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No longer ‘new
media’:
Journalism education and social media
‘Blogs bother me’
Social media, journalism and the curriculum
A paper for WJEC, Grahamstown, South Africa, July 2010
Martin Hirst & Greg TreadwellSchool of Communication Studies, AUT University
What are the issues
Our students are “digital natives” (Prensky 2001) and described as “Millennials” (those born between 1982 and 2002)
Who are they and how do they learn?
Do they have the digital media skills that make them “naturally” inclined towards journalism?
What should we be “teaching” them to best develop their skills?
How and why do we do it?
Greenberg & Weber, 2008
New Media Journalism
@ AUTIntroduced at AUT in 1997, in response to the migration of news to the net
Journalism Technology Workshop first new media course taught at a New Zealand university
in 2000 became NMJ
from 2000—2008 underwent several metamorphoses as the use of the Internet by news organisations developed
40-50 students a mix of journalism majors and those taking journalism as a minor
reasonably wide gap in skill sets.
NMJ – the futureCurrent Curriculum
Retains html-based web page assignment
Greater variety in news assignments, including emphasis on video
Retains theory-essay component
Future Curriculum
Maintain theory-practice linkages
Perhaps move away from html to php (drupal, etc)
Greater emphasis on multimedia and non-linear story-telling
Introduce social media tools in a systematic way
Where are thestudents @?
Before we make significant changes we felt it important to engage with students and establish their levels of competence and comfort with social media tools
Survey of journalism students across New Zealand(n=359) 105 responses (29%)
Certificate (L4) 54
National Diploma (L6) 95
Degree (L7) 80
Graduate Diploma (L7) 40
Post Grad Diploma (L8-9) 30
Survey demographics
17-19 20-22 23-26 Older than 27
Male 19.3% 32.3% 32.3% 16.1%
Female 23% 50% 13.5% 13.5%
The demographic data from 105 respondents clearly shows that the vast majority—83.9% of males and 86.5% of females—are “Millennials” ©fastcompany.com
The MillennialsWho they are
Ethnically diverse
Well educated
Self-aware & Optimistic
Smart about technology
Embracing mobile media
How they learn
Like using technology
Results more important than facts
Enjoy multi-tasking
Demand immediacy and gratification
Millennials are "profoundly shaped by, and comfortable with, the new technologies that connect people with the world electronically.”
Greenberg & Weber 2008, Generation We, p.24
Oblinger, 2003
Millennial J students
they understand “intuitively” how to tailor messages to particular audiences
they value “truth and accuracy” and have the “ability to recognise both”
they may nod at our wise pronouncements from the front of the lecture hall, but they will also know that our words are (for the most part) “historical artifacts of a pre-Web culture, leftovers from how things used to be”
(Dianne Lynch, 2007, pp. 61-62)
Testing the mythology
Email accountsHow many accounts?
Male Female
One 22.6% (7)
16.2% (12)
Two 29% (9) 41.9% (31)
Three 6.5% (2) 31.1% (23)
Four + 12.9% (4)
10.8% (8)
How often checked
Daily Number
Once 12.4% (13)
Twice 18.1% (19)
Three 37.1% (39)
Hourly 21% (22)
More 11.4% (12)
One for personal use, one for "junk" ie facebook notifications that would clog up my normal email, one for work and one for school.
(Respondent 56 /M 17-19yo)Old hotmail hardly used but where I get businesses I sign up for to send their annoying emails, personal gmail account and school microsoft outlook account. I also treat facebook as am email account.
Respondent 39 /F 27-30yo)
Social Media Accounts
Do you have a Facebook profile?
Males Females
83.9% 98.6%
Other social mediaAccount Males Females
Flickr 6.5% 17.6%
Bebo 25.8% 25.7%
MySpace 19.4% 18.9%
YouTube 48.4% 32.4%
Google Wave
3.2% (1)
6.8% (5)
Bookmarking
19.4% 16.2%
Other 9.7% 4.1%Clearly, Facebook is the dominant social media application. YouTube is a distant secondMost uploading is to social network sites
FacebookWhat use?
Activity Male Female
Friends 38.3% (23)
35.6% (69)
Social activity
28.3% (17)
26.8% (52)
Story contacts
20% (12)
19.1% (37)
Meeting randoms
1.7% (1) 3.6% (7)
News 11.7% (7)
14.9 (29)
How much time?
Daily Male Female
<1 hour 46.2% (12)
31.5% (23)
1—2 hours
46.2% (12)
47.9% (35)
2—4 hours
7.7% (2) 11% (8)
4—6 hours
0 6.8% (5)
> 6 hours
0 2.7% (2)
I generally just stalk my facebook friends and see what they've been up to rather than contacting them. I also use it to try and contact sources if I am having trouble via phone or email. (Respondent 74: M/31-35)
YouTube
Why I use YouTubeActivity Males Female
s
Friends 0 14.3% (4)
Meeting randoms
0 14.3% (4)
Contacts
0 10.7% (3)
News 100% (3)
60.7% (17)
How long on YouTube
Males Females
< 1 hour
76.9% (10)
69.2% (18)
1—2 hours
23.1% (3)
23.1% (6)
Facebook and Youtube are the only ones that I frequent daily.
(Respondent 19: M/23-26yo)
Maybe one to two hours but not at the same time, I'll flick on several times a day for a couple of minutes. (Respondent 75: F/20-22yo)
Use of Twitter
How long
Males Females
Less than 1 year
72.8% 67.8%
More than 1 year
18.2% (2)
22.6% (7)
More than 2 years
9.1% (1) 9.7% (3)
More than 3 years
0 0
13 of 34 males had Twitter accounts (41.9%)35 out of 71 females have Twitter accounts (47.3%)
…signed up to Twitter because I thought I should be up to date…but have only used it once in six months
I primarily use Twitter as a news source…but I don’t do tweets myself
Simply to follow others, I don’t update my account
I have del.icio.us, Twitter and Flickr accounts because they were course requirements
‘blogs bother me’
Do you visit blogs?
Male Female
YES 48.3% (14)
40.3 (25)
NO 51.7% (15)
59.7% (37)
Do you blog?
Male Female
YES 10.7% (3)
13.3% (8)
NO 89.3% (25)
86.7% (52)It’s basically just a place to vent…I blog under an alias
(Respondent 101 /F)
I decided it was too public and pointless to make it private (Respondent 72 /F)
I don't update the blog regularly; I keep it to publish my poetry and stories (Respondent 50 /F)
“Blogs bother me. I read online newspaper columns, but not blogs.” (Respondent 19: M/23-26)
What the data says
Online Skills
YES NO
Multiple identities ✔
Tailoring messages
✔
Information junkies
✔ ✔
Multi-taskers ✔
Learning new apps
✔ ✔
Produsers ✔
Our digital natives are good social networkers
They are mostly able to manage multiple identities
Their commitment to social media is fickle
They consume at a high rate, but do not produce much (if any) news-like content outside course-work
What are we doing?
Still working out the balance of skills teaching
What software or platforms do we need? Web publication Sound and image recording and manipulation Social media as journalistic tools
Digital story-telling
Online learning and engagement E-learning software Values Exchange
Global City Project
Collaborative project with Ryerson University (Toronto) and Napier University (Edinburgh) Internationalisation of the journalism curriculum Peer-to-peer learning in a cross-cultural
environment Developing critical thinking and collaborative skills
Journalism and broadcasting students will be encouraged to collaborate on the production of a web-based news product – provisionally called Global City Desk – that will showcase their work around a set of agreed themes and story projects broadly encompassing “the global city”.
