Teaching Social Media

Teaching social media Challenging the sceptics, not preaching to the converted Richard Bailey (Univ of Gloucestershire, PR Academy) Gareth Thompson (London Metropolitan University) Philip Young (University of Sunderland)

Structure Pedagogy (Gareth Thompson) Perspectives Richard Bailey Proposed Curriculum and Readings (Philip Young)

Pedagogy
Importance of teaching transferable skills (Bridges 1994, Assiter 1995)
‘ Used well, technology strongly develops the study and learning skills children need now and in the future, including the fundamentals of ‘e-safety’. (Independent Rose Review of Primary Curriculum’ 2009 p11)
‘ Information and computing skills are an essential component of all undergraduate programmes and the wider process of lifelong learning.’ (Alexander and McAllister, 2003).
Index

Pedagogy: two-way street
Social media is an area of public relations practice where teaching can benefit from increased industry, practitioner and contextual inputs
Business people and other external contributors to social media modules are also often able to take away valuable learning from the students
Is the curriculum ‘about’ social media (French and Grey 1996) or ‘for’ social media (Macfarlane 1997)?
Challenge is to balance the theoretical aspects with the practical, “craft-based” elements that may require a training rather than an educational approach
Index

Pedagogy: learning by doing
Issue of behavioural change: it is difficult for students to learn about social media without actively engaging with online tools
This suggests going beyond theories to create an action-oriented module that helps students become more engaged as users of social media. Teaching should challenge and demand active (indeed proactive) student engagement.
A successful approach is likely to include the ‘cognitive and experiential schools of learning styles’ employed by postgraduate business schools such as Henley Management College and described by Ul-Haq, Stiles and Pond (2003)
Index

Pedagogy: linkages
Knight (2001) describes the problems that many undergraduates have in creating coherence out of the ‘curriculum disintegration’ that has resulted from modularity in the UK: ‘Some become sense makers on a grand scale, others are like flotsam in swirling waters.’
Practically, this means the design of social media modules should achieve linkages between the topic and related areas such as marketing communications, strategy and advertising which students have already covered.
The design of a social media module should acknowledge, celebrate and deploy existing experience and make explicit links between what students experience outside university and the module
Index

Perspectives: business
Business
‘ Public relations has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance these past few years. And it is well placed to get through what will be a rocky 2009… It seems to us that this will be driven by a number of factors:
First , the growth of social media, a natural territory for Public Relations .’
Speech by Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive of WPP, 8 November 2008
But note winner of public relations award at Cannes for Queensland Tourism’s ‘best job in the world campaign’
Growth of social media consultancies (eg Wolfstar won CIPR award last year for best small consultancy)
Index

Perspectives: academic
Academics
‘ All practice, no theory’
Existing theory is robust enough ; new theory is emerging
Much criticism of public relations within social media spaces (eg ‘PR is dead’ meme)
‘ Not invented here’
Lack of academic rigour
Some poor books , but peer review and citations also work online
Problems with Wikipedia
Index

Perspectives (students)
Students
They use it, but don’t think about it
Have not considered boundaries between public and private
They ask for guidance and welcome direction
‘ I am a strong believer that social media should be taught to PR students at some point during their degree course. Teaching students the theory and skills required for social media will allow them to increase their knowledge and confidence, and thus help them find work when they graduate.’ Natalie Smith, Leeds Met / Wolfstar, Behind the Spin
Social media is most popular topic for CIPR Diploma projects
Employers
Want evidence
Expect skills and expertise
Do they need a social media strategy?
Index

Perspectives (other)
Profession
Domains (eg PR or SEO?; design; overlapping marketing services)
Ethics and professionalism (codes of conduct, best practice guidelines)
Technology and media
Technical developments (internet, web, web 2.0) – technology timeline
Media context and concepts
Tools and applications
Sociological approach
Communities and networks
Identity, self and personality (Giddens)
Greater knowledge or dumbing down?
Pluralism and public sphere
Power, persuasion and politics
Index

Curriculum issues
Special module, or embedded in curriculum ?
‘ If you believe [social media] offers a set of tools that can be used to help spread a PR message and/or facilitate research, it should be taught as a tools and techniques class (of course, ethics and social and cultural effects would also be included).
‘ On the other hand, if you believe social media can be transformative to public relations, it must infuse the entire curriculum because it would need to be included in research, management, writing and graphics, and all of the other classes typically included in a PR curriculum.’
’ I do believe that the principles of participation in social media are different from those used in other forms of communication (including mass, controlled, and face-to-face), and therefore they change the way we should teach public relations.’ Karen Russell
Should we separate social and mainstream media ?
‘ I would favour a full integration of social media relations with mainstream media relations.’ Toni Muzi Falconi
Index

Curriculum issues
Importance of teaching principles, not just tools
Key skills:
Storytelling across media (text, audio, video, slideshows)
Critical thinking and problem-solving
News literacy (determining trustworthy content)
Social media principles, so students can apply tools for a specific purpose
Index Edelman New Media Academic Summit, 2009

A new public relations?
‘ For public relations practice the unavoidable conclusion is that nothing will ever be the same again; the advent of an online world means almost every aspect of the discipline needs to be rethought.’ Phillips and Young 2009 p3
‘ We would argue that a more sophisticated definition of public relations goes beyond reputation to be concerned with the broader and more challenging realm of relationship optimization , in which reputation clearly plays a part but which demands an understanding of a much more complex set of factors.’
Phillips and Young 2009 p4
‘ In this new world of expression, public relations practitioners either evolve or die. We must shift our thinking and move from pitching to informing, from control to credibility, and from influencing elites to engaging the new influencers.
‘ Most of all, we must build trust through continuous conversation and relevant actions. This is public engagement – the combination of policy and communications which enables corporations and organizations to engage credibly in a stakeholder world.’ Richard Edelman
Index

Mapping corporate PR PUBLIC AFFAIRS MARCOMS INTERNAL COMMS FINANCIAL PR LEGISLATORS REGULATORS ACTIVISTS EMPLOYEES COMMUNITIES UNIONS CHANNELS INFLUENCERS CUSTOMERS ANALYSTS THE CITY INVESTORS M E D I A E H T ISSUES MANAGEMENT VISION VALUES BRANDS S O C I A L M E D I A Index

Sample assessment
Blog for three months on theme of PR and social media
Hard measures (Google PageRank, Technorati authority, number of posts, comments per post)
Soft measures (writing style, content, focus, design, links)
Formative and summative assessment
Index

Issues
Blogging-behind-firewall defeats the object
This assessment is conducted in public and can be a permanent record
Power-law distribution in blogging is extreme (winner takes all)
One practitioner-student asked to use a pseudonym

MA: Social Media and PR
The University of Sunderland’s MA module in Social Media and PR describes itself as examining “the impact on public relations practice of a range of social media platforms and channels from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It will encourage a critical understanding of key concepts such as reach, porosity, transparency and aggregation and assess their relevance to reputation and relationship management. Students will gain the practical skills needed to produce content for a range of platforms and engage constructively in social media discourse surrounding organisations, products and services.”
Index

Outline curriculum
Week 1 What is social media?
Overview of technologies and contexts
Markets as conversations, ten years of Cluetrain
How to use online tools – delicious etc
Week 2 Brand of me
Building reputation in the online world
Week 3 Reach, Transparency, Porosity, Aggregation
Key theoretical concepts needed to understand online PR
Week 4 Getting noticed
Building content and reputation
Week 5 Crowdsourcing and Wikinomics
Understanding Mass Collaboration
Week 6 We the Media: How news is changing
Rethinking news models. Implications for PR
Week 7 Sociology of Social Networks/ Blogger relations
Who are the influencers? Who to talk to. Risk management
Week 8 Net, Blogs and Rock ‘n’Roll
What the music industry tells us about search and discovery
Week 9 Integrating social media into corporate communications
Why the business plan matters
Week 10 Privacy 2.0: Ethics and transparency
Are there any boundaries to personal space?
Week 11 Social media and social change
How activism is using new technologies
Week 12 Future PR: adventures in time and space
How to plan for the unknowable
Index

Essential reading
Brown, R (2009) Public Relations and the Social Web London: Kogan Page
Gillmor, D (2004) We the Media USA: O’Reilly
Jennings, D (2007) Net, Blogs and Rock’n’Roll London: Nicholas Brealey
Phillips, D and Young, P (2009) Online Public Relations 2nd Ed London: Kogan Page
Scoble, R & Israel, S (2006) Naked Conversations New Jersey: Wiley
Shirky, C (2008) Here Comes Everybody London: Penguin
Solis, B & Breakenridge, D (2009) Putting the Public Back into Public Relations London: Pearson Education
Zittrain, J (2008) The Future of the Internet London: Allan Lane
Index

Recommended reading
Allan, S (2006) Online News London: McGraw Hill
Anderson, C (2007) The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand London: Random House
Blood, R (2002 ) We’ve Got Blog: How Blogging is Changing Our Culture , Perseus Publishing
Howe, J (2009) Crowdsourcing: How the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business London: Random House
Keen, A (2007) The Cult of the Amateur : How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy London: Nicholas Brealey
Lax, S (2009) Media and Communication Technologies: A Critical Introduction London: Palgrave
Li, C & Bernoff, J (2008) Groundswell Boston: Harvard Business Press
Van Loon, J (2008) Media Technology: Critical Perspectives London: McGraw Hill
Young, P (2006) The New PR: Does Aggregation Demand a New Theoretical Perspective? in Journal of New Communications Research, Vol1 , No1 Palo Alto, CA: SNCR Press
Index

Pedagogy references
Alexander, S., and McAllister, G., (2003). Key aspects of teaching and learning in information and computer sciences. In Fry, H., Ketteridge, S., Marshall S., ed, A Handbook For Teaching And Learning In Higher Education. London: Routledge Falmer, pp278-299
Assiter A., (1995) Transferable Skills in Higher Education , London: Kogan Page pp7-20
Bridges D., (1994 ) Transferable Skills In Higher Education , University of East Anglia: University of East Anglia
French, R. and Grey, C. (1996 ) Rethinking Management Education . London: Sage. pp 2-13
Macfarlane, B., (1997) In Search Of Identity: Lecturer Perceptions Of The Business Studies First Degree. Journal of Vocational Education and Training , 49 (1), pp5-20
Rose, J (2009) Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum: Final Report, DCSF Publications pdf
Ul-Haq, R., Stiles, J., Pond, K., (2003) Learning expectations and learning process design. Active Learning In Higher Education , 4(2) pp168-180
Index

Technology timeline 1983 2009 2000 1990 IBM PC (UK Launch) & MS-DOS WORLD WIDE WEB / MOSAIC BROWSER DOT COM CRASH WINDOWS 3.0 GOOGLE / XML YOUTUBE TWITTER WINDOWS 95 & INTERNET EXPLORER EBAY & AMAZON FIRST BLOGS / MP3 / FLASH PODCASTING / WIKIPEDIA iTUNES / FIREFOX / FACEBOOK Personal computing Networked computing Web 1.0 Web 2.0

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Teaching Social Media

by Richard Bailey on Sep 16, 2009

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Teaching Social Media — Presentation Transcript