Teaching social media to journalists: what to teach?

Journalism lecturers across the world are doing their best to work out what to teach journalists of the future - and it's not an easy one to answer as the skill set seems to be getting ever larger.

In the original research questions I have attempted to take some steps to summarise a few major points.

What to teach? Being a modern journalist

Armed with an understanding of the broad categories of social media, journalism lecturing practitioners can begin to unravel what social tools students need to learn. These can be divided into the wider concepts of being a modern journalist and new, technical tools of the trade. For Uclan, where professional accreditation is required, with bodies such as the Periodical Training Council, the National Council for the Training of Journalists and the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, such issues become ever more pivotal.

Social media platforms are susceptible to fickle popularity trends and journalists of the future need to be able to distinguish brand and functionality.
Relevance and timeliness are key – and, on reflection, this is not simply a ‘get out clause’ for not knowing every social tool out there. Facebook, Bebo, Plurking, Twitter: the volatility of popularity among youthful users within social media mean it is important for lecturers to distinguish from the outset that the pedagogy behind social media must focus on the functionality of tools rather than the brand. Now change happens at an ‘inaccessible pace’ (Gillani 2003), teaching social media can focus on the cognitive analysis of use and purpose rather than mere product recognition, helping the lecturer feel less exposed if they are ‘out of the loop’ on the latest craze – one of the most off putting aspects of delivering social media teaching. Without time to trawl RSS and Twitter feeds, I soon feel out of touch. Dailly and Price (2007) state: “The rapid pace of change presents a challenge to staff in simply being aware of the possibilities presented by new technologies.”

Many journalism lecturers are then faced with the dilemma of where the boundary lies between being a private student and a trainee journalist. Without clear department guidelines, I often feel like I am left to fumble through. Mason and Rennie (2008 p78) point out the responsibility lecturers have to educate on the: “skills in how to cope with the virtual relationships and to understand what friendship means in the new social culture created by the web 2.0 community.” It is imperative to teach what it means to present oneself online. Uclan’s Personal Internet Presence A guide for students is a first step and the School of Journalism, Media and Communication currently provides guidelines within Module Information Packs on online conduct, with notes on copyright, plagiarism, minimising harm, accountability, fairness, taste and decency (Appendix 1), authored by senior lecturer Andrew Dickinson. However there is still inherent confusion as to what and how to teach social media within the department.

Resource and space limitations restrict this paper to present a summary of what needs to be taught within curriculum design to be a modern journalist:
•    Newsroom structures and the nature of collaboration in a digital economy
•    Personal brand. Social networks and writing platforms can be used to build journalists as a brand.
•    Ethics – how to behave online
•    Experimenting. Many news organisations, regardless of size, are looking for journalists to enter the industry with new ideas and innovative concepts to move the digital world of journalism on. The current trend of newspapers opening up their APIs could potentially mean the need for developers and end-users to tap into freedoms for innovation.
•    How to be a sense maker and filter news for audiences. Understanding collective filtering on sites such as eBay or Lonely planet.
•    Managing user-generated content
•    Building brands, networks and managing relationships. Zyman (2002) states ‘fish where the fish are and you’ll be a lot more successful’.
•    Exploratory issues in terms of copyright, plagiarism and intellectual property rights.
•    Audiences and revenues – changing media business models

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