This week, I’ve had a rather intensive learning experience about social media in its various incarnations: blogs, wikis, podcasts, vidcasts, microblogs, link sharing, etc. As a web developer in higher education I was already familiar with these mediums as marketing and communication tools. This past week, however, I developed a much greater understanding of how it has affected society and why. Perhaps more importantly, I gained insight into the possible ways it will impact the future. Gone are the days when people will sit back and accept the materials thrown at them from the mass media. They now demand the chance to create their own media and, often, anticipate that it will result in conversations with others.
Education
I do not have a background in education, so my ideas on how it could affect education were limited. I had an understanding of how podcasts and vidcasts could be used as effective vehicles to educate; they allow people to tune-in wherever and whenever, and more critical for today’s lifestyles, while they are engaged in another activity. However, after learning what is being done in the classroom with mobile devices, I realized my conception was quite nominal.
The faculty of Abilene Christian University have been experimenting with the use of mobile technology in the classroom. My place of work was the fortunate benefactor of a visit from George Saltsman, executive director of their center for the use of mobile technology in the classroom. Mr. Saltsman readily shared some of the results they have thus far obtained. One astounding outcome of the use of social media in education they noticed was that it has the ability to invert the current classroom model: the lecture becomes a podcast, listened to outside the class – the “homework.” This then frees the in-class time to be used for practical applications of the theory learned in the lecture. The possibilities for this are exciting – imagine having twice as much time to learn to solve complex math problems, to program or use computer software, or to draw, paint, or act with the faculty member there to offer assistance! I have to imagine that this will, in turn, require that the methods teachers use in classrooms to be redeveloped.
Teaching communication skills
The use of these tools becoming the norm will require communication -- reading, writing, etc. -- be taught differently or, at least, with additional components. Will Richardson, author of the blog Weblogged and the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, explains that we now need to teach “children how to talk with groups, rather than one on one.” This type of communication, which he calls “connective writing and reading” involves teaching to communicate with the purpose to connect to other people – publishing material with the expectation that others will change it, teaching the nuances in the ways we write in these places, the use of audio and video, etc. Any social media specialist will tell you that social media spaces have a language style and set of rules that can, with the viral way that information can now spread, have disastrous consequences if broken. (It is, therefore, important to educate adults to communicate this way as well. As old habits die hard, it follows that this will be much more difficult.)
Writing is not the only skill that will need tweaking. As Will Richardson, Elizabeth Kirk, and many others have pointed out, it has become critical to teach people to become active readers. Social media has given the everyone the ability to publish materials, but these materials are not subject to the rigors of the traditional editing process .Individuals need to learn to question the credibility of any material they view as opposed to passively accepting it as the truth.
Self censorship is another new topic which needs coverage. With organizations using Facebook, etc., to do background checks on prospective employees, it becomes critical that individuals censor what they put online. Especially since, thanks to tools like Google cache, what someone posts online is their forever.
Shifting of control
Perhaps the biggest change social media has brought is the shift in message control from the organization to the public and the shifting of power that occurs with that. A single blogger can substantially affect an organization:
Most organizations have finally accepted that control has been lost, however, they are struggling to recreate their messages accordingly. They struggle with the notion that censorship is no longer a valid tool for use and the demand for transparency. It isn’t all bad though. Social media, when used properly can be a very effective marketing tool. Remember the Will It Blend campaign?
Copyright and intellectual property
The popular Menthos and Diet Coke YouTube initiative became another successful social media campaign, however, its conception brings to light another problem inherent with social media. Noted by both Will Richardson in his YouTube presentation Read/Write Web and Shiguru Miyagawa of MIT in his iTunes U podcast on Personal Media (Miyagawa, 2001), that the issues of copyright, plagiarism, intellectual property, etc., will all need to be revisited. New tools make it easy to incorporate the work of others into ones own. In addition, with the collaborative capabilities social media brings, it may be difficult to discern one person’s contribution from another's (think about Wikipedia). The Center for Social Media released a fair use in online video guide in May 2009. However, they acknowledge that it is an incomplete work. It often takes a number of years for laws to catch up with technology, the complete solution to this problem is yet to come.
In the end
In all of the presentations and materials I was exposed to this week, there was one running theme: that changing in communications technologies lead to changes in society. The use of social media has become mainstream faster than any new communications technology. How “the wisdom of crowds” impact on society will continue to be seen. It will be a very exciting time to be a media psychologist!
Reference
Miyagawa, S. (Fall 2001). Personal Media. MIT Open Courseware. Available Online at iTunes University.
