Temple University — AEJMC Hot Topics

Increasing Visibility for Digital and Media Literacy

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. [Read more...]

How To Integrate Social Networks And Blogs Into Traditional Curriculums

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...]