Social Media and the Newspaper

Social Media and the Newspaper

 

Because modern people are in a much bigger hurry to get their information than they used to be, the newspaper is not for everyone. I, myself, have never had a subscription to the newspaper and while I worked there I got it for free. I used it to put a portfolio together for my resume and job interviews. Luckily, people who write and publish newspapers are aware of this fact and probably are in the same hurry for their news to come to them. This is where the internet and social media come in very handy for everyone involved in educating themselves about the world around them.

The Campbell County Observer makes their newspaper available online. It is available immediately for subscribers and a weeks behind for others who want to look at back-issues. A lot of the information, however, is available for all immediately. These would be the classified ads that people pay for as well as public forums and letters to the editor.

Social Media: Multiple Pathways to “Make Way For Books”

With the love of reading and children’s literature at heart, the Make Way For Books (MWFB) mission is “to foster and support the success of children in our community through cultivating a love of books and reading.” But how do they do this? Besides their work in the community at various preschools, libraries, and the annual Tucson Festival of Books, teaching the importance of reading to children daily, MWFB connects with their audience by various social media portals. MWFB uses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Perhaps they take some social media advice from Dr. Seuss:

Social Media Application in the Writing Classroom

I turn thirty tomorrow. This past week, the last week of my twenties, I’ve thought a lot about the most important elements of my life: spending time in the mountains, rock climbing and mountain biking with friends, striving for an environmentally-conscious lifestyle, encouraging college freshman to think critically about their choices and their impact, creating lesson plans that help students understand language as an agency for social change and, well, playing with my dog. This list of activities involves a wide range of discourse communities–when I explain social-epistemic rhetoric to my climbing partners, for instance, it sounds a lot different than when I discuss it over spring rolls with my colleagues. But throughout the week, floating from one discourse community to another, I find comfort in the similarities and connections between these communities. The conversations that I have with my climbing partners about environmental issues often share the same content as the conversations I have with my friends, but the genre I choose for the discourse is usually different. With my climbing partners, the genre is usually an informal, but perhaps passionate, discussion-over-beer, and with my students the genre usually takes the shape of an argumentative essay, or perhaps a prospectus and annotated bibliography.  

Social Media as a Teaching Tool?

When I asked my colleagues how they use social media as a teacher, I got responses like “I don’t,” and “Ummmm well, I use the website that the school told us we have to use.” However, I got some more enthusiastic approaches to the issue with “I use it everyday! I send my students to my Pinterest page to find the links to videos they have to watch,” and “We have a class Facebook page where students have discussions on the themes of the current unit.” As technology becomes increasingly intertwined in our everyday lives, our students are no exception. In order to reach them (our audience) we need to utilize social media to increase our communication with them as well as their communication with each other. As Christopher Swan writes about how to connect globally on social media in order to “Dissolve boundaries” and “Allow global inclusion,” we can use social media as teachers to accomplish those same goals on a smaller scale.

One teacher who uses Facebook to get her students having classroom and real world relevant discussions said that by using a forum where students are able to think through their contribution to the discussion before putting it out there has allowed for more involvement from some of the quieter students, the ones who don’t tend to speak out in class discussions. It also validates the students’ ideas when they get “likes” on their post. She did say that this sometimes poses a problem when students get competitive about who got the most “likes.” “It’s a learning process for all of us, but I think overall the results have been positive because we’re allowing them to take education into their own world, where they are comfortable,” said Debbie.

Using Social Media at REI

Just about once a year, it seems like a new social media platform comes out of nowhere. This past year brought teenagers and young adults Pinterest and Snapchat; their one common goal is to bring users together share interests and communicate. One thing is for sure: these social media platforms are working well and succeeding within our modern society. Now anyone with a smartphone or access to a computer can be part of a community. People around the world can now feel as relevant as ever. A man on the east coast of the United States can like someone’s picture on the other side of the country, even if they have never met! This last week, my friend added five followers to their Instagram account, just for adding a popular tag to their photo. When he saw the notifications on their phone, he chuckled and added, “I have know idea who these people are!” Well, friend, they are your community.

Rural Media

Some say that there are none so blind as those who cannot see. I have no idea what this means, but in a discussion about social media, none are so blind as those who happen to be me. That is until now. Social media is an infinite, nebulous web that connects everyone to everyone else, and the smart companies (i.e. the ones that will actually last) take full advantage of this technology. Profit generating in a digital era is almost impossible without media presence.

Boldly Go Where We Have Never Gone Before

all images courtesy of google images

Superintendent Hodge has been the driving factor in integrating technology to our district. He has personally developed the use of twitter and podcasts to draw the community into what is going on and changes being made. Our small town has tried to stay as small town as it can for as long as it can–but our superintendent is intent on changing this.  However, as I interviewed him for my first blog, I thought I could branch out and seek people who, under his instruction, have headed up our efforts in other areas of social media. Now, I am not trying to imply that our district has made leaps and bounds in this department, nor even a hop and skip–more like baby steps–but we are advancing our progress into the realm of Facebook; we are not wanting to rush anything. So, in this blog post, I am going to show parts of two interviews.

Toward a More Meaningful Use of Social Media

How does one go about communicating promise and possibility to its students?  How does one motivate donors to give generously in order to support these students?  How is diversity not only welcomed, but celebrated?  It took a website redesign to answer these questions more effectively.  The newer, better College of Lake County (CLC) website was launched in July 2014 in time for its 45^th birthday last Thursday, September 25^th.  It has come a long way since its start in 1967 when it opened its doors to 2,360 students paying tuition of seven dollars per credit hour.  Forty-five years later, it now welcomes over 16,000 students from across the Chicagoland area and has an even wider reach through its online classes.

Social Media Usage in Organizations

In today’s world we are so overloaded with information, images, and rhetoric that we have become desensitized to it. Our attention spans are extremely shortened because we are so used to having instant gratification. We know there will be something else to come along that will be vying for our attention. For these reasons, it is extremely important that what we put out in the virtual universe is what we intend. This means, in business, we need to educate ourselves in order to effectively utilize social media sites to ensure that we are having the effect on the public that we want.

Because social media is so important for public perception and awareness of our organization, we have to take into consideration the power that social media has. Helene Solomon, author of Social Media for Non-Profits states that “social media create opportunities far beyond brand awareness and advocacy; social media recruit volunteers and yield real-world, actionable results”.  With this in mind, it is crucial that our posts are well-thought out instead of haphazardly constructed and left for our social media followers to misinterpret. We need to be very clear with our messaging the first time around.

Social Media Abounds

 “Social media has increased the ability to communicate exponentially, in new and more immediate ways.” – George Rimalower

 

For this week’s blog, I returned to one of the most successful bloggers online today, Tim Leffel of cheapestdestinationsblog.com. While he is a huge supporter of online, digital publication and believes “We are clearly in a transition phase right now with media and there are two sides to the story.” He is also mourning the loss of the way things have traditionally been done for many years. He continues, “On one hand the destruction side, where the print and network broadcast world we’ve known for more than half a century is crumbling down around us…Some see a threat in this transition, others see a huge opportunity” (Leffel 87).