. He teaches courses on the press, society and government in Latin America, and on the sociology of journalism. Dr. Chavez is also the MSU Associate Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Amy Schmitz Weiss is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University. Weiss is a former journalist who has been involved in new media for over a decade. She also has worked in business development, marketing analysis, and account management for several Chicago Internet media firms. Her research interests include online journalism, media sociology, news production, and international communication.

by Doug Fisher, University of South Carolina

Small, family-owned news organizations may have the best opportunity to take advantage of the digital pathway to reach their communities, but they also may be the most endangered by it and find it the most challenging.

I’ve come to that conclusion after working last summer in the newsroom of an 18,000-circulation community daily newspaper and after years of working with other editors and publishers at individual papers or small family-owned chains.

The health of these newsrooms is important to their communities. In many instances, as case studies at the Newspapers and Community-Building symposia have shown, they are among the few institutions willing and able to stand up to the power structure. Also, as has been widely noted, they generally are suffering less economically than their big-city counterparts.

Studies, some presented at Community Journalism Interest Group (COMJIG) research sessions, have shown that a significant number have a limited or no online presence. Rather than scoff at that, we should consider that it also has allowed them to bypass many of the online mistakes made by their big-city brethren.

But there also is a stark reality: Those are not newspapers hanging from the belts and in the purses of their readers. They are cell phones that are rapidly turning into complete mobile communication platforms. And they promise to forever change the communication landscape, even in the smallest of communities.

This is a fertile area for research that we hope to see more of at COMJIG: How are mobile devices being used and are they changing communication patterns in small communities as much as they appear to be in larger ones?

So why do I suggest that smaller newsrooms, especially those with local ownership, may have the best opportunity to take advantage of the emerging mobile space? First, it’s exactly because many don’t have the extensive online investment – and concurrent baggage – that many larger organizations do. Second, it comes from the short nature of the command structure that lends flexibility to most such operations. However, the flip side is that management traditions, especially informal ones, may be so ingrained that adjusting to the new discipline digital requires could be difficult.

I’d like to focus on that second point. My observation, and another area for further research we would welcome at COMJIG, is that much of the communication in smaller newsrooms is informal and sometimes even unspoken. People who work so closely together, and who often have done so for a long time, understand each other’s roles so well that they can function without much of the more formal structure needed for larger groups. They probably perform multiple functions or have had to fill in on one or more of those other roles at some time.

In the digital world, which values multitasking, that short management chain and fungibility can be a strength. The digital world also puts a premium on building community, not just pushing eyeballs, and these smaller newsrooms often have community loyalty that larger publishers can only dream of.

However, while the people in smaller organizations may be physically fungible, I have observed that they may be more susceptible to a form of groupthink and can become more set in their ways. This is another avenue for more research, but if my observation is correct, this “we don’t do it that way” orientation makes it harder to function in the digital space.

(One might observe that there often is a form of corporate groupthink at larger organizations. Granted, but the very nature of those organizations, with more people interacting and doing specialized jobs, seems to at least increase the chance of some different ideas surfacing.)

It may seem counterintuitive, but the wide-open digital realm also requires more disciplined thinking. Something as simple as blogging, for instance, raises procedural and management questions. Among them: What is the goal? Who will monitor postings and traffic to determine whether the goal is being met? How will you handle comments, and who will have the responsibility?

It’s as though someone moved a printing press into the newsroom and you had to adopt the kind of formal structure needed to keep “big iron” running smoothly. In fact, for many small news organizations, digital is the new printing press, moving that function into the newsroom just as pagination moved many of the backshop functions into the newsroom two decades ago. In that light, it may be time to reprise some of the research done on pagination reframed for the digital age.

Mobile ups the ante. Unlike the Web, where news organizations have often been able to just shovel content from print to digital, mobile is a different space requiring a far different approach. It values speed, interactivity and utility, and community news organizations that do not meet those values run the risk of losing an increasingly mobile-centric audience.

But mobile also poses very real resource challenges. It is not unusual for larger organizations to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on an iPhone “app.” How does a small newsroom effectively compete in that space? This is yet another fertile area for research that we hope to see more of at COMJIG sessions.

Fisher is a veteran journalist who most recently spent nine years as a news editor for The Associated Press. His interests are in reporting, precision writing, ethics, media economics, and new ways to manage the increasing flow of information so that reporters and editors, as well as consumers, do not suffer “information burnout.” In 2007, he became executive editor of The Convergence Newsletter, and he is co-author of Principles of Convergent Journalism (Oxford, 2008).

By Dietram A. Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Communication as a discipline has come to a crossroads. The “mass” in mass communication has morphed into different publics that generate, exchange, and use content in ways that were unimaginable just a decade ago. And these changes in how content is produced and communicated are paralleled by much more far-reaching shifts in how some cohorts in society interpret traditional notions of privacy, objectivity, and source credibility. And so far, our discipline has not done a very good job at offering answers to what have become increasingly pressing questions in various societal debates. How do social media change how we interact with one another? How does information get disseminated in a fragmented multi-channel media environment? And what does the future of (mass) communication look like?

The tricky part, of course, is that many of the answers to these questions transcend the boundaries of our discipline. This is particularly challenging for a young field, such as communication, that continues to struggle with its identity and its desire to compete on an even playing field with much larger disciplines, such as psychology and political science. And if we are not careful, we may follow these disciplines down some dead ends. A good example is the debate surrounding Republican Senator Tom Coburn’s proposal in October 2009 to prohibit the National Science Foundation from “wasting any federal research funding on political science projects.” Coburn, of course, used the label “political science” but targeted social science much more broadly. And his comments rekindled an old debate among political scientists about incremental disciplinary research versus big questions. Cornell’s Peter Katzenstein summarized this intra-disciplinary dilemma best: “Graduate students discussing their field … often speak in terms of ‘an interesting puzzle,’ a small intellectual conundrum… that tests the ingenuity of the solver, rather than the large, sloppy and unmanageable problems that occur in real life.”

Interestingly, President Obama has raised enough of these sloppy, unmanageable problems for our society and for us as communication scholars, ranging from mandates for a green economy, to climate change, stem cell research and global warming. All of these issues relate to the increasingly blurring lines between science, politics, society … and, of course, communication. These are the same areas where most societal debates of the next 50 years will take place. And unless we as communication researchers and educators find a way to make both scholarly and public contributions to these conversations, we will increasingly be marginalized as a discipline.

So what does all of this mean for AEJMC, for CT&M, and for other divisions and interest groups? The answer is two-fold. First, we are doing a lot of things right. AEJMC and its divisions and interest groups take the mission of teaching, professional service, and research very seriously. And as a recent survey of AEJMC members (Jeffres & Scheufele, 2009) showed, they do so in an increasingly public fashion, with a keen awareness of some of the large societal questions that face our discipline. Second, all of these debates further highlight the need for theory and methodology as a core field of inquiry in our discipline. I do not mean to imply that theory-building and methodological sophistication are not part of the work we all do every day. They are. Instead, I am emphasizing the importance of CT&M as a central division for AEJMC and for our field, more broadly. Some of the most significant contributions to societal discourse by communication scholars have been based on (macro)theoretical models, such as the Spiral of Silence or Cultivation Theory, that dominated decades of scholarly research agendas but also influenced how society thinks about communication-related issues, including media and violence, TV parental advisories, election polling, and the evolution of social norms.

Communication theory and methodology, ultimately, are also at the center of effective education in the field of communication. Ten years from now, the media landscape will have undergone even more dramatic changes than we saw in the last decade. And as important as skills training may be, many of the medium-specific or industry-specific competencies we can convey to students today will be made obsolete by emerging technologies and changes in our social structure. So the key question becomes: How do we prepare students for jobs that don’t even exist yet? And the answer is simple. We need to prepare our undergraduate and graduate students for a world that no longer thinks along medium-, content- or discipline-specific boundaries. In fact, many of the big social questions outlined earlier require answers that draw from knowledge in multiple disciplines. The challenge, therefore, is to equip our students with skill sets that include abstract, theoretical thinking, methodological sophistication, and other types of disciplinary expertise that make them competitive in specific areas of employment, but to also give them the transdisciplinary outlook on the world that will allow them to take leadership roles in solving society’s big upcoming challenges. Communication theory and methodology are at the very core of this effort.

References: Jeffres , L., & Scheufele, D. A. (2009). What is the field of communication? Seeking answers from a survey of scholars … and – more importantly – from Klaus Schönbach. In C. Holtz-Bacha, G. Reus & L. B. Becker (Eds.), Wissenschaft mit Wirkung [Research with impact] (pp. 73-84). Wiesbaden (Germany): Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Dietram A. Scheufele is Professor and John E. Ross Chair in Science Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has done consulting work on communication strategy for PBS, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and other corporate and public sector clients. Scheufele’s research focuses on the intersection of media, politics and science, and has been supported by multi-year grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other funding agencies.

By Cynthia Nichols, Oklahoma State University & Charles W. Meadows, The University of Alabama

From Taylor Swift, to former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, Twitter is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing social media networks among celebrities. Although social media outlets such as Myspace, and Facebook have been around for years, Twitter has only recently emerged into mainstream popularity, and everyone—from grandmothers, to fashion designers, to scholars, to celebrities—is jumping on board. Since its start in 2006, Twitter has grown rapidly to become the most popular micro-blogging Web site online. In fact, according to Nielsen, it grew a staggering 1,382% from February 2008 to February 2009, and has more than 7 million unique visitors every month [1]. However, this rapid growth leaves many people wondering: “What is Twitter?” and “Why should I use it?”

To clarify, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows users to send short text messages, otherwise known as “tweets,” to their Twitter page. Although there is a dizzying array of multiple-platforms available to support the service (mobile phones, computers, etc.), the restrictive 140-character length of the tweet minimizes the hassle and involvement for users. The simplicity of Twitter—which is one of its greatest strengths—keeps friends, families, and colleagues up-to-date on “What’s happening?” In essence, Twitter allows you to send a text message to the world.

So why are celebrities taking such an active interest in social apps such as Twitter? In one word: Freedom. Twitter enables celebrities to speak their mind, inform their public, and take the power back from the paparazzi that are trying to invade their lives. When something newsworthy happens, celebrities can now bypass the uniform statement made by publicists, and take their story to the streets… or “tweets” in this case—no publicist necessary. Actor and comedian Stephen Fry, otherwise known as the ‘King of Twitter,’ has made several comments concerning this freedom, “People like me… can cut out the press from our PR requirements… It used to be a pact with the devil. You wanted to inform the press about a new film and they said they will interview you, but only if they are allowed to ask you… about your private life.” [2]. Now, celebrities can reach the consumer directly with a specific message by simply typing on a keyboard.

This freedom, however, is not without drawbacks. Because of the public nature of the site, many public relations practitioners face a “media literacy” problem among their celebrity clients. Although being able to reach out to your fans at any time may be freeing for celebrities, it also comes with downside of instant publication—once a tweet is posted, it is out there forever, and up for public scrutiny. For some, this instant publication can be a PR nightmare. Since celebrities have an unmonitored connection to fans, they often post tweets that can land them in the hot water. For example, Courtney Love experienced a Twitter-disaster first hand—she was sued after posting comments about a fashion designer’s alleged drug habit on her Twitter account [3]. Love, however, is not the only public relations disaster on Twitter. For many celebrities are facing the reality of the site’s public nature too late in the game—just ask the NFL. After a Kansas City Chiefs running-back made a homophobic slur on the site, a Redskins linebacker used Twitter to attack fans, and a San Diego Charger made a crack about the club’s training camp food, the NFL instituted strict rules about when and how its players and coaches can use social media [4].

Despite the potential for PR disasters from uncontrolled tweeting, the portability and direct connection to fans has resulted in a surge of interest in Twitter from both celebrities and fans alike. One of the reasons for this may be that Twitter has a certain degree of realness and connectivity to the people involved—both celebrities and fans alike can broadcast their personal thoughts, feeling, and attitudes to the world and each other. In a recent interview with Coast Confidential [5], Sydney-based celebrity agent, Max Markson, explained his reasons behind encouraging celebrities to use Twitter. “There are advantages with it as it makes celebrities more assessable to their fans…it makes them real people.” And fans love the interaction, for they not only see what the celebrity is tweeting, but can respond and sometimes interact with their favorite celebrities. As one Tweeter, CalypsoWeddings, commented to Forbes.com, “Its a good thing for Celebrities to twitter. Their fans want to know about them and they must be the first to share information about themselves. So building their list of followers is building their brand, and as Shaquile O’Neal says, ‘Having a sense of humor adds value to the content.’” [7]

In a way, it is a self-inflicted form of privacy invasion… but one that celebrities don’t mind. By tweeting, the celebrities can control exactly what they want their fans to see. However, is it savvy media control or over sharing? When Shaq tweets about his insomnia after a bad game, or Lance Armstrong tweets about getting a massage after each training session, they are using Twitter to build their brand, or, in this case, show their dedication to their sport. Whether it is an inadvertent social media plan or not, they use twitter in an authentic way, which, in turn, increases their value as a public figure, gets them new sponsors, and builds fan loyalty. However, what happens when a celebrity overshares? Does Dave Matthews tweeting about his digestive problems turn people away or does the humor of it draw people in? Does Erykah Badu tweeting about the birth of her child gross people out or endear her to them? We don’t know yet, but scholars have been trying to understand the relationships between celebrities and their fans for years. One theory that may explain this relationship is parasocial interaction, which occurs when audiences see media personalities as friends rather than a third party [6]. Although we understand a great deal about parasocial interaction, the next few years will allow scholars to examine it from a new perspective, and begin to understand the impact and relationship of celebrities and social media.

Resources

1. http://mashable.com/2009/03/16/twitter-growth-rate-versus-facebook/
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/6591324/Stephen-Fry-says-Twitter-lets-celebrities-bypass-media.html
3. http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/11/can_you_sue_me_if_i_lie_on_twitter.php
4. http://www.switched.com/2009/09/02/nfl-institutes-harsh-twitter-policy/
5. http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/11/24/161701_gossip-news.html
6. Brown, W. J., Basil, M. D., & Bocarnea, M. C. (2003). Social Influence of an international celebrity: Responses to the death of Princess Diana. Journal of Communication, 53(4), 587-605.
7. http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/03/twitter-celebrities-privacy-technology-internet_twitter.html

Cynthia Nichols is an Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University. Her research interests lie in media effects, entertainment, and children—specifically examining the impact of television and media on children.

Charles W. Meadows is a doctoral student at the University of Alabama. He specializes in environmental communications and emerging media. His research interests revolve around climate change.

By Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma
Bob Trumpbour, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona

In an article written over four decades ago, Jake Highton teased out the tensions between the “green eyeshades” and the “chi-squares.” Highton wrote about the differences between individuals with practical experience in the field and those who plied their academic craft with the statistical tools that were, and still are, embedded in the social sciences. Individuals such as Philip Meyer did much to connect social science with journalistic practices, yet the challenges faced in today’s complex landscape are unlikely to be resolved by the infusion of a single set of core practices into the media landscape. And what had been missing in these pictures of the arena of journalism education was recognition of critical approaches to the media that stretched back at least to the discussions of Lippmann and Dewey in the 1920s.

Despite a continuing line of critique from Lippmann and Dewey through the Chicago School, and the early years of critical theory, when a “green eyeshades and chi-squares revisited” article was presented at AEJMC in 1992 by Dickson and Sellmeyer, this critical line was ignored. The 1992 piece stated that “press criticism” was one way that scholars and theorists could offer “an area of research that (was) ultimately practical for newspapers.” So the debate between the “green eyeshades” and the “chi squares” and those assessing it suffered from a tunnel vision that left critical and cultural scholars on the sidelines. For some in the field, that omission may have been a desirable outcome. However, in a rapidly fragmenting and transforming media world, cultural and critical studies are more important than ever to better understanding the past, the present, and the future of our media environment.

Although tough economic times may make it tempting to pull back and teach “real-world” skills, we ought to consider such a tactic at our own peril. Unless we want our students to be short-term hired help that is interchangeable and readily replaceable, as seems so common today, we need to give them tools to conceptualize how things will change and how they might understand the nature of this change so that they are not paralyzed by it. In short, students and educators need to expand their horizons beyond the limits of industry experience and social science in order to consider how form and content are established within media. A critically framed approach through media literacy offers an essential direction.

But the development of attention, understanding, and conceptual inquiry in media literacy will be hampered if mass communication and journalism schools do not attend to the way form and content are interrelated. We need to discuss how the evolution of “new” media changes both form and content. Unfortunately, many of the signs of movement in the field indicate a simplification of the relationship and a reliance on form, which is to say, on tools.

How do new faculty positions descriptions, for example, discuss form vs. content? Most list the forms (i.e., tools) they want taught, suggesting that the skills are grouped under form and that the content will just follow.

It begs the question why would the content follow so automatically? Does the old dog need the new trick of a new software platform, or really a fundamental transformation in the way content is finding its audience? And do the transformations in media mean dog fights between old and new ways of teaching, or are we learning better ways of all getting along? Media literacy suggests that we pay greater attention to form. A critical perspective would have us carefully consider what the biases inside these forms mean for our students and our media culture. How does meaning change when it squeezes through, say, as a 140 character micro-blog?

What are the implications of this focus on form over content? What we find most interesting about it is how little attention to the form actually takes place in the status quo of media practices and teaching. Much valuable work has come through what we could call the theorists of form—some media ecologists, some not—like Joshua Meyerowitz, Neil Postman, Sherry Turkle, Janet H. Murray, Marshall McLuhan, and new media form theorists like Henry Jenkins and Donna Haraway.

Media ecology draws from many disciplinary influences, including the work of Harold Innis, Walter Ong, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Eric Havelock, Susanne Langer, Erving Goffman, Edward T. Hall, George Herbert Mead, Margaret Mead, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Gregory Bateson. Yet many of these thinkers are typically left out of the conversation, either because their differentiation of form and content is intellectually problematic, or because their focus on form suggests—sometimes explicitly—an agentless technological determinism.

But the agency producing change is often center stage, as the current media environment turns much more critically attentive on itself. The patterns of content presentation in traditional TV news become a satirical critical target for other TV outlets. The spread of the critical satire appears to be changing the patterns of content presentation. James Carey might suggest that the media’s own transmission of media criticism is changing the rituals of media presentation.

So from the critical side, reaching from mass communication to criticism and media literacy studies, the implications of form are saturating the content. On the social scientific side, however, questions of form tend to be over-instrumentalized, like the way questions of page layout or ideas about the formal presentation of local news are questions of market research regarding whether the content is delivered by a blonde or a brunette.

We don’t think this is a new problem. In fact, we would argue that theories about media form/content relationships have been playing catch-up throughout their history, only now the rate is accelerating. Part of this “catch-up” has to do with Marshall McLuhan’s observation (in The Gutenberg Galaxy) that we are plummeting into the future with our eyes on the rear-view mirror (“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”)

Can we do both at once? Can we look where we are going while looking at where we have come from?

The introduction and diffusion of new forms of media are experiencing a kind of compression on an accelerating curve. These changes are happening in technology as much as by changes in models that might or might not be successfully monetized. The will that supports these transformations in the way information and entertainment are experienced needs to be understood to prevent misplacing agency into technological changes or changes in form.

As business models that have worked for generations implode amid a weak economy and the technological advances that inspire new efficiencies among media professionals, students will push educators, often rather vigorously, to teach “skills” rather than complex concepts that force them to struggle mightily. Skills will change as software packages and broadcasting equipment are replaced by newer versions of the latest gadgetry. Yet the deeper ideas that we impart in our theory-based classes have the potential to give our students the mental acuity to forge ahead in challenging times. They might make better sense of opportunities when others might be perplexed, but in some instances they may understand more clearly that models are changing at such a rapid rate that no one—including those with narrow expertise—has a firm handle on what might come next.

No single perspective can claim to fully prepare anyone for a highly uncertain future, but adopting a “trade school” mentality should not be a default option, no matter how hard our students push us to teach skills at the expense of deeper thought. An academic dialogue that gives proper respect and allows for better understanding of the critical and cultural implications that are embedded in our media systems and the routines of which they are a part can go a long way to improving our students’ understanding of the world in which they live, in addition to the industries-to-come which they will hopefully lead.

Ralph Beliveau is an assistant professor at teh University of Oklahoma. His research areas include critical media pedagogy; media criticism; morality & literacy; critical theory, and rhetorical theory. He is working on a study of critical communication and education theory focusing on Paulo Freire.

Bob Trumpbour is an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona. His research areas include media, sports, and society; mass media and public policy; media history; sociology of sports; media campaigns; and the economic impact of stadium construction.

By Jim Benjamin, Director of the Graduate Studies in Communication, University of Toledo

The recent explosion of interest in social networking technology brings to light new dimensions of the spoken vs. written communication debate that occasionally emerges. Twitter uses written text, Facebook uses text and graphic images, “chat rooms” in on-line courses use text, and the “old” technologies of books and e-mails use written communication. Lecture captures, teleconferences, radio, television, and the “old” technologies of lectures, conversations, discussions, and telephones use oral communication.

The debate is ancient. Plato’s Phaedrus argued that the discovery of writing “will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

We know, of course, that speaking and writing are not mutually exclusive, that the existence of one does not preclude the existence of the other. You can as easily write the words for a speech as you can speak the written words aloud. We also know that the arts of writing and speaking are both valuable skills communicators must develop. As a journalism educator you need to write out your lesson plans and instructions for activities and scripts for programs, but as a journalism educator you must also speak in class, talk with your students individually, and transform the script into an oral performance.

The newest technological development of virtual communication in computer simulated environment allows real time interaction with others and with the environment. Since these environments developed from text-based adventure games, it is not surprising that they started out with text interaction in multi-user domains and only more recently have they used microphones and speakers to allow oral recordings and interactions.

At a recent workshop on using Second Life in teaching communication, the workshop leaders indicated that they often start a conversation in voice mode but they usually end up reverting to text dialogue with each other. Given the opportunity to talk with each other, why do people revert to text messaging? Are there inherent advantages of texting versus speaking? There appear to be at least three.

First, there is the issue of privacy. When we are talking aloud, we can be overheard easily; but texting is silent. We can surreptitiously Instant Message with our smart phone beneath the table but using that same cell phone to talk to a friend makes the communication public ? even on topics that might better be kept private.

Second, texting has permanence but speaking is ephemeral. In a text dialogue you can scroll back through the conversation, but in an oral conversation you must rely on your memory to check on what was said, to further the conversation, and to keep the communication from becoming too repetitious.

Finally, texting allows some limited time for contemplation. If the conversation is serious and you want to choose your words carefully, you can use backspacing to choose a more felicitous expression. Furthermore, people are more tolerant of delays in text interactions. In oral interaction, your words are selected spontaneously, and once started, must be completed lest you sound inarticulate. Delays in responses are ill-tolerated in oral conversations. The listener will step in to fill the gap in the conversation or complete the speaker’s sentence. The impression made by someone speaking too slowly is that the person is either uninformed or perhaps lying.

To be fair, there appear to be three advantages that oral communication has over texting.

First, oral interaction allows sound to add meaning to the message. Features like tone, rate, and rhythm add meaning that even emoticons cannot convey. It is vocal quality that adds emphasis, emotion, and nuance lacking in silent text. Consider, for example, the difference between reading the lyrics on an album liner compared to hearing the song performed.

Second, oral communication is more spontaneous. We interact orally on the spur of the moment and that gives our communication a sense of liveliness, of being engaged in the moment with another that is missing in the more deliberate text messages, even in real time “chat” via text.

Finally, oral interaction is more adaptable. You can negotiate a future meeting time and place in a minute when you speak face-to-face. That same interaction takes much longer through text interaction, especially if more than two people are involved.

Communication technology addresses both oral and written communication. By recognizing the contributions each mode makes to effective communication, we deepen our understanding of the human uses of communication technology.

Jim Benjamin is the author of over two dozen research and instructional publications including articles in Philosophy and Rhetoric, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Communication Quarterly, and The Southern Speech Communication Journal and the lead article in Electronic Learning Communities: Current Issues and Best Practices. His areas of interest are organizational communication, visual communication, and rhetorical theory and criticism.

By Tom Mueller, Appalachian State University

There’s a race underway at many academic institutions. A mass communication movement is working to build media interactivity, where the potential for convergence occurs. Convergence is a somewhat mythical place where all things come together into a concurrent stream of messaging and effect. To succeed, one needs to disseminate media through multiple channels. Where a print communication might have succeeded in the past, one must now craft the story, get it to press, post the blog entry, tweet the copy, launch the YouTube promo, alert LinkedIn and Facebook contacts and find a marketing partner to infuse revenue. It’s all in a day’s work for the modern, educated and converged communication professional.

A weblog created for the non-profit Center of Innovation in College Media stated that the University of Missouri now features a degree in “convergence journalism.” Department chair Lynda Kraxberger reported that students are given the opportunity to tell stories in the traditional way, but also integrate “information delivery platforms” such as live blogs and mobile devices. Terry Eiler, a professor at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication, is quoted on the weblog regarding Ohio University’s graduate multimedia program. “At the core of the curriculum is the ability to learn,” Eiler said. “You don’t teach a software package – you teach the ability to learn.”

If learning is essential within the new convergence model, how must we, as advertising educators, modify and adapt our curricula? Advertising offers an essential component within the mass media industry; some would portend that adverting fuels media, which allows for free press, which fires the engines of democracy. With that relevant deliverable in our tool kit, we must find traction as we craft our own convergence initiatives.

A recent Wall Street journal article stated that IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller was targeting investment activity for Hulu, the website that serves as a portal for TV programming from Fox, NBC and ABC, among others. Securities analyst Kerry Rice was quoted in the article and stated, “It’s been difficult to figure out the right way to monetize content on the Internet, but the popularity of sites like Hulu has proven this will be an area of Internet and media convergence that is going to be a huge opportunity.”

There’s that term convergence once again, and in this place and time, it’s about profitability. The Associated Press reported that Hulu has “struggled to make money despite its popularity as an ad-supported site” and that subscription fees could be enacted in 2010. In a world where media, advertising and consumers converge, the essential missing component is money – at least not enough of it at present. Teaching students to search for profitability as part of a media convergence model is a necessity. Business entities build plans that generate and increase revenues, and advertising is an essential component of the revenue stream. We must tell the story of converged advertising communication and build profit-motivated communicators.

At Appalachian State, we’re empowered to develop syllabi and create content within courses that best serves our students. With empowerment comes responsibility. It seems appropriate to reconfigure the deliverables in courses such as fundamentals of advertising (COM 2700) and media sales (COM 4300). The course titles beg the question: Just what is fundamental and what are we selling within converged media?

Much of what is foundational will remain. We need to create our product’s unique selling proposition, identify the call to action, discover our target audience and define the segment we wish to influence. Future think for advertising educators will expand to messaging that travels down alternate paths for disparate destinations. Marshall McLuhan is renowned for stating “the medium is the message.” New York Times media critic David Carr reframed the discussion and said, “The people formerly known as the audience (are) too busy making content to consume much of it…the medium is not the message; the messages are the media.”

A successful visual message on a large flat screen TV isn’t interpreted well by a consumer who time and space shifted her viewing of Grey’s Anatomy to an iPhone. Cognition-based ad copy that gives all the pertinent facts isn’t useful for some popular social media sites. A recent Harvard study reported the average number of words per “tweet” on Twitter is 14.98, with sentences containing an average of 10.69 words, versus 22.09 words in general usage. If short and abbreviated is better, advertising messages must conform – and also do more with less.

Once a message is birthed and disseminated in different forms through multiple channels, we need to “teach the ability to learn” advertising sales within converged media ventures. WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell reported in Ad Age that brands are reducing earnings expectations and in turn are drastically cutting marketing services budgets. With the advertising industry contracting, fewer graduates will gain positions in traditional media sales roles.

Rather than teaching CPM’s and first objections, we might consider training students in the art of the deal, an entrepreneurial quality that goes well beyond rate cards and creates advertising opportunities within a convergence model. A well integrated advertising initiative will not only attract clients, but will also generate higher revenues for the agency and income for the individual.

Consider the cost of doing business: Advertising that is dedicated to print carries a higher overhead than the same adapted message delivered on a social network site. And a viral video created for YouTube will most likely be more economical to produce than the related television commercial campaign. A savvy ad sales professional will blend, tailor and then price the products he or she is marketing. The convergence model is sold as one fluid unit, rather than the pieces and parts menu provided by media sales reps of the past.

Agencies are investing less in training new hires. Expectations for return on investment can be harsh and immediate. It’s appropriate for advertising educators to reconfigure our teaching and embrace convergence.

Tom Mueller is an assistant professor at Appalachian State University, Mueller’s expertise is in experiential marketing, event marketing, special events and promotions, new trends in media, media sales, and international advertising.

By Cindy Royal, Assistant Professor,
Texas State University in San Marcos

The AEJMC conference in Boston offered many of the benefits I always enjoy and appreciate at the annual gathering: seeing old friends, networking with colleagues, meeting people with whom I have been communicating online and learning about research and teaching trends. But, the conference took a different tone this outing, as there was much discussion (both online and offline, in the sessions and in the hallways) of journalism professors being out of touch with the realities of online media and the digital economy (see Guy Berger’s MediaShift post “Two Recent J-Education Conferences Show Resistance to Change”). Criticisms included: questions and issues being addressed in sessions were outdated; research topics were tedious and mired in minutia; some social media applications, like Twitter, were viewed with disdain and condescension; and a general lack of understanding of the challenges and needs of the industries we support. As a profession, we have many big questions to answer, at such a critical time, that it has to be our responsibility as educators to assist in developing innovative solutions and drive the conversation.

It is exceedingly important that journalism as an educational and scholarly discipline embraces the new media environment and helps lead our graduates to enter their chosen fields with a spirit of innovation and the ability to influence direction. We often get wrapped up in the skills we teach. Should students learn HTML, video editing, Flash? Should they use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube?

Perhaps first, we should take a step back and develop an understanding and appreciation of the new environment: what makes these skills relevant, how do these tools and platforms affect the nature of storytelling and what options do we have for business models that embrace and value these features? The digital economy differs significantly from that of legacy media. In talking to conference attendees about this topic, I realized that there were several authors that I had been exposed to over the past few years that have significantly influenced my understanding of the current environment. I now think in terms of concepts like media as a conversation rather than a lecture, marketing to the “long tail” rather than masses, business models that include a “free” component, the importance of motivating a fan/user base to participate and providing a powerful user experience, the realities of a copyright system that potentially limit users’ ability to fully capitalize on those experiences and a targeted ad model that emphasizes keywords and context.

So, here are my recommendations for the five books that every media professor should read (along with online resources, since we are, after all, talking about the digital economy). I have had the distinct pleasure of seeing each of these authors when I have attended the South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin. I know many of you have read some of these books, but my sense is that most within our ranks feel that these topics are too technical and outside the realm of media. In actuality, each is an easy and engaging read that provides a unique take on an aspect of digital culture. Taken as a whole, these books provide an excellent introduction to a new way of thinking about the future of media and the power and opportunities of a participatory culture.

1. Chris Anderson – Anderson rates two books on my list. He’s the editor of Wired magazine and has written The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More and most recently Free: The Future of a Radical Price. In The Long Tail, Anderson describes the power to motivate the part of the sales curve that includes the many items sold in small quantities. It applies to just about any industry, and he effectively explains the role that digital technology plays in making this model efficient. Whether it is recommendations on Amazon.com that help drive sales of a book that was previously out of print, or a music company that can distribute mp3′s of a larger range of artists, Anderson explains that it is no longer about only the “hits.” Business models can develop around “misses.” This is relevant in news, when we consider entire news offerings in aggregate, rather than fixating on hits of individual pieces. This allows news sites to cater to valuable niches, which may ultimately lead to the ability to sell higher value, targeted ads.

In Free, Anderson makes the controversial claim that in the digital economy, one can give items away for free, and actually quite a bit of your business can be supported by a free model. Anderson identifies several different free business models, not all of which are new. Media companies are intimately familiar with the advertising model, the original use of “free,” in which advertisers pay and consumers enjoy the resulting content for no charge. Advertisers are buying the attention of consumers on sites that aggregate them. Other free models include what Anderson calls “freemium,” in which most business is free, while a small percent of paid activity supports the entire company. Take Facebook, for example. Most of the activity on the site is free. Facebook continues to build a large community because it opened up its doors and let everyone in for no charge. It does, however, charge for things like virtual gifts. Twitter, which is a completely free service at the moment, is considering charging for higher-end business services that could validate authenticity of accounts or provide advanced analytics.

Probably the most valuable message in Free, is the one that explains the importance of attention. There is value, albeit not always immediately and directly monetary, in creating a large community, generating excitement about your company and motivating consumers to engage with your brand. The challenge is generating business models that capitalize on these aspects once developed and thriving.

Online Resources

• Anderson’s blog – http://www.thelongtail.com/
• Free audio book on iTunes & at http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/mf_freer
• Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It’s Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity – Wired – http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/mf_freer
• Why Free is the Future of Business – Wired - http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free
• The Long Tail – Wired – http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
• Anderson on Charlie Rose – http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/386
• Anderson on The Colbert Report – http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/239500/july-22-2009/chris-anderson
• Salon Interview – http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/28/wired/
• TED Talk – http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_of_wired_on_tech_s_long_tail.html
• Twitter – @chr1sa

2. Henry Jenkins – Jenkins is a scholar most recently employed at University of Southern California, previously of MIT. He’s written several books, but the one I have found most relevant to my understanding of the value of online communities is Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Jenkins explains the value of participatory culture and highlights several case studies in which brands, whether on purpose or by accident, have engendered a fan following so passionate that its members were motivated to some level of participation. Whether it is the way that American Idol encourages fans to vote for their favorite contestant or how a distributed group of Survivor fans, using crowd-sourced techniques and advanced technologies, seeks to spoil upcoming episodes with information about locations and winners, Jenkins emphasizes that a passionate fan base is a valuable one. This goes beyond mere exposure to an advertising message. Jenkins holds participatory culture in high regard and encourages media, brands and advertisers to embrace fanatical behavior rather than deride or squelch it.

Online Resources

• Jenkins Web site – http://www.henryjenkins.org/
• Special issue of journal – Convergence – http://con.sagepub.com/current.dtl
• Convergence Culture Consortium – http://www.convergenceculture.org/
• Convergence Culture on Google books http://books.google.com/books?id=RlRVNikT06YC&dq=Henry+Jenkins&printsec=frontcover&source=an&hl=en&ei=1bmAStnOKsGHtge_-PHVCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=&f=false
• On YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGVfJVde164
• Authors@Google – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbU6BWHkDYw&feature=related
• SXSW – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtg_IL2c_c
• Twitter @henryjenkins

3. Jeff Jarvis – Jarvis is a former journalist turned media consultant who took a close look at arguably the most successful company in the digital economy, Google. In What Would Google Do?, Jarvis describes a company that practices a new way of thinking about media, audiences, content and advertising and whose primary mission is to provide “elegant organization.” He provides 40 clear rules of the new economy, including “the link changes everything,” “do what you do best and link to the rest,” and “your customers are your ad agency.” Many of these rules fly in the face of conventional media wisdom and could be described as counterintuitive, but Jarvis’ descriptions make practical sense, particularly in the context of Google’s growth and success. He closes with examples of how several industries would look if they applied “Googley” practices, including media, advertising, retail, money and others. According to Jarvis’, Google’s lesson is clear: “Make innovation your business.”

Online Resources

• Jarvis’ blog – www.buzzmachine.com
• WWGD page – www.buzzmachine.com/what-would-google-do/
• Jeff Jarvis interview PBS @SXSW – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyLyfOWyCA
• YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfcWFvkcHVI
• Authors@Google on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lKd8SyGJWA
• Newsweek interview – http://www.newsweek.com/id/181829
• Twitter – @jeffjarvis

4. Lawrence Lessig – Lessig is an attorney and law school professor at Stanford. He argued (albeit unsuccessfully) the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act before the Supreme Court in Eldred vs. Ashcroft. He has written numerous, seminal books on intellectual property in the digital age (Code and other Laws of Cyberspace, The Future of Ideas, Free Culture), and I tell any student that is doing research that deals with copyright to read every word Lessig’s ever written. His most recent book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, provides a look at the way our current copyright system suppresses creativity in a “read-write” culture, one in which users contribute as well as consume. But our legal system turns artists into felons and children into pirates, just because they want to create and communicate with the tools at their avail. He describes a hybrid economy that embraces the realities of the business culture with that of the new sharing economy.

Online Resources

• Web site – lessig.org
• Film: Rip!: A Remix Manifesto – http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/rip-a-remix-manifesto/ or http://www.ripremix.com/
• Lessig on The Colbert Report – http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/215454/january-08-2009/lawrence-lessig
• Lessig on Charlie Rose – http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9618
• Authors@Google – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xbRE_H5hoU
• Video presentations at http://www.lessig.org/content/av/
• SXSW interview – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saZjAYkPrdA
• TED Talk – http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html
• Twitter @lessig

And, if you want more, here is a list of several other books/resources I have used in my teaching that are also relevant in understanding the digital economy as it relates to media:

• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
• The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger
• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler
• Being Digital by Nicolas Negroponte
• Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet by Katie Hafner
• We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People by Dan Gillmor
• Video: The Internet: Behind the Web – History Channel
• DVD: Download: The True Story of the Internet – Discovery Channel

My challenge to media professors who have not already been exposed to these authors is to read each of these books (or at least engage some of the online resources) over the next year and see how these concepts change the nature and direction of your research and pedagogy. My hope is that we will gain a fresh perspective and have the ability to better address the important issues and challenges of our time at future gatherings. Our ranks are filled with brilliant and innovative minds. We just need to channel them in a direction that is compatible with the nuances of the digital economy.

Cindy Royal teaches Web design, online journalism and communication technology topics. Prior to doctoral studies, Royal had a career in Marketing at Compaq Computer (now part of Hewlett Packard) in Houston, TX and NCR Corporation in Dayton, OH. Royal hosts a music blog at onthatnote.com, a tech blog at cindytech.wordpress.com and would love it if you followed her at twitter.com/cindyroyal.

By Dr. Jane Marcellus, Associate Professor
Middle Tennessee State University

Are posts on social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace public or private? Should journalists quote them? What about linking to someone’s social media site in a news story? Does it matter if the person is very young?

These questions have come up in a listserv discussion I’m part of. The original post concerned a local paper’s coverage of a 17-year-old charged in a vehicular homicide case. The paper linked to the 18-year-old victim’s MySpace page, which included photos of him and the motorcycle he was riding when he was killed (http://www.themonitor.com/articles/reflect-28475-bravo-ricardo.html).

A subsequent post concerned a different case, in which a paper had quoted Facebook posts praising a student who had died. The student’s friends were angry; they considered the posts private.

Good reporting or invasion of privacy? The answer isn’t obvious.

Certainly, what we post on a Web site is public, and most of us have heard the reminders that workplace e-mail is not necessarily private–even if we don’t heed the warnings. But it seems that social media exist in a liminal zone, where the traditional difference between mass media and point-to-point communication is not clear. In fact, that’s part of the attraction of Facebook and MySpace. They’re designed to let users create, paradoxically, a public persona of the private self, a “spectacle of the private.”

Of course, Facebook lets users choose different privacy settings. But that’s no guarantee, since these sites are designed to link not only “friends” but friends of friends–people we don’t even know. If you’ve got something private to say, social media sites are not the place to say it.

Still, does that make them okay as news sources?

Even before this came up, Facebook reminded me of eavesdropping. I wouldn’t think of using it as a source in reporting, any more than I would report on other conversations overheard in person. In fact, fifteen years or so ago, I found myself waiting for a friend in a restaurant, seated very close to an environmental activist who had just been released from prison. What I overheard about her time in prison would have made an insightful feature. Should I quote what I overheard? It was clear to me then that I shouldn’t, although she was speaking loudly in a public place. I was intrigued enough to try to contact her, but she didn’t return my calls. I felt like the stereotypical rude reporter for having inadvertently invaded her private conversation, and it wasn’t exactly Watergate, so I let it go.

One response I’ve heard to this is that digging up information is what reporters do, and that this is a new world, with new rules. That’s too easy. While we haven’t had Facebook and MySpace before recent years, we have had communication technologies that allowed us to “overhear” conversations. Ham radio and telephone party lines come to mind, with the latter often remembered as a source for the grapevine.

I do think people need to be smart enough to know that what they post on social media–like what they say loudly in restaurants–may be “overheard” by reporters. But reporters need to know when to draw the line. We need to think each decision through carefully. Is the story worth it? Will the person’s social media friends–and their friends–be harmed? If the person is a minor, or otherwise very vulnerable in some way, that should be a consideration, too.

Beyond those questions, there’s the issue of accuracy. Without accuracy, you don’t have reporting–you have gossip.

With new media, answers that were once obvious may take a little more thought. And that’s all the more reason to ground our students in critical thinking and conceptual courses such as ethics before they leave our programs.

Jane Marcellus teaches media history, feature writing and cultural studies at Middle Tennessee State University. Her research focuses on media history and gender, with a particular interest in representation of employed women in the 1920s and 1930s. Her work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, American Journalism, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Journal of Popular Culture, and Journal on Excellence in College Teaching.

By Tricia Farwell
Assistant Professor, Middle Tennessee State University

Walk into any classroom with computer access, WiFi access or cellular phone service and you will, most likely, find at least one student on Facebook, MySpace or YouTube. The students will tell you how they “get” social networking sites. Put up a few (usually less than sober) pictures. Post a few status updates ranging from song lyrics to what they did last night. Et voila! You have instant social media expertise through user experience without training.

However, some industry professionals appear to be less confident about their use and understanding of social media; they are still trying to discover the most meaningful way to incorporate it into their profession. Slips such as the infamous Memphis Twitter post by a Ketchum Vice President have shown organizations how a misstep can be a public relations disaster. In this case, the employee posted to his Twitter feed while waiting to meet with the client (FedEx). The post (http://shankman.com/wp-content/uploads//keyinfluencertweet.jpg) read: “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!’” Understandably, FedEx employees were upset and the Ketchum employee experienced how public social networking can be.

While these social networking may not change the messages that the organizations intend to deliver to the public, the tools are impacting the way the messages are delivered. Century 21, for example transferred its national television advertising budget to focus on online media (Bush). The switch provided the company a way to open the lines of communication with publics by using vehicles most often thought to be, if not free at least inexpensive (Johnson).

As academics, we are somewhat caught in the middle. Do we embrace the new vehicles and teach our students who think they have already mastered the tools? Do we show them what is new in the industry, only to watch them yawn? Many of the social media applications are so easy to use that people overlook the necessity of needing to truly learn their value and function. Is user experience the only thing that people need to understand these vehicles? As Phil Johnson writes, “it’s relatively easy to grasp the tools but more challenging to understand how new technologies have changed communication behaviors and patterns” (http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=136559). These underlying changes are what make social networking sites such a challenge for those who want to be truly effective.

It becomes a question of teaching the fundamentals vs. teaching technology. However, with social media, it appears that we cannot separate technology from the fundamentals. Knowing how applications such as Twitter update in real time and virtually permanent impact how practitioners use the fundamental storytelling skills. Yet, if the students in my public relations principles class are an example, the concept of real time relationship building is boring. However, randomly scrolling through the pictures of last night’s party on Facebook, perks them right up.

Perhaps even more concerning for academics is not the need to learn the new technology and fundamentals, but overcoming the apathy that the students may feel towards learning a device they believe they have already mastered.

So, walk into any classroom with computer access, WiFi access or cellular phone service and you will, most likely find at least one student using Facebook, MySpace, or YouTube (not so much Twitter, since they don’t seem to be on board with it). The question is: will they really want to learn the tools they are using. From my current experience, I’m beginning to believe the answer is no. This fall, for the first time, I’m offering a course on Advertising and Social Media. The class enrollment is at six. Five of those six students were gently pushed toward the class by me. Now this could be a sign of the times or it could be a result of a less than sexy title and course number. Heck, it could even be due to my reputation for demanding students read, work and show up to class.

In any case, the situation is sad. Here is a class that I not only was excited to teach but also was awarded a grant to develop and the only way students are interested in it is with a push. A good part of my summer will be spent developing this class because, no matter how many yawns I see, I do believe that it is essential for students to know how to make social networking sites effective. While UX is important and part of the game, knowing the theory behind the practice will only assist them. They may spend their time yawning at me, thinking they know it all, but when they go on their job interviews and are asked to explain their usage, they will have an answer.

• Johnson http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=136559
• Hamm http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=136325
• Bush http://adage.com/article?article_id=133771
• Ketchum VP Twitter http://twitter.com/keyinfluencer

Tricia M. Farwell has worked in corporate public relations and advertising for more than 17 years. Farwell has presented research at the HIC on Arts and Humanities at the MPCA. Additionally, Farwell has authored the book, Love and Death in Edith Wharton’s Fiction.

By Stephen Lacy
Professor, Department of Communication and School of Journalism, Michigan State University

Digital distribution of information has created concerns about the future of news organizations. Observers have speculated on how the Internet has and will change journalism, with almost as many different conclusions as there are speculators. These concerns have caused journalism educators around the country to reevaluate how they teach journalism.

The Internet is a marvelous tool for the distribution of journalism and for allowing citizen participation in journalism. However, the Internet has had more impact on who participates in journalism than on the quality of journalism. When it comes to the opinion function of journalism, a well-constructed argument remains a well-constructed argument regardless of whether it appears as a blog or a column in a newspaper. In news, citizens continue to expect reporters to meet at least three goals: to provide a summary of important events, to translate complex issues into understandable intelligence, and to dig up and publish information that people in positions of power want to keep hidden. The essence of journalism is that journalists find, create and package information that people want and need. This remains true even in a three-screen, digital world.

If one accepts this proposition, then the role of journalism education is to help students learn how to create the journalism that accomplishes these three goals. To that end, here are some observations.

* Journalism education should emphasize the generation of information through a variety of methods. These should include in-depth interviewing techniques, computer assisted analysis of databases, and social science methods of generating and analyzing data—Phil Meyer calls it precision journalism.

* In addition to information generation techniques, journalism education should require that students have depth of understanding about the issues they cover. Journalists with limited knowledge of a complex topic will be unable to understand and communicate the complexity and nuances of that topic. They would be at the mercy of sources. Managers of newsrooms traditionally have assumed that any journalist can learn enough about any topic in a short period of time to adequately report on the topic. This is not true. In a world that continues to grow in complexity, knowledge is essential for journalists. The best news organizations continue to recognize the need for expertise and the most commercially oriented news organizations continue to ignore it. To help students gain expertise, journalism programs should require second majors or at least two minors.

* Journalism programs need to teach many forms of journalism presentation (video, audio, photographer and writing) and distribution (broadcast, print, Internet, cable), but writing remains the most efficient and effective ways of presenting complicated news and information. Writing must remain at the heart of journalism education. Of course, this is not an either/or situation. Programs must offer techniques in a variety of media, but journalism educators can over-emphasize the importance of presentation at the expense of information generation and writing.

* Journalism education should teach digital skills, but there is disagreement as to the depth and types that are required for every student. As has always been the case, journalists working at smaller organizations need a wide range of skills, but journalists who move to larger organizations become more specialized. The question is whether journalism education should prepare students for their first job or for a later job. Although this is not entirely an either/or decision, tension can exist between the generalist versus specialist approaches in accredited programs because of the limited credits that can be taken within journalism departments and communication colleges. One option would be for journalism programs to select one approach (generalist or specialist) and to publicize the nature of the program. Journalism programs with large enough faculties and enrollments might offer both approaches, but this will become increasingly difficult as budgets shrink.

Just how any particular journalism program approaches education will depend on the faculty’s assumptions about the relationships among journalism education, the news industry and the individual students. I believe the role of journalism education is NOT that of a minor league baseball team–training journalists to work for news organizations, usually at modest salaries. Education, journalism or otherwise, should help people develop their knowledge, analytical abilities and communication skills. Those people will then decide how they should use that knowledge and those skills. Journalism majors may or may not become journalists, but if journalism educators help students learn to think and generate knowledge in specialty areas, the students will have a high probability of success in whatever fields they pursue.

Stephen Lacy has written or co-written more than 85 refereed journal articles, more than 50 refereed conference papers, ten book chapters and four books. He has co-edited two other books and written numerous other articles. Before entering the academic world, he was a photographer, and he worked as an editor of three suburban weeklies and a reporter at a suburban daily near Dallas, Texas.

By Tricia Farwell
Assistant Professor, Middle Tennessee State University

Back in the dark ages, during my undergraduate education, there were two choices for me as a student (or at least that was how I saw things). Option one was to be on the print side of the world. Option two was to be on the broadcast side. In my mind, the two were never to meet. The broadcast students scrambled into their editing bays and studios; they played with pictures and sound. In my mind, print reigned supreme. We had words to craft into wonderful tapestries. We strutted into the computer labs, knowing that what we had to say was important.

A few courses into the program I experienced a crisis of epic proportions…I realized I didn’t like most of what was involved in being a journalist. Thanks to one wonderfully astute advisor, I was counseled to take public relations courses. I was lucky. I found a happily ever after early. Some of my friends weren’t as lucky and had to take “extra” courses when they found they didn’t like what they originally intended to pursue.

Fast forward a few years (ok, maybe a decade or two) and I find myself in a place I never expected to be: part of the curriculum committee discussing a course that, in my opinion, might help students to make slightly more informed choices. That course is our media writing course. In its current incarnation, the class is designed to be an overview of various types of writing that students of the mass media might encounter. As you can see by the sample syllabus, we try to spend a few sessions on each writing area. It’s a sampler platter, for sure, but one that may be more beneficial than harmful.

Yet, with the changes facing us in trying to keep the curriculum current, this course has come up for possible revision or even deletion. Easily, the strongest argument for ending the survey style of the course is that it is truly impossible to go into much depth on any of the subjects. It is difficult enough to teach news writing in one semester, let alone a few weeks. You can make that argument for each pod of the class: electronic media, advertising, public relations, online.

However, it seems that the argument overlooks one, maybe small, but relevant, benefit for our students. That would be exposure. While many of the students come to the course before they have committed to a specific sequence, most know where they want to fit in. They usually have a narrow-minded focus. They come in thinking they want to be in one area and feel there is never anything else. Yet, the survey of media writing introduces them, even if just in passing, to other options that they may not have considered. Interests can change based on experience in this course. Sometimes students who feel that they are destined for one area find out they don’t like that kind of writing but love writing in another area.

While I agree with those who say that we can’t do total justice to any of the topics in such a short time span, I still envision a place for media writing in our curriculum. It isn’t destined to give everyone a detailed picture of the writing for each sequence. Perhaps we should be happy that the students walk away with just one major concept from each sequence. The course, can, however, serve to give our students a taste of what they may experience in their chosen and other areas of specialization. For some specializations, such as public relations, this taste may be enough to make the students feel they can take on any task their boss gives them. For other areas, it may just provide students with respect for what their peers encounter on a day-to-day basis.

So the next time you’re in a meeting discussing the fate of a course that may not be able to do full justice to every topic, stop for a moment. Consider if the course may function as something else, something equally beneficial to the students. You may just find a place for it.

Tricia M. Farwell has worked in corporate public relations and advertising for more than 17 years. Farwell has presented research at the HIC on Arts and Humanities at the MPCA . Additionally, Farwell has authored the book, Love and Death in Edith Wharton’s Fiction. .

By Stephen Lacy
Professor, Department of Communication and School of Journalism, Michigan State University

Journalists face a crisis. The migration of readers, viewers and advertisers from newspaper and broadcast TV to the Web has combined with the current recession to eliminate jobs and raise concerns about the future of journalism itself. Many observers have addressed these concerns with conflicting conclusions. However, the importance of the discussion is not that someone will be right or wrong but that the conversation might help journalists better understand the trends, and, therefore, help them influence the ways they react to the trends.
Much of the disagreement in the discussions comes from a failure to address the particular type of markets being discussed. National journalism will be affected by the trends, but the number of news outlets addressing national issues insures that citizens will continue to receive national news from a diversity of outlets. Local news markets, however, have smaller consumer and advertising bases, and the news organizations in these markets confront a more uncertain future than do national news organizations.

The following predictions about the future of local journalism (coverage of communities, towns and cities) start with some observations about current conditions and then suggest what these mean for the future of local journalism.

1. Despite the decline in circulation and ratings, a significant number of people in the United States want local quality journalism delivered in a variety of forms. This is demonstrated by the fact that as circulation has declined Web visits have grown. Unique visitors to newspaper Web sites increased by 27% between January 2007 and January 2009 (Newspaper Association of America, http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Newspaper-Websites.aspx).
2. The majority of local businesses that buy advertising on the Internet do not yet understand how best to use online advertising. With all new media, it takes a while for businesses to understand how the new medium can be used. On the basis of my discussions with people who work in online advertising, I believe most business people are still learning the optimal use of Web advertising.
3. The advertising revenues that news companies make online will be less than revenues made through their old medium. It’s simple: as competition for advertising revenue increases, all else being equal, the share of revenue per news outlet will decline.
4. In the past, a significant proportion of people in local communities have been willing to help pay for local journalism. Some observers assume that people will not pay for online information, but many of us continue to subscribe to local newspapers, as well as pay for access to a variety of media. People who value news will pay. Just how many people will pay and how much they will pay are issues that each market must decide through trial and error.

If one accepts these propositions, I believe they imply the following for local journalism in the future.

A. The FCC will loosen cross-ownership rules, and newspapers will merge with television stations in many markets. Economic hardship was behind the deregulation of radio, and the best way to increase revenues and profits is to reduce competition through merger and acquisition.

B. Many smaller towns will have only one news organization, and medium-sized cities will likely have two primary daily news organizations with the possibility of a citizen journalism site and/or smaller news organization. This is the logical outcome of deregulation. Of course, how this affects journalism in local markets is a complex issue and will vary from market to market.

C. The model of a daily Web site with print publications on a limited number of days, which is being experimented with in some locations, is likely to catch on with more news organizations. Many people still enjoy reading paper, but they are also too busy to read every day. This compromise cuts costs and allows people to continue to indulge their paper habit until a more portable, flexible and cheaper way of reading digital newspapers comes along.

D. Cities that have two or more news organizations will likely see those news organizations segment the local news market into an upscale segment for higher socioeconomic classes and a downscale segment for lower socioeconomic classes. The upscale news organization will emphasize text about politics and social issues, although not exclusively, and the downscale will emphasize video about crime and scandal, although not exclusively. The downscale news organization will be advertising based, while the upscale will be financed by advertising, subscription, and other revenue streams. The Project for Excellence in Journalism found this tendency for local TV news in a series of studies roughly a decade ago. Such segmentation makes the news products more efficient for advertisers by being more targeted.

Of course, the forces determining the future of local news outlets are far more complex than can be dealt with in this limited amount of space. But the eventual outcome of the transition is in the hands of the citizens in individual communities. Communities generally receive the level of journalism they will support.

Stephen Lacy has written or co-written more than 85 refereed journal articles, more than 50 refereed conference papers, ten book chapters and four books. He has co-edited two other books and written numerous other articles. Before entering the academic world, he was a photographer, and he worked as an editor of three suburban weeklies and a reporter at a suburban daily near Dallas, Texas.

By Michael Bugeja, Director, Greenlee School, Iowa State University

The Iowa State Daily has a strong online, new media presence, with video, audio and text in an innovative design that also is easy to navigate.

Things should be looking up, but revenue is down.

The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication has a historic relationship with the independent student newspaper, housed in the same building. Many on staff are our students. Alumni who won Pulitzer Prizes worked there. Our top benefactors have been editors.

But mostly we want the Daily to succeed because it holds the university (and at times, us) accountable.

In addition to directing the School, I am a former college media adviser at Oklahoma State University. For a decade now, my research in media ethics and my reporting for The Chronicle of Higher Education (and other outlets) have analyzed how Internet has changed the nature of journalism and education.

I have argued that journalism, especially print, would lose readers to the point of economic collapse because of the conventions of Internet, a medium that gives away information for free (especially timely information) and vends information about information that sells more than once.

All those presentations at AEJMC conventions about Information Centers replacing newsrooms failed to factor the nature of the platform developed by military, enhanced by entrepreneurs and promoted by the same consultants who catered to Wall Street rather than Main Street and are architects of our woes.

I take no pleasure in being proved correct when prophesying our present state of affairs in print media, mostly in my 2005 book, Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age (Oxford University Press).

A follow-up Oxford book, Living Ethics across Media Platforms, tries to counter the Internet effect and maintain principles that have guided journalists for decades.

In coping with the current situation, I usually remind myself of the motto: Ethics are easy when nothing is at stake.

Something is at stake for all of us in print and digital journalism, something ethical, something our association will have to deal with in as much many members promoted convergence on counsel of the over-optimistic, ill-informed CEOs of media companies whose stocks sell now for less than $10 a share.

Because I know the nature of Internet, I also know how to use it to generate revenue. It requires us to think more like Sergey Brin than like Phil Currie.

And because our newspaper is losing money—as are counterparts on other campuses—I find myself wandering into the Daily newsroom to speak to the advertising staff rather than the editorial staff, sharing my Brin-like visions rather than investigative tips.

Case in point: Each morning I begin my day by reading the online edition of the Daily and then follow up with the print edition when I reach the office. Last week I read an advance about our women’s basketball team, currently in the top 20, concerning a difficult game with its next opponent; but online, the article lacked a nut graph noting when and where the event would take place.

I wanted to buy tickets. I decided to speak to the sports staff about the importance of basic information. However, later I saw why it was missing online: the print edition had a display design noting time, place and opponent.

My first impulse was Currie-like in innocence: Tell writers to revise print copy for online consumption. The second impulse was deviously Brinesque: There are no mistakes online, only missed opportunities to make money.

What if the sales staff at the Daily offered free online clickable display ads with each advance story containing that missing nut graph, something like, “Iowa State women’s basketball team takes on Texas, Sunday, Feb. 15, at 2:30 p.m. at the Hilton Coliseum. Click here for tickets, $5-12”?

The Daily would get 10% of each ticket sold through that button.

“Of course,” I told the ad staff, “we could encourage our readers to buy tickets through the Daily and increase our take. But we don’t have to stop there. We do a lot of advance stories—for athletics, sure—but also for the performing arts and any number of events that require admission.”

I shared my idea with the general manager, Annette Forbes, in addition to another about classified ads. “We can offer free online classifieds uploaded by sellers with a shareware PayPal button asking them to donate 10% of any sale for the upkeep of the site.”

The Ames Tribune, our local competitor, once sued the Daily to limit our distribution in Ames. “We can get around that, too,” I told Forbes. “What about a digital distribution box? We can design one with a laptop where newspapers used to be and place them in bars and convenience stores. People are addicted to Internet. Want to Facebook? Put your debit card in the slot where quarters used to plop. Get 10 minutes for 10 bucks to graffiti a friend’s wall.”

“Let’s do lunch,” Forbes said.

Later in the newsroom I saw Mark Witherspoon, the Daily adviser. Conscience pinged my inner IP.

Ethics are easy when nothing is at stake. …

I could justify some of my ideas. After all, student newspapers still purchase ink by the barrel, but that ink has been red for so long now that even the flagship of such newspapers, The Columbia Missourian, faced record losses of $1 million.

Unlike the Daily at Iowa State, the Missourian is a community newspaper staffed by students but directed by such professionals as Tom Warhover, executive editor and chair of the print and digital news faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism.

The publication is a century old. With that tradition, staff and brainpower, the Missourian was losing revenue at such a rate that Warhover at one point wrote a column about a possible partnership with its local competitor, Columbia Daily Tribune. (The Missourian has since decided to go from a seven- to a five-issue per week publication schedule.)

I telephoned Warhover. He’d been to that same ethical precipice as I, but stepped back and took stock.

“I have a problem with your basketball ad,” he said. “Why not make sure your reporters remember to include the nut graph and then add a link to that paragraph—‘for ticket information, click here.’”

We discussed other problematic issues such as conflict of interest when covering athletics, for instance. And if we vend information that sells more than once, methods as well as the reasons for newsgathering might be lost on future generations. We’ll sell DWI arrests to attorneys, sports stats to college recruiters, and human interest stories to online paper mills.

We’re journalists with a new platform lacking theory to guide us morally and monetarily.
But we have each other. That’s something. And we’re in this together. That’s something, too.

We need to pick up the phone as I did with Warhover and air our consciences about the state of journalism and what, if anything, can be done to address it without losing our principles in the process.

That, I think, is what AEJMC had in mind when inviting colleagues to be commentators on Hot Topics. It’s why we go to conventions and submit papers, testing ideas among peers, this time using the platform that may have changed journalism as we knew it into something we may not yet recognize … or want to.

Michael Bugeja’s research has been cited in The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and The Economist, among others. His articles have appeared in Journalism Quarterly, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, New Media and Society, and Journal of Mass Media Ethics, among others. Bugeja also writes professionally for The Quill, Editor & Publisher and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

By Ronald A. Yaros, University of Maryland

Summary Of A “Hybrid” Course Devoted to Technology and Social Media

This course, with 36 undergraduates, was one of twenty-five new interdisciplinary courses approved by my institution to address “new problems” facing society and to experiment with new teaching and learning strategies. The goals of the class are to use and evaluate various social media in the contexts of information production, sharing, consumption, teaching, and learning. Since the course is open to all majors, one of my goals as a journalism professor is to tap a diverse group of students to gain a better understanding of how digital information and social media are utilized in different disciplines. This “hybrid” course combines class meetings with the use of more than ten different social media tools during the 12-week semester. Some tools take the place of more traditional teaching methods such as papers and written exams.

In the first class meeting, students learn there are no written exams for those who successfully complete the weekly assignments of regular social media engagement. Each assignment requires students to communicate, research, share, and critically think about issues related to social media and different applications of those media. To further motivate students, only those with a “B -” or lower during the last week of class are required to take a written final. Those with a “B” or better have the option of taking the final. During the entire semester, students use social media to investigate and assess how audiences – and students in particular – seek, select, share, and use digital information. This is not a “skills” course, but one that requires learning of basic techniques with technology. More importantly, regular use of familiar and emerging social media to exchange information facilitates a deeper understanding of the relationships of social media and society. Although most of the course’s use of social media cannot be detailed in a three-page document, some of the primary tools and assignments are presented to explain how students engaged with course content and each other. Two categories of social media were employed.

“Asynchronous” social media

Asynchronous social media, though not real-time, provide the ability to share content in online discussion forums, emails, and blogs. Half of the course’s 500 total possible points is devoted to the quality and quantity of weekly postings on each student’s blog. Other assignments include collaborations with Google Docs to conduct online survey research, and a group reporting assignment in which students use social media to simultaneously cover a major event from different locations. Students also used and evaluated a class Facebook group for a three-week period that spanned spring break. Results are presented on page two.

“Synchronous” social media

Synchronous social media employed in and outside of this class for live interactions included: Twitter, Wimba (Blackboard’s live virtual classroom environment), and Skype (hosting guest speakers). The virtual environment Second Life was presented and discussed but not yet utilized for a graded assignment. The uses of both categories of social media will now be detailed.

Blogger and Twitter

In the first class, students are told that by establishing and regularly maintaining their own Blogger and Twitter accounts, they are essentially beginning a “final paper” in week one. Each student’s blog and Twitter feed must relate to his or her field of study or interest. During the semester, students review, research and then post discussions of how our weekly social media topic (i.e. privacy, ethics, security, citizen journalism, multimedia journalism, virtual environments, social gaming, etc.) relates to their area of interest. Students are also provided with weekly readings or URLs to review. Students must post 750 to 1,000 words per week plus one to three related news “tweets” on their Twitter feed. Posted content assessed four times during the semester is based on: (1) voice, (2) frequency, (3) focus and (4) supporting research. Students are told that more factual and fewer opinionated postings are expected until the final weeks of the class, when students post their reactions to course content and predictions for the future of social media. Until those final weeks, however, all claims and opinions posted require supporting evidence and/or links. For one fourth of the course, students also learn and then integrate basic multimedia (i.e. links to photos, slideshows, video, and audio from other networks) into their weekly blog discussions. The professor and teaching assistant rotate one half of the blogs (n = 18) for grading using a comprehensive rubric. Some assignments also require peer review of blogs by students. To date, students have averaged a total of 10,000 to 12,000 words on their topic-specific blog and Twitter. In addition to the 36 individual blogs, the class also shares a blog site and Twitter feed (using a hash tag). This site aggregates news found by students that relates generally to technology, and social media. This news often presents issues not discussed by our weekly topics. As of the writing of this document, more than 125 “tweets” and 110 postings have been made to the class blog.

Picasa, Audioboo & YouTube

To explore social media and journalism, all students were assigned as one team to cover a major campus-wide event using university-provided iPod Touches and a collection of mobile apps. (Students could also use their own digital cameras or SmartPhones, if desired.) The minimum posting requirement included: twelve original photos (using Google’s Picasa), four audio interviews (uploaded from the field using Audioboo), and 20 “tweets” posted to the class blog during four hours of the live event. Video to the class YouTube account was optional. A week before the event, students claimed their campus location where they could team with one other student if preferred. The objectives were to learn: (1) the benefits and challenges of using social media to collect and share information, and (2) how social media can represent different perspectives of the same live event. Data from pre- and post-event surveys measured student perceptions, experiences and reflections. Those data are being analyzed with reportable results in time for the Denver conference.

Facebook

Results have already been compiled from the students’ use of a class Facebook group. Before spring break – and before the following optional activity was announced in class – students completed a survey measuring: (1) their perceptions of social media in higher education, (2) their efficacy, (3) social identity in the class, and (4) their enjoyment of and familiarity with classmates. We were also interested in whether social media in a class could affect the desire to collaborate in group projects. After completing the pre-survey, students were offered minimal extra credit (up to 25 of the 500 total points possible) if they chose to participate in the Facebook group during the following week known as “spring break.” Only three text postings were required on three separate days for 15 points. The maximum of 25 points could be earned for also uploading one photo and one video. Students knew that more postings would NOT earn more than 25 points. The teaching assistant joined the site to monitor for technical problems. The professor did not join. Amazingly, not only did 30 of the 36 students end up participating during spring break, 29 of the 30 participants far exceeded the minimum requirements for extra credit. Specifically, instead of the 90 total text postings needed for all students to earn at least 15 points, 362 text postings – or about 50 per day – occurred. The posting of nearly 100 photographs also exceeded the group minimum. We did not expect this level of engagement during spring break. At the start of class following break, students completed the same survey that was administered before break.

Preliminary pre- and post-event comparisons indicate some expected but also unexpected trends. Compared to students’ enjoyment of other classes, and how much they knew other classmates, their enjoyment of this class and classmates, as well as familiarity with classmates, increased. Unexpectedly, however, their enjoyment of other classes, other classmates, and their familiarity with classmates in other courses decreased, even though there were no classes during break. Students reported a higher preference for group projects after the Facebook use, but less of a desire to pursue friendships with classmates. This could suggest that either the information acquired from peers on the social network reduced the desire to pursue friendships, or that perhaps students prefer to keep established Facebook friendships separate from those associated with educational activities. Regardless of the reason, more research of social media in the class is needed. It is a goal for future semesters.

Wimba (as a virtual social media classroom)

The virtual Wimba classroom environment in Blackboard is a synchronous network in which students and guests meet and interact live with the professor and each other. Although Wimba is not a public social medium, questions for the class probe how virtual environments differ from other social media and face-to-face meetings when exchanging information. What are the pros and cons of a live network, and how does live voice interaction compare to the synchronous text of Twitter, for example?

One of our Wimba meetings occurred during a weather emergency that cancelled classes for one week. I asked students to voluntarily join me in Wimba for one hour and fifteen minutes at the regularly scheduled class time. I was surprised when 34 of the 36 students logged in and after all stayed for the entire “class.” Using PowerPoint slides, interactive live polling, and Web sites I could remotely display on everyone’s computer or laptop, plus synchronous audio and video from anyone comfortable sharing it, we discussed virtual social media and their potential applications in education. How could the current virtual class be better? Following the virtual class, most of the students answered open-ended questions about their experiences in a survey posted on Blackboard. Results indicate that all students enjoyed the virtual meeting for a variety of reasons. However, several said they’d prefer it only for selected classes, not regular class meetings. Detailed results could be presented at the Denver conference.

Conclusion

If selected, I would be excited to share these and other data. Some changes are already being made to the course for next fall. For example, while we plan to again distribute mobile devices, we plan to employ a custom app for the class that provides access to the social media we use (Blogger, Twitter, etc.). I would share tips on what worked best, suggest assessments of social media assignments, and note things to avoid when thinking about integrating social media into a course. I welcome the opportunity to share my experiences with AEJMC colleagues.

By Karen Freberg, The University of Tennessee

The public relations profession continues to play an essential and changing role in society, requiring the regular reassessment of the education of future public relations practitioners. Academics and practitioners often differ in how they view the public relations field, how they define the discipline, and how they view the major pedagogical approaches. The demands of the current economy and the ever-changing digital environment is challenging public relations practitioners and scholars to constantly evolve their research and practices in the discipline to meet the expectations of their stakeholders.

Having social media incorporated throughout the public relations courses will allow professors to feel more connected and up-to-date with their students. In the process, implementing social media in public relations classes will create a more dynamic, interactive, and forward-thinking learning environment for all parties. Also, understanding new technologies that focuses on how to communicate to various publics like social media does also creates a link to the theoretical foundations of thought (researchers or managers) to the those that are view public relations as a more applied field (practitioners or technicians).

Public relations scholars and practitioners can accomplish this integrated perspective of the profession in their classroom by engaging their students to incorporate social media into their readings, case studies, and interaction beyond the classroom. Here some some ways that I have incorporated social media into the classroom in my Public Relations Cases class:

• Integrating research and practitioner perspectives with social media: Public Relations Cases is a course where public relations students are expected to know the iconic PR cases that have shaped our profession, like the Tylenol crisis case or Exxon-Valdez to name a few. Besides analyzing these traditional cases, I have asked my students to think about what would happen if these traditional cases happened today in 2010 – what would be some of the opportunities and challenges PR professionals would be facing? Each student group is also asked to identify a new stakeholder group that would be relevant today as well as a new innovative tactic – such as implementing a viral marketing campaign to establishing a social networking community on Ning. Students are also exposed to how to measure social media using specific sites such as Technigy SM2, BackType, and Tweetmeme to monitor and track social media discussions related to specific brands and topics. This project combines both research and application in Public Relations, which is where PR programs need to be heading.
• Being part of the online PR community: Students are encouraged to interact and go to events that are sponsored by public relations professionals working with social media. Besides PRSSA, students are encouraged to go to events that are sponsored by the local chapter of the Social Media Club in Knoxville for networking and professional opportunities.
• Using Twitter and Facebook for online discussions and present mini case studies. Public relations students need to not only be aware of the different types of social media sites, but be able to understand how they are strategically implemented and used in public relations. Students each week are assigned to write a mini case study on a current situation on the topic covered for the week and focusing on what the corporation, PR agency, or parties involved did in terms of their implementation of social media strategies and tactics. Each student writes a one page summary and critique of the case, as well as post the link of the article discussing the case on the class Facebook site and Twitter accounts. Students are encouraged to discuss and comment on the case studies being presented.
• Bringing in leading experts into the classroom via Skype. With the increase travel expenses and limited resources, social media has provided academic professionals the opportunity to bring in experts to come talk to their class via Skype, the free Internet and phone service. These individuals can be experts in their specific area and provide students a wonderful learning and enriching experience in this new presentation format. In my class, I had the opportunity to have Dr. John Cacioppo speak to my class on the Elaboration Likelihood Model and its implications towards Public Relations.
• Online reputation management practice and exposure: More than ever, future employers are looking at social media sites for information pertaining to potential employees of their agency or corporation. We are forming impressions and making decisions about individuals based on what information is presented online – and how the information that we are presenting online is for public viewing. Students are presented with proactive strategies on how to present themselves professionally and managing their reputation online, such as doing searches on themselves not only on Google, but also on social media search engines like Samepoint, Peoplebrowsr, and Social Mention.

In summary, the overall purpose of implementing social media into the classroom is to build not only a better understanding of the new technology for class assignments, but to present students with the opportunity to use these skills outside in the classroom in their internships and in the workplace. By exposing them with examples of how specific corporations and public relations professionals are using social media, students will be able to analyze what were the best practices in implementing social media for public relations in specific fields (ex. crisis communications, employee relations, non-profit public relations, etc.)

The role of the public relations academic professional is not only to show the students how social media is changing the profession, but also participating in the process as well. Students want professors that not only share them the opportunities of social media, but want to see that the professors are active online as well. Social media provides numerous opportunities for students and professors to create a more engaging and interactive classroom experience that contributes to a positive learning experience.

Social Media Readings

Baekdal. T. (April 27, 2009). Where is everyone? Baekel Online Magazine. Retrieved from

Basille, D. (November 5, 2009). Social Media influencers are not traditional influencers. Retrieved

Mangold, W.G., & Faulds, D.J. (2009). Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix.

Solis, B. (2008, August 5). Introducing the conversation prism. Retrieved from

Web sites and Blogs for Social Media

• Mashable: http://www.mashable.com
• Brian Solis (PR 2.0): http://www.briansolis.com
• PR Squared: http://www.pr-squared.com/
• Web Strategy (Jeremiah Owyang): http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/
• Groundswell (Christine Li / Forrester Research): http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/
• Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation: http://mashable.com/2008/12/24/free-brand-monitoring-tools/
• How to build the ultimate social media resume: http://mashable.com/2009/01/13/social-media-resume/

By Ric Jensen, University of South Dakota

Introduction
Recently, I began teaching an interdisciplinary course to college juniors and seniors about the public understanding of science. The course examined issues we face in public relations, including the need to communicate in such a way that the message matches the needs and interest of the intended audience (Wilcox, 2009). The course also presented the adoption process with an emphasis on how persuasive communication can be used to get people to embrace new technologies (Kotler, 2009).

The course was structured along the lines of “The Day the Universe Changed”—a Public Broadcasting Service television series created and narrated by science historian James Burke. My goal was to get students to realize that we have always had technology that revolutionizes how people find and share information. The concept was to develop what I call a “You Are There” approach in which students imagine they were living at a point in history when a paradigm-shifting new communication strategy was implemented that radically altered how people communicated at that time. I asked students to compare how they would have been able to communicate had they lived when written languages, the electronic telegraph, the television (and other technologies) were invented.

At the same time, students developed materials to teach youth about a technology we learned about during the semester. The idea was to see if the students could create fact sheets and hands-on learning activities that could effectively communicate complex information to people at a different learning level. Ultimately, four teams of students (each with about seven participants) presented lessons about personal computers, the optical telegraph, the telephone, and the printing press to a group of Cub Scout pack, their leaders and parents at a Science Day.

The Importance of Journaling and Self-Reflection (Old and New Approaches)

My university emphasizes the importance of having students reflect, ponder and write about what they are learning. The concept is that students might learn more through introspection when they have to express their thoughts in writing. In other words, when students have to write their thoughts on a regular basis, it may make some of them more aware of the ideas being discussed in a classroom and may make them think more fully about what they have read and what has been discussed in class (Moore, Boyd, and Dooley, 2010). Some “old” approaches that were used included hand-written journals and typed essays.

My university offers small grants to encourage the use of new technologies in classroom settings, including blogs, instant-click devices to obtain quick feedback through the use of live polls, and facilitating the use of laptops in class. Part the reason my university offers these mini-grants may stem from concerns that old ways of interacting with students may become less effective with today’s students. In other words, the tradition of writing anything by hand is becoming rarer among this new generation of students, unless someone compels them to do so. At the same time, my university wants to be at the cutting edge of finding new ways to incorporate state-of-the-art technology into the classroom that may more effectively engage with students and make a connection with them. Philip and Nicholls (2009) suggest that blogging and other social networking technologies can be effective in fostering the learning of college students in individual and group settings. McDermott, Eccleston and Brindley (2009) examined how college students at one university used blogs in place of written journals and observed that the majority of students used classroom blogging in an educationally constructive way and said that “All teachers involved felt strongly that the experience of reading and commenting on student blogs had been overwhelmingly positive” (page 124). Phillips (2005) advocates that e-journaling can enhance student interactivity and foster intellectual exchange because it provides more avenues for students to reflect on and express ideas. Along similar lines, Polling (2005) writes that “As students communicate in the blog, they question and challenge each other’s thinking, leading to deeper and more meaningful interaction than previously afforded during individual journaling” (p. 14).

How I Used Blogging
I used blogging in the class in two ways. I developed and wrote a blog for the students on the Blogger.Com website. The address is http://drricusd.blogspot.com/ I knew I couldn’t cover everything I wanted to teach during my 50-minute lectures so I supplemented my classroom teaching with the blog. I also used my blog to help give the students an idea about what a classroom blog should look like and how it could read to let them become more familiar with how the process works. I communicated in a different way with the blogs in this online format—I was more conversational, less formal, and I challenged students to spend more time thinking about the lessons that could be learned from history. I communicated updates about the blog via emails that included my blog address and encouraged students to sign up as “followers” of my work.

In addition, I created 12 hands-on blogging assignments which corresponded with the aspect of science history we were discussing. I signed on as a “follower” of the students blogs. I encouraged the students to share their blog addresses with their classmates. I made a special effort to ensure that the students would do the following things for each blog post: review the readings and lecture, engage in a hands-on learning activity, and write about what they learned in 100 words or more, incorporating elements of good writing, grammar and persuasive communication.

To make this seem clearer, I would like to offer the following examples:

• In my lesson about the In my lesson about the quipu, I reminded the students that recording local history was thought to be so important that the Incas wanted there to be a record-keeper in each village. I asked the students to mull why it’s important to keep a personal narrative of each of their lives, the values they held, and the society in which they lived. I asked them to find an example of a culture for which no or few records exist and to think about what has been lost because their story was not preserved.
• In my lesson about telephone, I asked students to imagine what it would be like to be able to hear for the first time in their lives the voice of a friend or relative in some distant place and to be able to communicate instantaneously with them. I reminded them that prior to the invention of the phone people could only rapidly share information by sending telegrams which were asynchronous, less personal and less convenient.
• I took the students to a local history museum. Our tour guide was a 60-year-old woman who lived in our region most of her life. She walked us through exhibits of what life was like during the 1800s and early 1900s and she gave personal stories. I urged the students to comment on a technology they saw that they found most interesting and had them blog about what it would have been like to live in those times and asked them to compare what they saw with how they use technology today.
• I asked each student to find someone older than 50 and ask them about when they first used computers, what kind of computer it was, what their situation was at the time, and how they used the computer at the time. I told students to ask if that person felt at the time that computing would evolve in the way it has since then. I had the students compare that older person’s first use of computers with how they use technology today.

Lessons Learned
Each student completed all of the blogging assignments; when I previously instructed students to keep hand-written journals often less than half the class would do so. I found that blogs were a much richer tool to assess student learning than using weekly quizzes. The blogs drew out the first-hand experiences of students and I could tell the class was really applying and thinking about the concepts I presented. Most of the students seemed more enthused about using blogging technology than writing in a journal. Many of the students told me they would continue blogging as a way to contemplate and express what they were experiencing as they went through college and life. In sum, I found that asking students to blog was a rewarding and effective way to encourage student participation and to get them to think deeply about communications issues we were discussing.

References
Moore, C., Boyd, B., and Dooley, K. 2010. The effects of experiential learning with an emphasis on reflective writing on deep-level processing of leadership students. Journal of leadership education, 9 (1): 36-52.

Kotler, P. 2006. Social marketing and the broadening of the marketing movement. In Communication of Innovations (A. Singhal and J. Dearing, eds). Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, Inc (pp. 136-144).

McDermott, R., Eccleston, G., and Brindley, G. 2009. Developing tools to encourage reflection on learning in first-year student blogs. In Proceedings of the 10th international conference of the subject center for information and computer sciences (H. White, ed.). Ulster, Northern Ireland: HE Press.

Phillip, R., and Nicholls, J. Group Blogs: documenting collaborative drama processes. Australasian Journal of Education technology, 25 (5): 683-699.

Phillips, J. 2005. E-journaling: Achieving interactive education online. Educase Quarterly, 28: 1. Retrieved May 3, 2010 at http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/EJournalingAchievingInteractiv/157335

Poling, C. 2005. Blog on: building communication and collaboration among staff and students. Learning and leading with technology, 32 (6): 12-15.

Wilcox, D. 2009. Public relations writing and media techniques (6th Edition). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

By Allissa Richardson, Morgan State University

On the first day of class, my students set up their “e-newsrooms.” The technology-shy students usually groan—then ask me what Facebook, Scribd, Twitter and WordPress have to do with being a journalist. I understand AEJMC begs this question too. Please allow me to share how my affinity for social media in the classroom began and evolved.

FACEBOOK’S SLIPPERY SLOPE

At some point in the Spring 2009 semester, I realized my students were not accessing Blackboard to fetch assignments or to view the assigned readings I had suggested in class. Students were coming to class unprepared and—even worse!—trying to pretend that they had done their homework. I began to think there must be a better way to reach them.

As a journalism professor, all of my classes take place in computer labs. I found that each day was a fight to keep them focused, and off Facebook. One day it occurred to me to incorporate Facebook into the class. I set up a group called Prof. Hosten’s News Writing I Class, using my maiden name at the time. I made the group public so students would not have to be my “friend” to join the group. The next day, when I told students to open their Facebook accounts, many of them looked surprised, then thrilled. I explained to them that joining the group would be optional, but that I would cross post course material from Blackboard on our Facebook group page too. Every single student joined.

I began to post links to news stories, videos from broadcast coverage for case study, and audio podcasts. I told students to read, view or listen to the material before we met, and come to class ready to discuss. Participation skyrocketed. Although no one was accessing Blackboard, students jumped right into Facebook. What was even more thrilling was their commentary. On their own, students posted online comments to my links, or found related stories and posted those as a response. The class began to live inside and outside of the newsroom. I discovered my students were engaged, critical, and very, very funny.

At the end of the semester, in May 2009, I wrote a white paper entitled, Facebook for College Professors. I posted it on Scribd and SlideShare. About one week after its posting, I realized people had viewed it almost 300 times! By the end of the year, that number nearly tripled, to 878 views combined. Professors all over the world began e-mailing and “Tweeting” me for lecture tips.I began then to experiment with other tools that I would like to share with you. First, I should define what social media means to me nowadays. It is: “user-created video, audio, or text that are published and shared in a digital space.”By this definition I use many different tools, depending on the learning outcomes I desire, or the mode of student creativity I want to stimulate. What follows is my ever-growing list.

WORDPRESS

Since I use many social media outlets to reach my students, I created a main Website that serves as a hub for all of their activity. My site is powered by WordPress as a CMS. When students visit my site, they can sign in using their Facebook accounts; view their work on the “By My Students” page; drop assignments in my online box; sign up for SMS text messages; review PowerPoint presentations; and view their progress in an online grade book. I also conduct learning surveys in the Blog section of my site. After every major unit, they can tell me, anonymously, if they feel ready to move on. WordPress also has been a very powerful tool for them. My News Writing II students this semester set up a news site called “The Open Source.” They created print news stories, Webisodes and much more, all within a news beat of their choice. They also learned how hard it is to populate a site with content constantly!

TWITTER

Every student enrolled in my classes has a Twitter account. At the start of the semester, I tell them to “follow” all the local news outlets, such as The Afro American Newspapers or The Baltimore Sun. Then, their first assignment is to find and follow five intriguing journalists. This helps them learn who the pros are, and how they practice their crafts. One of my students’ favorite assignments is live “Tweeting.” During the fall semester, we live Tweet the homecoming football game, a Baltimore City Council meeting and at least one breaking news story. This spring, we live Tweeted President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. If students have cameras, I allow them to add pictures to post on TwitPic. Then, when we meet for class we have a large “show and tell” session, to compare what each reporter deemed newsworthy. I often record the events, so we can go back to see who quoted news interviewees properly—and who did not! Students learn how important it is to be fast and accurate.

FLICKR

Flickr came to my rescue this semester when I gave a special seminar class on Editorial and Critical Writing. The semester-long topic was the image of the African American woman in mass media. I assembled many photos and magazine covers, and posted it to Flickr. Then, I allowed my students to add images they found provocative. By the end of the semester, we collected more than 200 pictures. It is a beautiful online catalog of collaboration that I could not have assembled alone. The experience so moved me, I decided to produce a film about the process, called Brown Skin Lady. My students are helping me conduct, film and edit interviews for television and radio.

SMS TEXTS

Students have the option to sign up for my text message alerts. For extra credit assignments, I send out breaking news alerts. I pick news that occurs on campus, since many of my students do not have cars. If they report to class the next day with a fully reported piece, they earn 25 extra credit points that they can use however they want. By the end of the semester, as you can imagine, many of the students get quite competitive!

YOUTUBE

YouTube is a powerful tool for case study. Many of my ethics lessons come from broadcast news videos I gather online. I am also a big fan of The IFC Media Project’s video clips, which offer smart news criticism. My students write position papers on whether or not they agree with the series’ animated host, “Media Junkie.” I also love to show students clips from Current TV’s SuperNews satire. These videos inspire the most lively commentary when I post them on our class Facebook pages.

ZOHO QUIZZES

Since I only teach classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there is just so much to pack in. I cannot spend class time administering quizzes, so I assign them online. Zoho Quizzes has been an awesome tool for this. The online application allows me to set the opening and closing time for a quiz. It also permits students to take a quiz only once, and randomizes the questions, which makes it difficult for students to cheat. The best thing is that Zoho compiles the test results in a spreadsheet and e-mails me the scores. Then, I can analyze which questions the students found most difficult and revisit those in class.

DROP.IO

Students submit their work electronically via Drop.io. This makes for some very lively show and tell learning experiences. I often allow students to screen their videos, show pictures or air audio podcasts, all from a centralized location. The best part is students still have their intellectual privacy, since I can set new passwords to access Drop.io at any time. And students love not having to run around campus in search of a printer.

GOOGLE DOCS

I create online surveys using Google Docs. My students love to give feedback after every major unit. I also use Google Docs for newsgathering homework assignments. In my News Writing I class, for instance, I told students to research key facts about Morgan State University, using on-campus and State-level resources. They recorded their answers in this form then swapped notes in class before writing a trend piece about the state of the University. I love Google Books too. I post its links to assigned readings on our class Facebook group. I noticed that many more students were willing to read selected chapters from Ben Bagdikian’s The New Media Monopoly when I gave it to them in a link like this.

By Leslie-Jean Thornton, Arizona State University

I’ve seen so many benefits from using social media in my classes that I have no wish to teach without such tools, no matter the subject. They enhance my ability to teach skills in real-world situations while allowing the growth of community within and without the group.

Twitter is my current multi-tasking favorite device, but content-management systems (such as WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous and the like) are almost as versatile. In my classes, they’re backed by our use of individual services that include Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Docs, Delicious, Twitpic, Google and Yahoo maps, various RSS readers, Skype, and SEO/audience analyzers. I haven’t quite worked out the particulars yet, but I intend to use Foursquare (and its mash-up companion, Fourwhere) as both a model and tool in classes this fall. It plays on an interesting reward dynamic that appears to be growing in popularity in the marketplace. It’s worthy of study for that reason alone, but I’m thinking along craftier lines. Perhaps we’ll develop an in-class badge system…

For me, setting the stage for incorporating social media tools begins well before classes start. A class Web site becomes a vital focal point that far exceeds Blackboard’s usefulness. I’ve been building them for at least eight years, usually one per class, and they’ve become second nature. They model the dynamism, personalization and transparency that are hallmarks of successful social media. WordPress.com (or the .org version) makes it easy, and other content management systems are beginning to provide competition through enhanced services. I developed “Multimedia Journalism” (http://journgrad.wordpress.com/ ) for my graduate classes last fall. It contains a Twitter feed and provides links to student blogs, multiple models, and diverse resources. It grew throughout the semester in response to class needs. It was there that I could post links to current events, readings, assignments, and resources, building a targeted reference “shelf.”

When we launched our professional masters program, we knew we would base it on a boot camp system for the cohort’s first semester. The students would have to hit the ground running. I launched a blog site during the summer and asked each to sign up. They were all given “author” privileges and were asked to post an introduction. It sparked lively discussions, at least one roommate match-up, and several parties, but most importantly, it broke the ground for collaborative work once in class and initiated a support system integral to their success in the school. As a result of their sign-up, they each had a wordpress.com account, easing them into one of their first-day assignments: creating a blog that was fully intended to meet professional standards. Another first-day assignment: Set up a Twitter account.

Twitter

Each class has a hashtag (#bc9 for the Boot Camp students who arrived in 2009, for example) and a Twitter list (http://twitter.com/ljthornton/bc9). The first facilitates discussion by grouping tweets; the second allows the group to be followed even when the hashtag has been forgotten – a good resource for the nurturer/professor – and it models how they should use lists to build professional networks. (My Advanced Editing students each compiled a list of copy editors who tweeted, for example. Mine was a model: http://twitter.com/ljthornton/copyeditors.) Students are responsible for keeping up a Twitter presence; assignments should be given in the early stages to make sure the pump is primed. It takes awhile to become comfortable communicating in this venue, and it takes skill to do so effectively.

Some of the assignments included:

• Building a stellar collection of people to follow (and following them)
• Tweeting links to examples of interesting multimedia reports or projects
• Tweeting links to news stories
• Retweeting valuable tweets from interesting sources
• Suggesting people to follow (this can derive from their “professional” lists)
• Contributing to ongoing discussions in helpful, intelligent ways
• Tweeting well-crafted messages to drive traffic to the student’s own blog posts (one a week)
• Tweeting well-crafted messages to drive traffic to a student colleague’s latest blog post
• Live-tweeting special events.

These can be tailored to the class topics, of course. In my Advanced Editing class, students tweeted about design and layout issues and offered links to examples. They even did a series of tweet-length grammar tips and created Twitpic illustrations. The discussion (under #413t) became so lively that it attracted considerable attention in the Twitterverse and was written up in several places (Mashable, Innovative Multimedia, 1,000 Words) as a model of innovative use. (Such reinforcement from outside sources is invaluable and is unique to the use of social media.) The careful crafting of a tweet is not that different from the challenges of writing headlines and Web blurbs and is a valuable exercise in and of itself. Students in all of my classes are told they have a standing assignment to tweet instructive and helpful links to coverage of breaking news when it occurs. So far we’ve had several earthquakes, a revolution, an oil spill, the Oscars and a volcano. More importantly, they’re instructed to watch how news spreads in social media formats.

Collaborative Twitter

Colleagues from three other universities joined me in establishing #jweb. All four classes (later joined by several others, but with less involvement) tweeted links to photographs they’d taken to show what life was like on their campus. I put together a slideshow on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47588755@N04/show/with/4362499821/

and from those photos, 20 winning images were chosen. I displayed those in a Posterous blog. For a sample archive of the #jweb tweets, see

http://wthashtag.com/transcript.php?page_id=8893&start_date=2010-02-23&end_date=2010-02-24&export_type=HTML.

Students struck up “side” conversations with each other, which was particularly interesting as four major regions of the United States were represented. It was a wild success in showing the power of crowdsourcing, collaboration, networking and just plain fun.

Another fun assignment that played into network dynamics was the Facebook “album cover” meme. This refers to a popular “game” on Facebook whereby you select a random image from Flickr, get the name of your “band” from a Wikipedia page, and get the name of your imaginary album from a random-quote generator. The goal is to visually mix the elements and then post your album cover for others to see. I added a Twitter aspect to this by having them tweet a description and link to the cover as well. The assignment was essentially a tool for teaching Photoshop; after they did the album, they went on to create customized banners for their blogs and avatars for Twitter and other social media uses. They were encouraged to join professional networks on ning, for example, and the “branding” advantages of having a unified “identity” were stressed.

These are just a few of the ways in which social media informs and enhances my classes. I’d welcome the opportunity to elaborate and demonstrate these and others.

By Kelli Burns, University of South Florida

Today’s tech-savvy student generation is actively participating in social networking and other online communities, so most students not only understand how to use Web 2.0 teaching tools, they thrive in the environment when Web communication solutions are integrated in the classroom.—K. Driscoll, 2007, p. 10

Social media tools can enrich a research methods class by providing students with a way to collect data, share research, and monitor online conversations. At the beginning of the course, students create their own blogs using WordPress and then throughout the course, use the blogs to post reports, photos, videos, and podcasts. The five social media assignments that have been assigned in this course are described below. These assignments include (1) a social media monitoring project which asks students to monitor social media sites for conversations about a client; (2) an ethnography project where students collect data through photographs that are posted to a photo-sharing site; (3) an interview project where student create MP3s of their interviews and upload them to their blogs as podcasts; (4) a focus group blog project where students collect data on a blog over several days; and (5) a survey project requiring students to create a video and an online survey.

Social media monitoring assignment.
This assignment gives you an opportunity to learn how to monitor blogs and other social media content in a way that provides similar insight offered by more traditional environmental scanning methods.

Many people will discuss an organization and its products/services on their own Web sites or on social media sites, outside of realm traditional media. For this assignment, you will 1) monitor the online conversation that has occurred about an organization or brand of your choosing, 2) create a table for your data, and 3) write an analysis of the conversation with suggestions for action.

To monitor the conversation, you might find bloggers who are blogging about your client organization or brand, people who are creating Web sites about it, message board members who are discussing it in forums, Twitter users who are tweeting about it, social networking users who are commenting about it, or video producers who are posting YouTube videos about it. Your goal is to find 10 nuggets of information across multiple social media applications about your organization or brand. Here are some suggestions to guide your search:

• Check out Twitter and run a search for your client. IceRocket also offers a search of Twitter.
• Search Flickr groups to see if there is a group about your client. Scan the photos for interesting information.
• Conduct key word searches on various blog search engines like IceRocket, Technorati, or blogsearch.google.com for blogs or posts about your organization or brand.
• Search the Web for Web sites about your organization or brand.
• Find Facebook and MySpace pages created by fans of your organization/brand.
• Search message boards (http://messages.yahoo.com/) for users who post about your organization/brand or boards dedicated to your organization/brand.
• Find YouTube videos. Report the main message of the video and some of the insightful comments.
• Run a search on Addictomatic for a good summary of social media conversation.
• Use Google Alerts, Social Mention, or Femtoo to receive updates about your organization/brand.

You are looking for information that will help your client understand its consumers better. Do not use social media channels, profiles, or boards that are sponsored by your company or brand or use information from articles published by mainstream media sources. Avoid promotional messages and celebrity-related news.

Your data table should describe every nugget of information: list the source, provide information about the source (Quantcast, Alexa, or Technorati can be used to provide statistics about a blog or Web site), list the date and time of the comment, and describe the nature of the comment itself. Write a report that summarizes your findings and place a PDF of your report and the data table on your blog.

Ethnography assignment.
Ethnographic research can help communicators better understand a target public so they will be able to construct a more appropriate and effective message.

Your assignment is to do a photo ethnography illustrating healthy (or positive) behaviors, unhealthy (or negative) behaviors, or use of a specific product/brand by college students. If you do not spend time with college students, you can look for these behaviors among your own friends, coworkers, or family members.

This assignment requires you to document ten people through photography and write a one-page analysis of your research. All photos must be taken by you during the course of this assignment. Upload your photos to a Flickr.com account and make them available to our class group. You will also need to post a PDF of your report on your blog. Use the Flickr.com widget on WordPress to display your photos there as well.

Interview assignment.
This assignment gives you an opportunity to learn how interviews are used in research. For this assignment, you will 1) write an interview guide of 5-8 questions, 2) conduct and record three interviews, 3) upload the podcasts to the Web, and 4) write a research report that summarizes the findings from your interviews.

When you locate your participants, ask if they have access to Skype, and if so, conduct your interview using Skype. If not, you can interview them over the phone or in person. In-person interviews can be recorded using Audacity or another audio program such as Garageband. Create an MP3 of your audio files and upload them to your blog using the Box.net widget on WordPress. Place a PDF of your interview project report on your blog.

Focus group blog assignment.
The purpose of the focus group blog project is to provide you with an opportunity to manage a blog to collect feedback from participants.

Recruit 10 people who are relevant to your study and willing to participate in your blog every day for 10 days. Use your blog to post 1-2 questions per day. Set your security controls so that only your participants can have access to the blog. Also, e-mail participants to notify them when a new post is published. (Your blog may be able to automatically generate these e-mails for you.) Finally, write a report that includes your purpose, objectives, method, results, and discussion and place a PDF of the report on your blog.

Online survey with video assignment.
The purpose of this project is to provide you with an opportunity to conduct a survey research study from start to finish. In doing so, you will create a video to encourage college students to get the H1N1 flu vaccination, develop an online survey to test the effectiveness of the video, and write a research report to present your results.

First, create a 1-2 minute video using your Flip camera. Your video should raise awareness of the H1N1 flu virus and the need to get the vaccine, change attitudes toward the flu/vaccine, and/or encourage students to get the vaccine. Then, create a survey using Surveymonkey that asks questions that serve your research objectives and e-mail the survey link to your sample. Finally, analyze your results and write your report. Your report and video should both be posted on your blog.

Other possible topics include recycling and distracted driving.

I have collected three semesters of data on these methods using a pre-test at the beginning of the semester and a post-test at the conclusion. Both tests included a self-assessment of experience levels with the following tasks: creating a blog, creating a podcast, conducting an online survey, uploading a document to the Web, uploading photos to the Web, using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), uploading a video to the Web, shooting a video, and editing a video. Students were asked if they felt social media tools were fun to use, whether they were skilled at using social media, and whether they were willing to work with and learn about social media. Additional items included whether they felt students should learn about social media, whether they believed knowledge of social media would help them get a job, and whether they thought knowledge of social media would help their performance on the job.

The post-test included additional items that reflected on the assignments of the class. Students were asked whether they recommended the instructor emphasize social media again the next semester, whether the social media tools were fun to use, and whether they felt comfortable using the social media tools. They were also asked whether social media made the assignments more relevant and more enjoyable, whether they could easily use the technology again, and whether they were more actively involved in the course because of social media. Finally, students were asked about outcomes with respect to what they learned about conducting research and what they learned about social media and technology. These same items were also asked in the context of whether this knowledge would help them get a job and benefit their performance on the job.

Many students responded to an open-ended question at the end of the survey to gather feedback about the experience of using social media. At the beginning of the course, some students lacked an understanding of why knowledge of social media would be necessary. Some were even resistant to the use of technology.

• I hated some of the technology I had to learn to use at first, but now that I learned how to use them, I have used them for almost every other class as well.
• I thoroughly enjoyed the social media component of this class. The aspect of social media really helped me apply the material. I had fun using the Flip Cam. I really enjoyed the interview project as that enabled me to interview a professional, which provided me with solid evidence as to why social media was important. I admit, I was skeptical at first, but this project was a great intro to conducting research.

By the end, students saw value in the course assignments, with some reaping immediate tangible benefits and others recognizing the importance of learning about social media.

• The experience I gained using social media in this course helped me branch out and learn something that I wasn’t previously comfortable with. I even got an internship developing a social media plan and monitoring social media for a company. I tell my employer all of my knowledge on social media that I have learned from this class.
• I am working with social media right now in an internship and I have referred back to information, Web sites and all other sources I have learned about in this class countless times. I definitely think out of all my classes this semester this class has benefited me most as of now as far as social media goes.
• Before this class I never really used social media and I thought it was more a tool for fun. Now, I think social media can be used in many situations like gathering research and communicating with people. It is important.

Readings:

• Hagen, G. (n.d.). Social media: New analytics for a new century. Florida Public Relations Association White Paper. Available at: fpraswfl.org/documents/task,doc_download/gid,105/
• Kowalski, P. (2008). How to measure YouTube and other video-sharing sites. Available at: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/themeasurementstandard/2008/05/how-to-measure.html
• Levingston, S. (2006, March 3). Blog buzz helps companies catch trends in the making. Washington Post, A-1. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201829.html
• Miles, L. (2003). Market research: Living their lives. Available at: http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/marketresearch/article/197919/market-research-living-lives/
• O’Leary, N. (2008, April 7). Focus on blogs: Closed Web chats are opening up traditional focus group methods and leading to insights. Adweek. Available at: http://www.adweekmedia.com/aw/content_display/special-reports/other-reports/e3iac100babad132e4d6eb730053f0c77f6?pn=2
• Paine, K.D. (2007). How to measure social media relations: The more things change, the more they remain the same. Available at: http://www.instituteforpr.org/research_single/how_to_measure_social_media_relations/
• Paine, K.D. (2008). How to set benchmarks in social media: Exploratory research for social media, lessons learned. Available at: http://www.instituteforpr.org/research_single/how_to_set_benchmarks_in_social_media_exploratory_research2/

By Jake Batsell, Southern Methodist University

The Destination Web is losing ground to the Social Web. Fewer people are using home pages and bookmarks to find their news on the Web – instead, news finds them through shared links on Facebook, link-shortened URLs on Twitter, or “like” buttons on scores of social media sites. For the modern journalist, that prized front-page clip or lead story on the 10 p.m. news may escape the notice of the growing legions of readers who get their news primarily online.

So, how can journalism students make sure their work gets noticed on the Web? By mastering the art of the “push post.” I require my Digital Journalism students to push news stories out on social media sites or comment forums once per week, which counts for 10 percent of their overall grade. With each push post, students build their personal brands by promoting their own journalistic work or that of their classmates.

My push post assignment aims to fulfill two of the learning outcomes of my Digital Journalism course syllabus:

• Harness social media to get your work noticed on the Web.
• Build a savvy social media presence that highlights your talents and personality (and won’t make your mom blush or cost you a job).

As I explain in the assignment (http://smudigitaljournalism.wordpress.com/digital-push-posts/),

Web 2.0 is all about interactivity – and that means sharing through social media. In a journalistic context, this means that news organizations and individual journalists need to do everything we can to “push” unique news content out into the Web ecosystem, to attract more attention to our work.

The push posts also have been an effective catalyst for my broader efforts to instill a Web-aware journalistic culture at SMU. Just before I created the push post assignment, our in-house student news site, the SMU Daily Mustang (http://www.smudailymustang.com/), drew 3,044 hits from referring sites during the final three months of 2008, according to Google Analytics. A year later during that same three-month period, when all 33 of my Digital Journalism students were filing weekly push posts, that number more than quadrupled to 12,577 hits from referring sites.

But push posts aren’t merely a tool for driving Web traffic, nor are they an empty exercise in narcissism. They are an important part of a 21st-century reporter’s toolbox. Here’s what I tell my students:

• You need to promote and push your work on the Web so people can discover it.
• News is no longer only delivered by trucks carting the morning edition, or beamed over the air at 10 p.m. If you want to fish, you need to go where the fish are. And in today’s news business, the fish are online.*
• In 2009, an extensive survey (http://www.slideshare.net/brannonj/ona-aejmc-state-of-industry09)by AEJMC and the Online News Association and a separate Pew Research study found that U.S. newsrooms “are focusing somewhat less on bringing audiences in and more on pushing content out.” (http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_overview_majortrends.php?cat=1&media=1)
• To develop your personal brand, you have to act as your own PR agent.
  * This point was inspired by Dan Gillmor of Arizona State University and Theodore Kim of The Dallas Morning News.

Here is the “push post” assignment in its entirety:

Digital Journalism/Batsell
Push Posts, Spring 2010
(Posted on course blog) (http://smudigitaljournalism.wordpress.com/)

Web 2.0 is all about interactivity – and that means sharing through social media. In a journalistic context, this means that news organizations and individual journalists need to do everything we can to “push” unique news content out into the Web ecosystem, to attract more attention to our work.

Lab assignment: Make your first “push” post

You have 10 required “push” posts this semester. Five posts must be placed in comments sections of blogs or news stories. The other five will be posted on Twitter. No Twitter today, though – today’s lab exercise is a comment push. All posts must have an introduction of some sort. Don’t just post a URL by itself.

COMMENT PUSH POST

Choose a Daily Mustang or Daily Campus story, blog post, photo, video or slideshow that you find interesting. Copy the full permalink URL from the address bar. Find a relevant news story or blog item whose readers are likely to find your link interesting. In the comments section of that story or blog item, briefly introduce your link and then post the URL at the end of your comment. When your comment push has been posted, copy the link and post it on your push post page. Feel free to browse examples (http://delicious.com/jbatsell/pushpost) from past classes.

TWITTER PUSH POST

Follow the same instructions above, but post the link on Twitter. You must have at least 50 Twitter followers to receive full credit. Remember, on Twitter you only have 140 characters, so you’ll want to use a link-shortening service like bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly or j.mp to allow more room to introduce your link.

How to receive credit for your push posts: Copy the link where your push post appears. Log on to the course blog and call up your push post page. Insert a hyperlink onto either the words “comment push” or “Twitter push.” Click the Update button. Then click “View Page” to make sure your link works.

There are three possible scores for your weekly push posts:

10 points

• Turned in on time
• Contains a working link to timely news content produced by an SMU journalism student
• Includes a brief introduction with context
• Story link is relevant to the forum selected (for comment push posts)
• Meets minimum Twitter follower requirements (for Twitter push posts)

5 points

• Turned in on time, but fails to meet one of the other criteria described above

0 points

• Missed push post (no makeup posts allowed without advance instructor approval)

Push Posts are due by 11:59 p.m. on your appointed day. I will comment on your push post page indicating your grade within 24 hours.