AEJMC — AEJMC Hot Topics

No Evidence that Accredited Journalism Schools are Better than Unaccredited Ones

June 22, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

A 30-year review of research comparing and contrasting accredited journalism schools with unaccredited ones shows many more similarities than differences, and no conclusive evidence that accredited ones are significantly or consistently better than un-accredited ones in any important way.

The literature review, by Dr. Marc C. Seamon, assistant professor of communication at Robert Morris University, was printed in the Spring 2010 issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, a refereed quarterly published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Columbia, S.C. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator is the world’s largest and oldest scholarly journal devoted entirely to education and training in journalism, media, and other mass communication. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Accreditation, ACEJMC, AEJMC, Dane Claussen, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Marc Seamon, Robert Morris University, University of Kansas

Teaching Research Methods with Social Media Tools

June 15, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: AEJMC, Blogging, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Kelli Burns, Myspace, Research, Social Media, Social Media in the Classroom, Twitter, University of South Florida, YouTube

Response from AEJMC President, Carol J. Pardun

June 11, 2010 By AEJMC 1 Comment

On Monday, June 7th, the President’s Advisory Council (PAC) and I sent a statement to the AEJMC membership. Within hours, the blogosphere was alive with comments concerning our statement. Many of the responses were against the statement. While we certainly expected criticism, we were stymied by the volume, tone, and accusations. As members of AEJMC, the PAC and I are staunch advocates for journalism and mass communication and do not represent any political entity or side. It was not our intention to categorize Obama’s presidency as a failure or to offend anyone by insensitivity in the statement. In fact, it grieves me to think that we may have given that impression to any AEJMC member, let alone an entire division or commission.

The PAC and I present the following as background on how we arrived at the statement released on June 7 along with some analysis about ways we think the process can be improved: [Read more...]

Filed Under: PAC Tagged With: AEJMC, Carol Pardun, Obama, PAC

AEJMC: Obama’s Promised “Change” Lacks Transparency

June 7, 2010 By AEJMC 1 Comment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | In late May, President Barack Obama took the podium in front of the White House press corps in his first full, open-ended news conference in 10 months, a gap that exceeds the record set by his predecessor.

Obama’s lack of presidential press conferences and his general lack of transparency and accessibility to journalists during his administration are in sharp contrast to the platform on which he ran for president in 2008. During that campaign, Obama pledged a new era of openness.

Even the most logical of venues for answering questions from the press seem to be off-limits. In mid-May after he signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act-a new law requiring the State Department to identify governments that restrict press freedoms-he refused to answer questions from reporters. “I’m not doing a press conference today,” he announced, according to a Reuters news story. And when he does allow reporters’ questions, attempts are made to control the proceeding. Last year the Wall Street Journal criticized the administration’s pre-screening of reporters who would be allowed to ask questions of the president. [Read more...]

Filed Under: PAC Tagged With: AEJMC, Carol Pardun, Obama, PAC, Transparency

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