Composing with Social Media

ENGL 505

Social Media

What is Social Media?How can I use it in my courses?What are the benefits?

What is social media?

“Social media is the media we use to be social. That's it.” - Lon Safko The Social Media Bible

Talking, writing, sharing, commenting, creating, producing—with others.

Social Media Sites

Using the power of the Web to connect people to one another.

Social Media Features

User interactivityContent sharing and distributionPersonalized web spaceCollaborating with like individualsOrganizing causes, events, or groupsCommunicating with friends, peers, and professionals

Social Media In/Out of Class

• Use/analyze social media– Use

• Group work• Professional networkingand communication• Live-tweet conferences, presentations, etc.• Class backchannel• Content-sharing

Social Media In/Out of Class

• Use/analyze social media– Analyze

• Communication in different genres, audiences, or spaces• Private/professional split (Privacy issues like

“Spokeo,” Pipl, and Googling your name)• Parallels with writing (images, links, sharing)• Free speech, community action, public scrutiny

Other ideas?

Brainstorm ideas for uses. – Have you used social media in class before?– Have students brought ideas or experiences with

social media to your attention?

Sample Social Media Assignments

• Privacy issues exploration– Spokeo, Pipl, etc. – Private/public composing spaces

• Profile creation with Linkedin– Web presence, discuss possibilities of online

resume/digital networking. Digital ethos.• Class Tumblr, blog, Youtube channel, etc. for

showcasing work (public face of class)– Feedback and reactions

Bryan Lutz's Civic Engagement and Social Mediahttp://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/Lutz/Conclusion1.html

Has students engage with social media and civic engagement through examining the “Arab Spring” as a new way to organize civil disobedience and protests.

Similar possibilities: Occupy Wall Street

Current Discussions• “Cult of the Amateur”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_n7I0PM3w

(from about 9 min.)

People without Facebook accounts are “suspicious”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/08/06/beware-tech-abandoners-people-without-facebook-accounts-are-suspicious/

Caitlin Flanagan's “Babes in the Woods”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/07/babes-in-the-woods/305974/

Critique or Mockery?

http://richkidsofinstagram.tumblr.com/

Or, Gawker's re-posting of Hunger Games tweets.

http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made

-Have students think about audience and what sort of discussions we can have about where and how discourse happens online

-”Look at these awful people” vs. looking at the underlying people, events, and feelings playing out in social media spaces.

Where to go next

Make connections to collaboration in text creation or design• Privacy issues, long-term effects• Composing in conversation with others

(and not in a vacuum)• Fair-use, content sharing, and re-posts.

Who “owns” content on social media sites?