University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Incorporating Social Media in a Required Research Course for Advertising / PR / Strategic Communication Majors

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. [Read more...]

Physician-journalist guidelines proposed in wake of Haiti earthquake

Electronic News | In the wake of extensive television news reporting in Haiti by physicians such as Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN, guidelines for physician-journalists in covering disasters are proposed in the current issue of Electronic News, published by SAGE.

Within two days after the January 12 quake, CNN had sent Gupta, its chief medical correspondent, to the scene. Other network physician reporters, including Drs. Richard Besser (ABC News), Nancy Snyderman (NBC News), and Jennifer Ashton (CBS News), arrived in the week following the quake. The physician reporters faced an immediate question. Should they exclusively report? Or should they attend to the sick and injured? Or should they do both? And if so, how should they balance the duties and responsibilities of their two professions?

All four chose to spend some or most of their time attending to injured and dying Haitians. On returning, physician-journalists faced criticism that by reporting about their own medical efforts, they were exploiting their good deeds for crass ends. [Read more...]