2010 May — AEJMC Hot Topics

Using Social Media to Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

May 29, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

By Wanda Reyes, Sam Houston State University

I use YouTube and Facebook in Principles of Public Relations to help my students develop critical thinking skills. This course introduces students to theories and their applications in public relations. The main goal is to have students learn to analyze and critically evaluate ideas, arguments, and point of views related to the public relations practice.

Since public relations practitioners operate under a wide range of environmental influences, there are no cookie cutters in the public relations practice (Guth & March, 2005). Communication strategies or programs that may work in one situation, may not work in another. Hence, public relations practitioners must think critically before making decisions. To encourage my students to develop critical thinking skills so they can apply course content to public relations situations, I designed different assignments and exercises that use both traditional and social media. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: AEJMC, Critical Thinking, Facebook, Public Relations, Sam Houston State University, Social Media, Social Media in the Classroom, Wanda Reyes, YouTube

How To Integrate Social Networks And Blogs Into Traditional Curriculums

May 29, 2010 By AEJMC 1 Comment

By Keith Quesenberry, Temple University

Introduction

Social Media is growing and changing the way we live, the way we do business and the way we connect. The latest numbers indicate that in December 2009 the social network Facebook surpassed 100 million active users in the U.S. and over 350 million worldwide (Smith, 2010). Blogs are, well, everywhere. The latest number I could find was in 2008 when the Blog Herald reported that there were roughly 200 million blogs (Helmond, 2008). Since then it seems people have given up counting. Even CEOs are blogging. Sun Microsystems CEO Blog gets 400,000 hits a month (Balwani, 2009). Bloggers are now legitimate media gaining access to and asking questions of the President at Whitehouse press conferences (Baker, 2009). And Facebook has become large enough and influential enough to draw fire from U.S Senators over its privacy settings (Patel, 2010).

Social media is here to stay and will only further infiltrate how we socialize, conduct business and learn. But how do we integrate emerging Web 2.0 technologies into an established, traditional university curriculum? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: AEJMC, Blackboard, Blogging, Buddypress, Facebook, Keith Quesenberry, Ning, Social Media, Social Media in the Classroom, Social Networking, Temple University, Wordpress

Social Media in the Classroom: Tips from a Millennial Professor

May 29, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

By Jennifer Edwards, Tarleton State University

As a professor from the millennial generation, I hold social media to a high regard in my undergraduate communication classrooms. To incorporate social media in the “Foundations for Speech Communication”, “Organizational Communication”, and “Interpersonal Communication” courses (averaging 25 students), I combined my efforts to create opportunities for different classes to interact with one another (and the campus) through social media. To reach the students in my online and face-to-face classes, I decided to incorporate Twitter and Youtube as experiential activities.

Twitter Embedded in Blackboard

On our campus, we use Blackboard as a content management system for online and hybrid classes. Recently, I discovered that I could embed widgets (java application) into the main course page. I added my professional twitter account username [name of account] to the widget and this enabled my students to remain abreast of course updates and to have more of a social presence with their professor. In addition, the students had the option to follow me on twitter [@accountname] to ask quick questions and to provide short updates on their daily life. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: AEJMC, Blackboard, Jennifer Edwards, Social Media, Social Media in the Classroom, Tarleton State University, Twitter, YouTube

Building Personal Brands through Social Media

May 29, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

By David Kamerer, Loyola University Chicago

Students in my public relations writing class are assigned to write 12 blog posts during the semester. While we use many social media tactics in the class, blogging requires the largest time commitment. Some complain about the assignment.

“What should I write about?” ask others.

My answer is that they should write about their professional passion and to do it well. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: AEJMC, Apple, CoverItLive, David Kamerer, Google, Loyola University Chicago, PitchEngine, Social Media, Social Media in the Classroom

Citizen Journalism Sites Complement Newspapers

May 26, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

A recent study in the Newspaper Research Journal found that citizen journalism sites differ significantly from Web site supported by newspapers. As a result, most citizen journalism sites serve as complements rather than substitutes for commercial news Web sites.

The content analysis of the sites by researchers at Michigan State University, the University of Missouri, and the University of North Carolina studied the content at 86 citizen blog sites, 53 citizen news sites, and 63 daily newspaper sites. Citizen news sites were those that produced news articles similar to those found on newspaper sites, and citizen blogs were opinion sites. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Citizen Media, Daniel Riffe, Esther Thorson, Ken Fleming, Margaret Duffy, Michigan State University, Newspaper, Newspaper Research Journal, Stephen Lacy, University of Missouri, University of North Carolina

Study: Values, Ethics of Sports Reporters Vary by Beat

May 19, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Sports reporters on the high school beat, often the youngest and most inexperienced in the newsroom, are also the most likely to believe they can operate by more relaxed ethical codes than their counterparts, according to a new survey.

The telephone survey, conducted by researchers in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State, asked 263 reporters who cover sports at the high school, college or professional level about their attitudes toward ethical codes and professional norms for reporters. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Bu Zhong, Marie Hardin, Media Ethics, Newspaper Research Journal, Sports Communication