Happy New Year everyone! I’m currently writing an article on how social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) are changing universities. I’m interested in how academic research, teaching, and service, as well as the administration, admissions, and other aspects of university life are being reconfigured (or not) in light of these new technologies. I’d like to open up a conversation and see if anyone has empirical or conjectural thoughts on this. Please let me know, as I’d like to cite others’ experiences or ideas if possible.
If it helps, I’m adapting McLuhan’s “tetrad” to interrogate this within the university context: What do social media enhance or intensify in universities? What do social media render obsolete or displace? What do social media retrieve that was previously obsolesced? What do social media produce or become when pressed to an extreme? – Don Waisanen
Comments 4
Kenneth M. Kambara — January 2, 2010
Great post. I'll forward to you and Andrew (and whoever else is interested) an e-mail where I was brainstorming on the effects of social media on the future of teaching/pedagogy for ASA. This post made me think of the institution as a whole, including research and service, as well as how these are interrelated with the advent of Web 2.0 and its successors.
First off, I'd love for us to do some kind of symposium on this very topic, where we can get several of us to chime in and riff off of each other, both synchronously (videoconf) and asynchronously (blog).
I've been contemplating what the implications are for social media with respect to non-profits in philanthropic health, across functions: fundraising/development, advocacy, outreach, service provision, constituent support, etc. Conversations about social media must start with what the objectives are, org. wide and in the specific functional areas (and/or geographic regions). So, getting back to universities, I think the implications for social media are going to cluster in more or less common configurations, depending on the type of university and its size. Given that, I see our old Bourdieuean friends, doxa, habitus, field, etc. giving us clues, along with status and embeddedness.
I wonder how much of the implications of the tetrad is dependent on org. cultures (or do you think the contextual factors aren't that salient?). I also wonder about the scalability of social media in given contexts (20 users versus 200 or 2000), the reconfiguration of workflows, and the temporal dimension (in terms of how long it takes for technology to transform org. cultures and processes). Sorry for the minddump.
Cheers & Happy New Year!
angela — January 3, 2010
No apologies for the minddump - it's good stuff! I, for one, would be very interested in your brainstorming email if you're still willing to share it.
Jacob Kobi Gamliel — January 7, 2010
Great Post,
These days we have pilot with 5 universities in Israel. We are working closely with Alumni department and Marketing department to create a solid social interaction with student and potential students. The intense work with the academic institutions is something very interesting that create a new dialog with students, alumni and potential students.
Will be more than happy to interact with this research and provide more input
@iPolitics