This semester I'm teaching (for the first time) a graduate seminar on social media. It's similar to my undergraduate special topics class in that it's not focused solely on social media in the marketing mix, but it's much less hands-on and much more concerned with social and cultural impact. I organized the class by waiting until the first day to find out who the students were and what their interests are, so some of the topics and readins are tailored to their needs. In addition, the class chose from a menu of options to decide how they would be assessed.
Here's the syllabus, minus the boring parts:
Introduction
This course aims to help students understand social media from both scholarly and professional perspectives. This seminar will explore scholarship on social media about important issues such as collaboration, privacy, and security; from academic fields such as psychology, business, and communications; and in subject areas such as politics, education, and social reform. Because the field is new and rapidly changing, students will also read popular literature on these topics. In addition, students will participate in several collaborative learning projects and will have the opportunity to work hands-on with social media.
Required reading
Students will be required to read and be prepared to discuss both scholarly and popular literature on social media for class each week. Links to these articles are provided on the schedule. In addition, students will be asked to read a book for the team book review project.
Assessment
You will be graded on your written work, your oral presentation, your ability to synthesize and conceptualize the material, and your contributions to the class. Prompt attendance and conformity with deadlines are expected at the graduate level. In case of dire emergency, contact the instructor prior to missing class.
Blogging (20 percent): Each student will choose between two options.
You may create an individual blog on Wordpress.com with the goal of posting at least 12 times during the semester and making efforts to build an engaged community of readers.
You may participate in the class blog by initiating posts at least five times during the semester as well as commenting on at least 30 other students’ posts with substantive, insightful comments that further the discussion of weekly readings.
Team book presentation (20 percent): Students will work in small groups to read and present a book to the class, creatively using social media as part of the presentation.
Participation (10 percent): You are expected to participate in weekly discussions of the readings.
Original research case study paper (50 percent): Students will work in pairs to research and write a case study, using original, triangulated research to develop theory relating to social media.
The weekly topics are as follows:
Collaboration
Amateurs vs. Professionals
Social Media, U.S. Law, and Ethics
Online Identity Production
Privacy and Social Media
Social Media and News
The Social Side of Search
Personal Branding
Social Media and Business
Social Media and Education
Social Media and Politics/Government
Attention and Distraction
Social Media and Entertainment
Social Media and Social Change
My grad assistant typed up the reading list, so if you'd like the course bibliography, email russell dot uga at gmail and I'd be happy to share it (Word document).
Karla Gower of the University of Alabama's Plank Center shares the following information about 2012 Faculty Fellowships for Educators, a program that came up in Teaching PR conversation not long ago (and that I thoroughly hope to participate in when my child gets a little older!).
The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama invites faculty to apply for its 2012 Fellowship for Educators, a two-week summer program for professors teaching public relations. This year, we will be able to place up to fifteen (15) selected educators for two full weeks in the offices of the sponsoring organizations, which have been drawn from public relations agencies, corporations, not-for-profits and the government sector.
The sponsoring organization will pay housing and per diem expenses for the chosen educator; the educator will pay for travel to/from the sponsoring organization, and any out-of-pocket expenses.
Applications with all supporting materials (a personalstatement, CV/resume, and letter of recommendation) must be e-mailed to Dr.Karla Gower, gower at apr dot ua dot edu, by February 10, 2012.
Background
This two-week fellowship program for public relations educators is designed with the dual purpose of exposing professors to current day-to-day operations of the public relations function and in creating an exchange of information and ideas that will enhance the professional development of both the educators and the practitioner-sponsors.
Key beneficiaries are public relations students, who can be ensured their professors are knowledgeable in the current practices and issues facing practitioners and that practitioners have a greater appreciation for the value of theory and research of their classrooms in today’s public relations work.
The Plank Center is the convener of this opportunity, using its own visibility to draw attention to the program; marketing the program to both educators and organization leaders; and coordinating the application process and “match.”
Sponsoring organizations will be drawn from public relations agencies, corporations, not-for-profits and the government sector. Placement with a particular organization depends on the educator’s area(s) of expertise.
The number of placements depends on the number of organizations willing to host an educator. Since the program’s inception in 2010, Home Depot, Insidedge—GolinHarris, Ketchum Public Relations Agencies in Chicago and New York, the American Red Cross, and Southern Company have hosted educators.
Expectations
Educators selected as Fellows will spend two full weeks in the offices of the sponsoring organization with which they have been matched. The period of the Fellowship is expected to occur in June or July, as agreed by both parties.
Educators will be given a full orientation to the sponsoring organization, the particular department, staff duties and responsibilities, clients and/or projects.
Sponsoring organizations will designate a key professional as the official host and mentor for the visiting professors during their time in residency.
In return, educators will use their own expertise to conduct at least one workshop or seminar for the staff of the sponsoring organization. In addition, the educators may conduct a research project of value to the sponsoring organization; produce a report or white paper highlighting their impressions, key takeaways and recommendations for how the sponsors can develop new proficiencies in a key discipline; develop proprietary knowledge in existing or new areas of strategic focus; or interact with greater effectiveness on the college campus.
To participate in the Fellowship for Educators, the sponsoring organizations will pay housing and per diemexpenses up to a maximum of $3,000 for the chosen educator; the educators will pay for travel to/from the sponsoring organization, and any out-of-pocket expenses.
Application Process
To apply, candidates must send an email to Dr. Karla Gower (gower@apr.ua.edu), director of the Plank Center and Behringer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama, that includes the following:
Personal statement addressing:
Areas of special interest or need that you, as a candidate, will hope to develop;
Expectations on what you will accomplish with respect to your teaching and research as a Plank Center Fellow;
Thoughts on how you would bring key learnings gained during the Fellowship back to your academic institution for the growth of your department, your students and the larger university; and
Possible topics for your workshop or seminar to the host organization.
CV/Resume
Letter of recommendation from a department chair, director or dean indicating how the Fellowship will enhance your teaching and/or research and how the key learnings gained during the Fellowship will be shared with others at your academic institution.
A committee of public relations professionals and educators will review the applications and make recommendations to the sponsoring organizations, which will make the final acceptance decision. Acceptance will be based on the candidate’s personal statement, research and teaching interests, need for exposure to the industry and potential contribution to the growth of the sponsoring organization.
Please direct specific questions regarding the application process or interest that your organization may have in serving as a sponsor for a Plank Center Fellow to Dr. Karla Gower at gower@apr.ua.edu.
Omnicom Group has one solution. Several Atlanta Omnicom agencies, including BBDO Atlanta, Porter Novelli, Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard, are joining with the Grady College to offer a six-month Future Leaders Fellowship program for Grady students and alums. In January, the first group of 3-5 fellows will start their internships (and we hope it'll expand from there), with each person working part of that time at a PR agency and an ad agency, as well as being mentored by someone from a third marketing-related firm.
In a press release, the president and CEO of BBDO Atlanta, Chris Hall, said, "The dynamics in the field are changing -- rapidly -- and require a broader perspective and facility with advertising, public relations, social media and beyond. The Fellowship with Grady College allows for our organization to participate in the development of top talent through this innovative program."
Hall also said that the fellowship program is an example of Omnicom's commitment to and innovation in talent recruitment and development -- and I agree. They're investing time, money and expertise into our students' education. And although the program will touch a relatively small number of students directly, but I have to think it'll touch many more indirectly. I've seen, for instance, how students who participate in the Coca-Cola internship program come back and influence their peers -- and sometimes their faculty, too.
I hope our strong relationship with Porter Novelli and BBDO Atlanta in particular will continue to benefit both industry and education. And I hope that other PR and advertising programs can use this fellowship as a model for developing programs with industry in their local areas.
The 2011 TEDxPeachtree was my first live TED experience, and based on it, I would urge you to seek out a TED experience if you can.
If you're curious, the X in TEDx signifies that it's not an official TED conference but it's licensed by TED, and organized locally around the "Ideas Worth Sharing" theme that TED promotes. Most of the presenters had Atlanta connections, which made it feel both local and international -- especially with the tweets that seemed to be coming in from everywhere.
Our day started with Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, who has explored morality in the primate world. The two pillars needed for morality, he said, are reciprocity and empathy, and he showed us examples of primates displaying those pillars in various experimental scenarios. He suggested that morality is based not on religion because primates display an evolved morality. He was funny and the primate videos worth both funny and thought-provoking, and it was a fabulous way to kick off the day. The second speaker, Ekaterina Walter, talked about her journey as an immigrant from Russia and inspired us to keep the American dream alive -- not in terms of striking it rich or becoming President, as we sometimes think, but in realizing that we live in a place that gives people a chance to maintain dignity, which is simply not possible for individuals in other parts of the world. It makes you appreciate something we take for granted.
Next we watched a TED talk on video, and it's one I strongly recommend for people interested in communication research. It starts by talking about language acquisition, but toward the end you'll see the implications for mass media. Please watch Deb Roy's Birth of a Word:
The next presentation, Michael Horn's Toward Student Centric Learning, focused on K-12 but has implications for all teachers. Horn started with the concept of Disruptive Innovation, which he argues is more predictable and more successful than we think. He suggested that the computer has brought this sort of dramatic change to every sector, except education, pointing out that someone from a hundred years ago would probably still feel comfortable in a school, with its rows of desks pointing to a teacher speaking in the front of the room. He said that rather than looking at budget cuts and teacher shortages as a crisis, we should consider them an opportunity to rethink online (not distance, but blended) education. Computers can allow use to use competency-based learning, where students continue to work on a concept or process until they understand it, whether that's a day or two weeks, rather than standardizing everyone on the same page at the same time. Teachers would still be critical, but their jobs would be different. One person might focus on developing virtual content as a job, whereas another person might serve as a facilitator or mentor in the classroom. I had a fabulous discussion at lunch with two people affilitiated with schools (one was a kindergarten teacher) about how this might be implemented and what impact it would have on college students and college teaching 15 years from now: I can't really picture someone taught in a school like Horn envisions being satisfied with the old lecture-discussion format.
The next set of talks didn't have as much direct impact on me except that they were just interesting in the way TED talks usually are. We watched Markus Fischer's TED talk, A Robot That Flies Like a Bird; listened to Kennesaw State University's Dr. Adriane Randolph on Your Brain, a talk which described her research on brain-computer interface, which is often being developed for commercial purposes but which can also help people who have no other way to communicate; and Dr. Ami Klein, of Atlanta's (Bernie) Marcus Autism Center, who described his efforts to develop a way to test for autism using eye tracking very, very early in order to allow early intervention which could attenuate the negative effects of autism. "Autism creates itself," he argued, meaning that an autistic child's actions also determine her development, so if her actions can be changed the way her brain develops can also be changed. He said the purpose is not to "cure" autism --pointing out that autistic people have strengths that we can benefit from-- but to free individuals from its negative consequences like poor language development and isolation.
One of the really fun things about the conference was that interspersed throughout the day were art performances, including music, poetry, and dance, which not only added some variety but also engaged the audience in a different way. And, just watching/listening to people with so much talent is inspiring in itself.
Two more afternoon talks had particular relevance to communications people. John Copenhaver talked about our need for a better kind of crisis management. He began with the premise that the old disaster paradigm is failing, pointing out that disasters are worse than they used to be and that governments (worldwide) have a diminishing capacity to respond to them. He suggested that the private sector is unlikely to bail out the government, so help will have to come through communities. "All disasters are local," he argued. Communities need to be more resiliant, and one way they can do that is to use new technology to communicate and collaborate during a time of disaster. He suggested that communities look at their hazard risks, the resources of the community (including technological resources), and community stakeholders (both formal and informal-- everything from government, police, hospitals,water/gas, grocery stores, etc.) to create plans about how to respond to disasters. We should not rely on "someone else" but think in terms of the old civil defense model to solve our own problems. He asked us to look at our own communities and think about, if their survival depended on us, what would we do, who would we talk to, what would need to get done?
Last, Courtney Spence talked about the Transformative Power of Multimedia Storytelling, describing her work through Students of the World to help people document positive stories that are not covered in the media. "Life lessons don't happen in the moment but when we pause to reflect upon them," she argued. She showed three examples from Uganda, New Orleans, and Haiti, where the media stopped showing "disaster" stories and thus failed to adequately portray the more positive recovery stories that are still taking place. She urged us to seek out the good stories and demand them from the media and in our personal lives. Jeremy Gilley's TED talk, One Day of Peace, rounded out this session.
Sadly, I had to miss the last two talks but I'm sure they were just as amazing as the others. Videos from 2010 are posted on the TEDxPeachtree site, so I'm hoping 2011 will be up, too. If so, I'll definitely provide links to the most relevant talks for communications scholars.
A study of four-year accredited colleges and universities shows that 100% of schools are now using social media -- up 34% since 2007. Conducted by Dr. Nora Barnes and Ava Lescault of the U. Mass.-Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, the study finds that only one in five colleges/universities report using social networking sites to recruit and evaluate potential students.
Virtually all colleges/universities are on Facebook (98%), most are on Twitter (84%), and two-thirds have a blog. Meanwhile, message boards have leveled off and Myspace participation is down, while podcasting and Foursquare are up (the study has a margin of error of +/- 4%). Dr. Barnes suggests this shows a maturation process as higher ed institutions develop a better understanding of social media tools.
The press release from the Society of New Communications Research notes that higher ed is outpacing the Fortune 500, the Inc. 500, and the Forbes top charities in adoption of blogging.
Any guesses as to why blogging is so popular? Facebook is not surprising, given that students and potential students are a major public, but the stats on blogging are less intuitive. Also, do you believe that one-in-five stat, or is the word "evaluate" the problem?
As an incoming member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Standing Committee on Teaching, I attended the plenary session at the annual meeting with even more interest than usual (here's another good session from 2008). The topic this year, "Lake Wobegon meets grade inflation: Are all our students above average?" is one worth considering. I didn't try to take notes on the whole thing, but I did take down the keynote speaker's remarks. Stuart Rojstaczer, retired from Duke and now at gradeinflation.com, was funny and provocative, and had strong opinions to share. He said:
Grades have mostly been going up for 50 years-- why? Push for access (every high school student wants to/is expected to go to college; push for more graduates (emphasis on retention and graduation rates); push for more student satisfaction (consumer-based universities).
Higher education involves 10 million 18-24 year olds and is a $300 billion industry. It influences how democracy operates and influences our economic competitiveness. However, the academic component of college has been diluted.
Evidence shows that grade inflation began in the 1960s, declined in the 1970s, began again in the mid-1980s and has continued; it's worse at private schools. Evidence also shows that 43% of all grades are now A's -- it's the most common grade! The C, which used to be the most common, is now just 15% of all grades. The numbers of D's and F's has remained relatively stable at about 5%.
People rationalize this in several ways: students are smarter (but the ACT/SAT scores haven't improved, and more students need remedial classes), we teach better, and students work harder (but student engagement, measured by study time, focus on academics, etc., is at an all-time low; literacy of graduates is at an all-time low; and students work less than they used to, not more).
More students are attending college, and many are not well prepared, yet they are still graduating. Faculty have reduced workloads and eased grading in order to accommodate those students. Another problem is the rise of the adjunct, who is poorly paid, has a heavy teaching load, and has little job security and relies on course evaluations to keep the job. The obvious solution for a person in that position is to expect less and grade higher.
Also, every faculty member is now expected to be a great scholar (faculty are distracted by the research imperative), and stagnating wages in the presence of rising college costs means students have high debt and take the pragmatic approach of focusing on the outcome of their degrees rather than learning.
Thus, we now have a "high-school plus" model, and a non-aggression pact between professor and student. "I'll give you high grades and low workloads, if you give me high evaluations and don't bother me after class." Less writing, less reading, dumbed-down texts, and failure is almost impossible.
Implications: higher graduation rates, a more educated populace overall but less education per degree, an unnecessary degradation of educational quality at the top schools. Students and parents want this, and it's what distracted faculty want because they prefer to do research.
So, PR profs, what do you think? Have you experienced grade inflation (I admit that I give more A's than I used to -- now entering my 19th year of teaching), and if so, have any of these factors been an influence? And students, do you think faculty are distracted or unwilling to give you time outside of class? Do you automatically give good evaluations to easy teachers, or bad evaluations to more difficult ones? I'd love to hear about all of your experiences.
Last week I mentioned an AEJMC panel on pop culture images of public relations; it took place today and it was just as interesting as I'd hoped. I don't have notes from the first half of the session because I was on the panel, but wanted to share what the speakers in the second half discussed. Having established that books, movies and television often portray public relations inaccurately and PR pros badly, the panelists discussed what to do about it.
First, Rosanna Fiske (Florida International and chair of PRSA this year) described efforts by the Public Relations Society of America to overcome these problems. She described the "Business Case" campaign (more information on prsa.org), the purpose of which is to "drive recognition for the strategic value that PR brings to the table for any organization." She said that PRSA focuses especially on measurement as a key component in making PR count. Fiske also said that as a member of the committee creating the strategic plan for 2011-2013, she led focus groups (there were a number of groups held in 5 different cities) and that the results showed that everyone thinks the number one thing PRSA should be doing is advocating for public relations, because the image is poor and/or misunderstood. Therefore the campaign focuses on how PR can help with financial, reputation, employee/internal, and public policy; but PRSA has also taken a more active role in advocacy, emphasizing the value of PR, ethics, and diversity in the profession. Another program, "PR Serving America," showcases positive community service PRSA offers at the local level.
Next, Meg Lamme (University of Alabama) talked about the teaching moments pop culture can offer. She suggests that we need to own pop culture images and use them to our benefit. She provided two examples, an episode of "West Wing," which portrayed a day in the life of the press secretary, C.J. Craig, and "Absolutely Fabulous." Each provides examples that teachers can use to talk about important issues -- for instance, "West Wing" demonstrates the wide range of expertise a press secretary must have and the influence of the 24/7 news cycle on the character's work. Finally, she described how students have brought up pop culture images in class (Maxim's spread on MTV's "Power Girls," or "Kell on Earth) which spurred good discussions on ethics, diversity, and other important issues. She warned us to be ready for "Scandal," a new show on ABC this fall.
Tim Penning (Grand Valley State) provided a number of reasons that pop culture may not matter at all. Pop culture may not influence public opinion on PR; a lot of other professions have worse portrayals than PR; people understand it's just entertainment; maybe we're too sensitive and focused on the normative; there are other factors besides pop culture that influence the image; attitudes aren't static but change frequently and rapidly; personal experience is stronger than media cultivated images; and pop culture images of "PR" are often really about lawyers, marketers, etc. On the other hand, he said, pop culture may be one important contributing variable; the use of the word "spin" is prevalent; a dominant coalition's worldview of PR may influence its decisions about how to use PR; and new students do seem influenced by pop culture images in their decision to study PR. Since it both is and isn't important, then, PRSA, AEJMC, the Page Society and other should continue to take steps to present PR people appropriately, and we should present more examples of positive public relations.
Finally, Andi Stein (Cal State-Fullerton) described some steps we should take as public relations educators. She asks students to list 5 positive and 5 negative terms associated with PR, and then asks where they got those terms -- which is often pop culture but also other journalism professors. She asks why media people have these images and describes historical events that contribute to the antagonism between PR and journalism. She often uses guest speakers to describe what journalists want and expect from PR people, and also invited 2 reporters and 2 PR pros who'd all been involved in some way with a school shooting to show how they can work together to inform the public. She briefly touched on the idea that new media allow PR people to tell the organization's stories without going through the media, and suggested that ethics must be an ongoing part of the conversation, including the conflict between personal and professional ethics. She also suggested guest lecturing in journalism classes to talk about PR; for example, students could look at a few pages of newspaper and try to identify where the information came from in order to begin to understand the importance of public relations in the news-gathering process.
Another belated post from the Center for Global Public Relations research conference at UNC-Charlotte on April 15: this one from a presentation by Dr. Keith L. Cannon and Dr. Kara Presnell of Wingate University, which has about 1800 undergraduate students, on "Internationalizing a Public Relations Curriculum at a Small University," or as Keith termed it, "Teaching global public relations on a local budget."
Although I don't teach at a small university, I still identified with the obstacles they mentioned: faculty time and money. Keith and Kara said that they were drawing on personal experiences and student interviews to make these suggestions for internationalizing a PR program:
start by incorporating faculty experiences into classes (i.e., mentioning in a PR class, "when I was in Italy we did news releases this way")
offer to teach PR courses in existing university study abroad programs
provide students with international internship opportunities and include international opportunities and experiences in student clubs and programs
put international examples in case study classes; apply communication practices to an international situation -- for example, Kara said that females students often want to know how women are treated in other countries
try to offer a course in international PR
They concluded by reminding us that firsthand experience in globalization is vital because it's a fact of life that's not going to change.
I loved Richard Bailey's recent post, A Week in the Life, which explained how he fills a week of his life as an educator, so I've decided to add another week to the list. Here's what I'll be doing next week:
Reading PR/marketing blogs and composing my Week's Best post with links to important, interesting or provocative stories and blogs posts for students
Teaching 3 sessions of my social media class: a lecture on online identity, small group book discussions, and a guest speaker--Kristina Summers, a former student doing lots of SM work for a state government agency
Locating and beginning to read novels with PR characters for an AEJMC pre-conference workshop on the image of public relations, organized by the IJPC's Joe Salzman
Participating in a panel discussion following a screening of "The Social Network," sponsored by our college's graduate student caucus
Skimming through Scott Rosenberg's Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters (can't say I'll have time to do more than skim, since this week I only made it through 6 pages)
Participating in a college committee meeting on digital education--we'll be listening to a presentation on what other university communication programs are doing
Working with my co-author, Meg Lamme, to hammer out our plan to revise a conference paper on PR and civil rights
Attending town hall meetings as a faculty representative on the committee charged with recommending a new Learning Management System for the university (you know, like Blackboard)
Making an important decision about JPRR's publication schedule, and inviting reviewers to read several new submissions to JPRR -- which could be a problem, because just about every editorial board member and lots of other people already have at least one manuscript in hand (which is why I'm worrying about it next week instead of today)
Blogging, tweeting and Facebooking
Looking that list over, I'll quote Richard's post:
I'm not complaining: it's a privilege to teach and I'm fortunate to be busy.
I would love to see other PR profs post their lists, or comment below on what you'll be doing next week.
Brian Jenkins writes about education and careers in the public relations field, among other topics, for BrainTrack.com. He submitted the following guest post on employment opportunities in PR, which I think will interest many Teaching PR readers.
Employment Opportunities for Public Relations Specialists
How's the job outlook these days for public relations specialists? One of the top employment forecasters, The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), forecasts a 24 percent employment growth from 2008 to 2018 for public relations specialists, which is much faster than the average for all occupations.
The increasingly competitive international business environment has upped the demand for public relation specialists, particularly for those individuals who have international experience or who have a specialty. According to the BLS there is a big demand for PR specialists fluent in foreign languages.
In 2008 there were about 275,200 public relations specialist jobs. According to the BLS, the major job providing sectors are advertising and related services, educational services, healthcare and social assistance, government agencies, communication companies, and financial institutions.
Social Media
Social media has become an important tool in the public relations field. Public relations firms, as well as associations, charitable organizations, and corporations, are increasing their use of social media and, therefore, they need people who have expertise in using the different social media platforms. PR specialists with a bachelor's degree in social media and particularly those with a master's degree in the subject will likely have a competitive edge on the competition for some PR positions.
MBA programs, including MBA programs at top business schools, are integrating social media into their curriculum. Harvard Business School offers a program called "Competing with Social Networks." The London Business School has integrated social media into its MBA curriculum.
Yes, many public relations specialists have taught themselves how to use social media; however, most of them can enhance their knowledge and skills and increase their appeal to potential employers by taking a social media degree program. "Very often our perception of social media, and what we can and can't do using social media, is very much tinted by what we think our favorite person is doing - and our favorite person is usually ourselves," says Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. "So it is about getting students to understand that the empirical skills are absolutely necessary, because whatever they think is intuitively correct, is probably about themselves, but nobody else."
The objective of social media education programs is to provide an understanding about the fast-growing, evolving world of social media from a marketing and public relations perspective. A degree (or even just some completed courses) will enhance a PR specialist's resume, especially those with little on-the-job experience.
PR and Nonprofit Organizations
A study conducted in 2008 of the 200 largest charities located in the United States, performed by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, showed that 89 percent of charitable organizations used some form of social media such as podcasts, blogs, social networking, message boards, wikis, and video blogging. The study showed that these large charities were ahead of companies and universities in their familiarity, usage, and monitoring of social media. 45 percent of the nonprofit organizations in the study reported that social media is a very important component of their fundraising strategies. Thus, this sector offers many opportunities for PR specialists with expertise in social media.
The employment growth forecast for public relations specialists is much higher than average. However, for entry-level jobs, the number of qualified candidates is projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to exceed the number of job openings. Being fluent in a foreign language and acquiring social media knowledge and skills by taking college courses can increase the opportunity of obtaining a position in the public relations field.
The American novelist Edith Wharton once said, "The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it." So true. And because the state of Georgia doesn't have it, and private donors don't have it, and people who pay for tuition don't have it -- we're all thinking about it.
Grady College faculty had our meeting with the new provost of the university today, and it was pretty much all about money. The university wants to recruit more graduate students -- partly for the money. We'd like to improve the diversity of the faculty and student body -- but it's hard to do without money. UGARF (the research foundation) is pretty much out of -- you guessed it -- money. State funding of this "public" university has gone from 48% to 34% in a very short amount of time, and there's no reason to think that will change anytime soon. Oh, and by the way, what will happen when the state's stimulus money is gone after FY11?
We're all learning to do more with less, but at what point is it no longer possible to do good enough with less than enough? I'm not blaming anyone, although I've had good times on Twitter and Facebook poking fun of the state on our furlough days this year. I'm just sad to see the consequences of a poor economy beginning to enter the classroom.
I can't think how many times students have asked me some variation on this question. I often require my students to participate on PROpenMic, and at least one of them will say, "I don't really get what we're supposed to be doing." (By the way, pros and educators, that's just more proof of this.) Yesterday I got a DM from @Mikinzie asking, "Would you mind giving me the basic rundown of PROpenMic?" so I know it's not just my students who ask this FAQ. I'm answering Mikinzie's question for everyone.
PROpenMic is a social network, just like Facebook, but it's used for professional rather than personal reasons. So far it has almost 5,500 members -- students, faculty, and professionals -- from around the world. Just like Facebook, participants register and "friend" each other, but since it's for professional use it's OK to friend people you don't actually know. In fact, the purpose is to add to your professional network by talking with people you don't already know.
Also like Facebook, you can join or create groups, which are just people interested in a similar issue, such as the internships group or the PR student bloggers group. PROpenMic does have something like a wall for messaging, but unlike Facebook, the discussions within the groups are more important than the walls. In addition, PROpenMic allows users to add blog posts, which are listed on the home page (scroll down a bit to see the latest posts). Many of us who already have blogs cross-post to our PROpenMic blogs, as I'm doing with this post.
To be a good, active participant on PROpenMic, here are some things you can do:
Create a good profile with a picture so people can identify you with your participation around the site.
Join a group and participate or start discussions on topics of interest to the group. If you don't see a group that fits your needs, create one!
Read the blog posts and comment on them. Either set aside a time to check the front page, or follow @PROpenMic on Twitter so you can watch for new posts of interest.
Add a blog post yourself (you can add one from your profile page). If you aren't blogging already, this is a good way to try your hand at it without making a commitment to running and promoting a blog. It doesn't have to be anything major-- just a link and a comment about an interesting video, news story, or class project will do.
Friend people. Any people! PROpenMic is the only social media site I'm on where I automatically friend back -- the site is moderated by its creator, Robert French, and a group of administrators (disclosure: I'm one of them) to keep spammers out. Pretty much everyone who's on the site is there because they support PR education and want to work with students.
Check the site frequently -- maybe mark a couple days a week on your calendar as a reminder -- because social networks move fast.
Well, Mikinzie, I hope that helps. If you --or other students-- have other questions, let me know.
Today I served as one of the guest panelists on #PRstudchat on the topic of social media in PR education. I'm afraid I didn't say much that Teaching PR readers haven't already heard, but it was fun anyway. The conversation was so lively that the search on Tweetdeck had a hard time keeping up.
Some thoughts: I emphasized (as usual) that educators should focus on principles rather than tools, because tools will change but principles are more lasting. By principles I mean transmedia storytelling, collaboration, entrepreneurship, etc. I also said that I think social media should be incorporated into all PR classes rather than segregated into its own course -- after all, it's incorporated into a larger PR program in practice. The trick, I think, is to help students become confident in their abilities to figure new tools out for themselves.
On the question of textbooks, I'm not opposed to using books to teach social media (I've used David Meerman Scott's New Rules and Bernhoff & Li's Groundswell with success), but told the crowd that I subscribe to Josh Hallett's approach: "learn by doing." I think some people were surprised that I wasn't opposed to textbooks out of hand--but maybe my definition of textbook is different from theirs.
Another question asked about using a backchannel such as live tweeting. Is it helpful or disruptive in the classroom? Well, I can't multitask well enough to try it. Honestly, for me it would be disruptive. I know that Mihaela Vorvoreanu had students live tweet a guest lecture (with the speaker's permission), which seems to me a good way to practice Twitter without disrupting the class, but a lot of the people in the chat seemed to think it would be helpful, and fun. (Have to say, though, it seemed to be the pros and students who were in favor of it! And Robert French was definitely opposed.)
We also talked about evaluating SM use in the classroom. In my opinion, for beginners, just grading participation (i.e., setting a number of tweets or blog posts, etc.) is enough. Upper-level students, though, need to show they can create and use SM channels for clients. In the capstone campaigns class especially, I expect students to integrate social media into their programs as relevant to the client and its publics. This includes everything from setting up the tools to using analytics.
Last, we discussed how educators can keep up with the rapidly changing digital environment. Frankly, I don't think you can effectively teach SM unless you participate in it. Other people suggested using an aggregator to read blog posts and news, joining PROpenMic, reading current books, and going to professional conferences.
All in all, it was a great discussion--this post doesn't even cover what I said, much less what everyone else contributed. Thanks again to Deirdre Breakenridge and Valerie Simon for inviting me to participate and Mikinzie Stuart for moderating. The chat, which takes place once a month, has a LinkedIn group for more information. I definitely recommend it to students and educators. [Addition: chat transcript.]
Ever participated in a Twitter chat? People interested in the same topic get on Twitter at the same time, someone poses questions, and everyone can discuss their answers real-time. The conversation is organized around a hashtag -- here's an example: #journchat -- and/or by a moderator, like this one: @u30pro.
This year I decided to attend the National Communication Association meeting for the first time. My first session of my first NCA conference turned out to be a great one, focusing on how social media can be incorporated into public relations classes. Here are brief summaries of the presentations.
Tiffany Derville, University of Oregon, provided a "podcasting lesson" handout (update: here's the lesson), which included what to do prior to the lesson, discussion questions, and an assignment with a grading matrix. She talked about how important it is to explain the rules of social media prior to setting the students loose -- for example, that not many people will be interested in your podcast if it's nothing but an ad. She also emphasized that podcasting is just one tactic that's part of a broader strategy, not an end itself. She listed the top 5 mistakes she made the first time she gave the assignment, saying she wished she would have emphasized these things more:
The audience can hear rustling papers on the podcast.
Don't let the presentation sound scripted.
If the student doesn't care about the topic, their tone of voice reflects it.
Don't talk too quickly.
Podcasts must be based on research and new information (not bland generalities).
Bill Handy, a visiting professor at Oklahoma State, noted that he teaches the only stand-alone course on social media and PR in Oklahoma, but pointed out that he thinks it will be a short-lived class (meaning it will be integrated in other courses soon). He discussed a number of issues relating to adding social media to educational mix. Among these are the cultural issue of convincing faculty to accept social media -- including the university's branding possibilities, organizing all of it, and making sure people understand that conflicting messages and points of view are part of the value of social media. Nurturing communities and finding the content when someone doesn't realize they're participating are probably the biggest issues. And there are legal implications as well, from FERPA to copyright. He suggests that 30% of people in any organization will resist adopting social media.
Bill also discussed the benefits of adopting social media. Cost savings, tearing down walls between academic settings (such as those between B- and J-schools), and extending the classroom conversation beyond the classroom walls. For example, using a wiki allows former students to continue to participate in the conversation with current students, whereas university sites like Blackboard kick former student off the site.
Kelli Matthews of the University of Oregon agreed that stand-alone courses are probably short-lived. Nonetheless, she's teaching a social media strategy course now and described an assignment to create a social media plan similar to a traditional PR plan, focusing on strategy rather than the technology. She sees this as a way to incorporate SM into general PR classes, although she uses it as the final assignment in her SM Strategy class with a real client. Students work in teams of 2-3 mostly for the same client, but they can also choose another client if they have the ability to get inside information (not just finding information on the Web). In the publics section she asks students to incorporate Social Technographics in the plan, based on Groundswell. They also have to incorporate the Groundswell phases of Listening, Talking, Energizing, Supporting, and Embracing. She expects a significant measurement component with awareness, interest and action categories. Finally, they must include a realistic budget and timeline. At the end of the semester the "best" team was actually hired by the client to implement their plan.
Barbara Nixon, Georgia Southern University, credited the University of Georgia's inaugural Edelman Digital Bootcamp in 2008 with getting her started in social media. She reviewed different ways she's using social media in her classes, starting with the fact that she puts virtually all of her assignments online so anyone can see them on her class blog. She asks her students to blog and gives them a group of topics they can talk about. She said she's not using Flickr as much as she used to, but recommends to students that they take pictures of projects and assignments and upload them on their own. She also suggests that teams use Delicious so they can share bookmarks within groups. She does informal office hours in Facebook but asks students to block her from anything they didn't want their parents to see, and that classes sometimes have groups within Facebook, with varying degrees of interest on the part of the students. Students also sometimes use fan pages for clients when relevant. As for Twitter, to which she admits being addicted, Barbara uses class hashtags so students can follow only that if they wish. She also does a "one week of Twitter" assignment that requires students to use replies, links, retweets, etc.
Kaye Sweetser, University of Georgia, discussed her viral video project that she used in PR writing but that could be used in other classes. (Here's more information on the discussion and videos that went along with this assignment.) The assignment objectives are to identify the audience they are trying to reach with their video; determine the correct appeal; and create a message that will resonate with that audience. She picked a client, the UGA admissions office, and brought the client to the class for 30-45 minute talk on their publics and what they wanted to get out of the videos. She was very specific NOT to say "we want a rap," or anything that detailed, instead leaving it to the students to do their own creative work. Admissions officials pointed out that the 16-17 year old potential college student is one audience, but so are that kid's parents. Kaye said that prior to this assignment she did very traditional lectures on messaging, identifying audiences, types of appeals (she refers to Aristotle here), but added new things to her class a guest lecture via Skype by Paull Young of Converseon who discussed what makes a video go viral and provided a case study. He emphasized that you need to have a call to action in your video. She also lectured on finding appropriate and legal music for student videos. She gave the students access to Flip cams and to media labs, but provided no in-class training or tech support. Student teams turned in their videos on CDs, but she also asked them to provide keywords, title etc. for her to use when she uploaded the videos to YouTube. Then she put all five videos on a playlist and began publicizing it. Students received extra credit if the client chose to use the video, and extra credit for getting the most views.
Alisa Agozzino of Ohio Northern University teaches a social media class in which the students read Groundswell, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Citizen Marketers, and The New Influencers. They have to blog three times a week for 10 weeks, including blogging about the books -- sometimes the authors comment. The second post is about public relations or social media, and the third is about the university in general. She also requires that students not to do all three posts on one day. In addition, students have to make three comments a week, at first just on each others' blogs, but after the first few weeks they must go outside the class. There is also a podcasting assignment and a viral video. On Twitter she requires students to follow two organizations to identify key audience and how well they reach the audience -- she encourages to contact the organization and see if they got it right. Finally, students have to do a social media resume on CV.com (three grads got jobs from it last year), and a 10-page ethics paper on social media, which she encourage that they submit to a conference.
At the end of the session Bill Handy quoted Lewis Menand's Harvard Magazine article: "It is the academic's job in a free society to serve the public culture by asking questions the public doesn't want to ask, investigating subjects it cannot or will not investigates, and accommodating voices it fails or refuses to accommodate." He suggested this is applicable to teaching social media as well; for example we can point out that research shows small groups are better in a number of ways, which goes against the "how do I get more followers" mentality often prevalent in social media.
Twitter's latest innovation is the list, which (like Tweetdeck and other applications) allows users to organize people into groups. For my first, I created a list of people who teach public relations.
If you're on Twitter, you can follow the list, which allows you to read the most recent tweets from anyone on the list; or you can just click on the "following" tab to find smart and interesting people to follow.
If you know of someone who's not on the list and should be, just reply to @karenrussell and I'll add them. As of today, I've identified 64 people, but I'm sure there are others!
Yup, it's another weeks-old AEJMC panel to discuss. (Better late than never, I hope.) This one was hosted by the Commission on the Status of Women and the Public Relations Division, and it featured, in addition to moderator Judy VanSlyke Turk of Virginia Commonwealth:
Lauri Grunig, Maryland
Hayg Oshagan, Wayne State
Elizabeth L. Toth, Maryland
Brenda Wrigley, Syracuse
Fritz Cropp, Missouri
First, Elizabeth Toth discussed different ways of defining or thinking about diversity.
Diversity as demographics like race and gender, but also things like class, language, income, etc.
Diversity as social identities, which includes personal identities (avowed) and others' characterizations (ascribed).
Cultural distinctions-- norms, values, styles, patterns of thinking, transmitted over generations
Diversity as a commitment--not just laws but eithics such as equity, representativeness
Diversity as social action--recognizing points of tension, such as generational differences
Diversity's meaning is evolving. It's becoming watered down to the point that everyone has their own special interest group. A better approach might be awareness and sensitivity to difference and seeking linkages across differences.
Hayg Oshagan called for a pragmatic approach, arguing that the single most important factor in attracting and keeping diverse faculty and students is focusing on social support and mentoring. Create a place where people can meet and see each other; hire a diversity officer who will push the agenda forward. He also pointed out that in 2007-08, only 5% of AEJMC officers and presenters were African-American, Hispanic, and Native American (combined).
Brenda Wrigley spoke about the undergraduate program. The first step is personalizing the process -- all admitted students (regardless of demographics) get some form of personal contact from her school's diversity officer (phone, social media, etc.). Next they have an ambassadors program where students adopt 3 other students to help build group identity. Third, they follow up with people who were admitted but didn't attend to ask why, what factors led to their decision. They build partnerships, such as with the Jackie Robinson Foundation, for money. They held a diversity essay competition, and 15 students were invited to visit campus for 2-3 days, go to a basketball game, visit classes, etc. Finally, they have a Professional in Residence program, where invited professionals can teach diversity classes and represent diversity by being role models.
Fritz Cropp provided an international perspective in his discussion. By training diverse Ph.D. students, we are preparing diverse faculties of the future. Sending students abroad and bringing undergrads from other countries in; Visiting Professionals and Visiting Scholars programs can help to introduce diversity of thought. Finally, his school is setting up satellite campuses in other countries.
Lauri Grunig talked about what we can do when we don't have as much money as we'd like to implement diversity programs. Validation -- giving students a voice; mentoring and advising; hiring faculty who can be role models especially for first generation college students. She also pointed out that all professors help to create the environment. Diversity of thought is the next frontier for public relations, but we haven't even achieved the first level yet. Institutional culture is the most important factor in hiring and retention of minority faculty. Other points:
Maintain focus on important diversity initiatives.
Promote greater interaction of people.
Remain wary of imposing values and practices of the dominant group.
Inspire a sense of common purpose.
Explore the range of acceptable and desirable behaviors.
Following up on my curriculum post, Grady graphics guru Kristen Smith asks me what students should know about HTML. I know several recent grads have told me they wished they knew a little HTML, but I don't know exactly what would be most useful.
So, Grady alums, students and faculty at other schools, PR pros who hire new grads, and anyone else who wants to comment: what exactly should students be learning about HTML?
Grady College has a curriculum review coming up soon, so I've been thinking about things that should be added to the PR curriculum. I've argued that social media should be integrated throughout the curriculum, so what should we be doing, and where? Some initial thoughts:
Intro/survey course: add discussions of social media to the law module (copyright, defamation, etc.); introduce some of the commonly used tools; use examples from social media throughout, but especially in the discussions of theory
Research: monitoring social media; measuring social media programs, including ROI
Administration/cases class: principles and ethics; online strategy and decision-making
Communication/writing: transmedia storytelling; SMPR and online newsrooms; SEO (building keywords in); writing for the Web -- expanding the notion on "content" to include video, audio, games, etc.; ethics
Graphics: applying design principles to online communication; some HTML if it's not taught elsewhere
Campaigns: include online community building, ethics
I'm sharing this because UGA has a pretty traditional PR curriculum, brought by Scott Cutlip from my alma mater Wisconsin to Georgia in the '70s. (Of course each class has changed with the times, but the basic course structure is common). Looking over the list, I think UGA's already doing a lot of this, but we could do more.
Any other ideas? I'd love to be able to share them when we do our review in the fall.
Five principles that are important in social media and can influence or inspire how we teach public relations:
Collaboration. If people are now expected to understand how to harness collective intelligence, it's important for them to learn how to operate in a collaborative environment. An example is the collaborative literature review project I used in my special topics social media class, inspired by Michael Wesch.
Narrative. I've been referring a lot to Henry Jenkins's notion of "transmedia storytelling" lately. We've always needed to teach students to tell stories about products, people, issues, etc. but the new media environment forces them to tell stories across multiple platforms. I like Jenkins's discussion of transmedia storytelling because it suggests telling different parts of the story in different places (movie, game, Web site, etc. -- he uses "The Matrix" as an example) tailored to the medium. My students experimented with this idea in their book report blog on Jenkins's Convergence Culture. Applying this concept to PR would mean NOT taking a press release and making a podcast of the press release being read out loud. Instead, a press release might link to a video that has a human interest story related to, or maybe just briefly mentioned in, the press release -- either could stand alone, but together they tell a bigger story. I'll be experimenting with this next time I teach PR writing.
Online identity production. I refer here not just to online branding (personal or product) but to actual production of identity along the lines discussed by danah boyd in her study of teens on MySpace. Transparency and authenticity are important parts of this discussion -- how do you construct a personal or corporate self in an environment with those expectations? What do you say, or not say? Looking at examples like the Dell Twitter feeds, where a person and a brand are both identified (such as @LionelatDell, who tells me that there are about 200 Dell employees tweeting now, although not all with the xyzatDell username), or the Rubbermaid blog, where different people write brand-based stories from their own lives (disclosure: Erin is a Grady alum), will help students understand the blurring of personal and professional as well as the work of creating an authentic identity.
Culture. Of course students need to understand online culture and expectations. They need to learn to enter an online space treading cautiously, stopping to understand how the community operates and understand its norms and expectations before they start blasting their own thoughts and opinions. But culture also means attending to the inherently cross-cultural nature of communication on the Web. I learned this one the hard way when I complained about the cold winter weather on this blog, and an Australian reader reminded me that it was summer there. Yes, I had ignored an entire hemisphere. Since then I've tried to remember that anyone can read what I post. This is even more important for someone representing an organization, particularly a multinational organization, in a time when communication automatically extends around the globe. I haven't figured out any particular way to teach this, but would welcome suggestions.
Entrepreneurship. I listened to Tina Seelig's podcast (but I'm linking to the video because there are visuals involved) and got really energized to think about how entrepreneurship can be taught in PR. I'll be doing some sort of experiment with it in PR Administration next semester and will report back then.
Okay, so I thought I had this all figured out, until the contrarian caught me in a contradiction. In my post about social media and PR curriculum, I argued that we should incorporate the principles of social media into our teaching, suggesting that they are different. Then, in my response to Bill Sledzik's comment, I argued that the principles, like collaboration. are not actually different. Huh?
I defend myself by pointing out that I did say it was a work in progress.
Here are the five principles I had identified as present in social media:
Collaboration: harnessing collective intelligence
Narrative: characterized by transmedia storytelling (term borrowed from Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture)
Entrepreneurship: seeing a problem, taking risks to try something new to solve it
Identity production: of individuals, of brands, of organizations
Culture: online culture as well as cross-cultural communication, necessitated by global nature of online communication
(There are undoubtedly others; these were just a few I thought of in preparation for the summit.)
In looking over my list again, I think these are all present in traditional PR as well as online PR, but I think they are enacted differently online, and that by moving online their implications are sometimes different. So I retract my statement that they're the different and replace it with something weasel-ish like "they're the same and different."
I want to again emphasize that teaching these principles is more important than teaching tools. Teaching blogging or podcasting is like teaching typing or grammar rather than writing. Having said that, we all recognize that we do have to teach grammar and spelling at times -- but we do so toward a larger purpose, like writing strategically -- and teaching blogging or podcasting should be done in the same spirit. Within a few years we'll have a different kind of Web so the tools will be irrelevant anyway. The principles stand a better chance of lasting.
OK, feedback time. Agree or disagree with the principles I've outlined? More to add? My next post will discuss ways the principles can be taught, providing examples of assignments and/or student work when possible, but I'd like your thoughts before I move ahead. Just in case a helpful contrarian spies a flaw in my logic.
Last week I was one of the speakers on a luncheon panel at the PR Week/Edelman New Media Academic Summit in Washington, D.C. In preparation for the discussion, I spent some time thinking about how we've incorporated social media into our PR curriculum at UGA, as well as how I think it should be taught in individual classes. The nature of a panel is that you never get to say everything you've thought about in advance, so I'm going to lay out some additional thoughts here.
One of the FAQ's about integrating social media into the curriculum is, "Should it be a separate class, or should it be taught in all the classes?" At UGA we first taught it as a couple of special topics classes, then began moving it into the curriculum more generally. I've come to realize that the choice here depends upon what you think social media means to public relations practice. If you believe it 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.
Moreover, if you believe social media are or can be transformative to public relations practice, then as an educator you have to change not only what you teach but how you teach it. During the NMAS session I described some principles that I think should be included in teaching about social media, such as collaboration, entrepreneurship and transmedia storytelling; I would also include identity production and culture. I'm going to do a separate post on those principles with examples of how they can be taught, but for now suffice it to say that if you are going to teach students to be collaborative, you're going to have to include collaborative learning in the syllabus; if you expect them to use transmedia storytelling, you must incorporate it into your own presentation of material; and so forth. Even lecture method must change. For example, are you willing to display a class Twitterstream as you lecture? It stands to reason that if you're going to teach your students to use Twitter, there will be a Twitterstream to reckon with. (I haven't done this yet, but others have.)
In other words, the principles of social media participation should also be the characteristics of the public relations classroom.
After much consideration, I have concluded that organizational participation in social media does not create Habermas's ideal speech situation, although it's a closer approximation than other mass media; nor, as RIchard Bailey has so clearly argued, have we seen symmetrical communication brought about by social media programs. However, 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.
This is still a work in progress. What do you think?
The Grady College advising office recently released some numbers that create a picture of our undergraduate program. About 1,500 students are currently enrolled, with 350 graduating spring and summer; 85% are Georgia residents, but the remainder represent 34 other states plus Washington, D.C. and 19 other countries. Most interesting to me is that our diversity numbers, at least in terms of race, continue to rise. This spring's undergrads are 15% racial/ethnic minority, and new admits are 17% minority. As we go up a point or two every year, it's starting to make a noticeable difference (for instance, both the new president and the new vice president of PRSSA are minorities.)
Looking strictly at the PR major (about 300 students), a couple of things stand out. They are 92% female and 8% male. Wow. And, new PR admits this spring had an average GPA (from their first two years as undergrads) of 3.75 -- yes, out of 4.0. Also wow.
In spring 2008 UGA hosted the first Edelman Digital Bootcamp here in Athens. One of Kaye Sweetser's PR Campaigns class teams worked with Edelman to plan, promote, and run the event, a one-day workshop for students and faculty to learn the basics about social media. (Here's my post about it.) It was a great event for all of us.
So, I was really happy to hear from James Madison University's Corey Hickerson (@cahickerson) that Edelman and JMU are hosting a similar event this Friday and Saturday. If you're not lucky enough to attend, follow along on the Edelman Digital 101 blog.
In my opinion, Twitter is the easiest way for people new to social media to get involved. Here's my list, in no particular order, of the top 10 PR educators to follow on Twitter, inspired by Darren Rowse. I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones, so feel free to add them to the comments. What I enjoy about following all of these people is that you get to know them and their personal interests, because they tweet about themselves as well as PR education issues, helpful links, etc. You can follow me on Twitter, too.
