As you may know I lead a Masters Degree in Social Media. Often, some wag will say ‘is that just about learning how to use twitter then?’. I get less of it now than I used to but it’s a tad tiresome nonetheless. So, I thought I’d post up some content to give a glimpse of the kind of thing we do cover.
We have a distance learning version of the course running for the first time this year, the content for which comes through the university’s virtual learning environment (we use Moodle) but also via a podcast channel. So the video below is also an example of the kind of content that distance learners will get. Sometimes it’ll be bite-sized and recorded from Dave’s lounge; other times it’ll be a longer recording of a lecture given in class.
The video I’m sharing is about a couple of tricky readings I had given the students. One was from Joss Hands, the other, Chris Atton. To support the students I created this short video of me going through a mindmap of the readings. In class we’d had talks from Nick Booth and Noha Atef so at times it tries to relate the concepts in the readings to their talks.
But the main reason to share this is to make it clear that we don’t talk about how to use twitter, we talk about marxism, about cultural studies, about becoming ‘scholarly practitioners‘:
As an aside I got a nice tweet back from one the authors, Joss Hands, when I shared the video with him.
an interesting post. i think the course provides understanding and reason both for practitioners and academics. those who wish to develop careers in fields that require social media skills can gain a competitive advantage over their peers by studying the importance of social media in the modern idiom. potential marketeers, online enterpreneurs and others can improve their skill set in the classroom. conversely, those who wish to gain a greater intellectual understanding the rise of the internet, the digital revolution and the growing importance of web-based practice can also benefit. there is an opportunity to learn new theories, synthesise academic ideas and debate such topics as whether the internet is simply part of a larger capitalist movement (i agree with dave, it is). an exceptional course, for all with an interest in online developments.
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