Tech Talk 2012

Incorporating Social Media in Journalism Instruction

Michelle Carr HasslerCollege of Journalism and Mass Communicationsmhassler3@unl.edu

Social media/tech tools

• Twitter• RSS• Social bookmarking• Organization – Dropbox & GoogleDocs• Multimedia class blog, which offers resources

and a place where students post story pitches• Jing for providing audio feedback

Twitter use

More than 175 million users.Up from 58 million in 2009.Adding 370,000 a day!

How journalists use it

• Engage audiences, create community.• Connect with people, sources.• Develop personal brands. • Link to their work.• Crowd source content.• Get questions answered.• Provide real time news.

How students can use it

• Following leaders in industry and the academy. Staying current.

• Connect and network with professionals or other students.

• Research and find sources.• Collaborate.• Study it as a way to distribute news.• Practice distributing news through Twitter.

Research

• Many intelligent people are tweeting and willing to share their ideas.

• Insight into the “social” aspects of communication.

• Gain background for interviewing or writing• Verify information• Develop story ideas

Twitter as a news source

• News travels fast.• Osama bin Laden’s death: 12.4 million tweets

an hour.• Sense of immediacy.

Live tweet assignmentfor capstone multimedia journalism course

• Students have to select an event or speech to cover live by tweeting about it on the college’s news site Twitter account.

• After tweeting the story, they have to write a follow-up story and post that to the college’s news website.

• Booklet with live tweet assignment • Rubric for live tweet assignment

How it worked

• Real world examples• Practice assignment• Targeted types of stories• Other reporting tools -- RSS

Live tweeting principles

• Live twitter stream is considered a story – it needs a beginning, middle and end.

• Use a hashtag. Automatically groups tweets identified with that hashtag, making topic search easy.

• How to demonstrate hashtags:– Twitterfall– Hootsuite

Live tweeting principles

• Each tweet should cover one point at a time.• Think subjects, verbs (like headlines).• Strive to make each an understandable, self-

contained message. • Be a careful observer and have an eye open

for novel and important information that might be relevant to your audience.

Live tweeting tips

• Use good grammar.• Punctuate for clarity.• Always be professional.• Avoid using exclamation points, emoticons,

jargon and slang (including LOL)

Ethics still apply

• Verify before you Tweet.• Admit what you don’t know.• Credit what you’re using. • Remember it’s public.• Tweets can be libelous.

What didn’t work

• Follow-ups were tricky• Mechanical errors• Photos were weak • Logistics failed at times

Why it matters

• They learn social media tools

• They use mobile tools

• They learn to be discerning

• They learn power of immediacy

How it can be used in other classes

• Editing practice: Mimics headlines • Reporting: Reinforces basics• Great way to practice brevity and clarity in any

type of writing writing

How can be used in other classes

• Study new narrative forms• Tweet a day – a running diary; followed by a

compilation or a new perspective• Fiction writing via Twitter– Writing very short fiction is not new. Ernest

Hemingway once wrote the following six-word story:

– “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Twitter: A research and reporting tool

• Brain picking– Muck Rack is compiled of real-time Twitter activity by journalists. – Top 50 creative writers on Twitter.– Connect with writers, editors, publishers on Twitter– We Follow – theology; politics– Twitter lists

• To help with reporting and/or research by– Quickly learning about the topic and staying current – News21

food safety project.– Finding sources– Developing story ideas and paper topics

Hashtags

• Study the ways communities communicate• Pulse on communities– #LNK– #UNL– #OMA– #immigration

Other Twitter resources

• Mashable’s guide • Twitter for Journalists• 20 Tips for Journalists• 10,000 WordsTwitter etiquette• 10 commandments Twitter for newsrooms• #TfN

Learning about a topic and staying current

• RSS readers help you quickly get up to speed on a subject

• It pushes information to you and is a one-stop shop for– Blogs– Web sites– Searches– Twitter feeds

RSS Readers

• Google Reader– My Google Reader

Social bookmarking

– Keep online documents organized and have quick access to them

– Offer a streamlined way to collaborate and share information – you don’t have to e-mail separate links

– Help with discovery by allowing you to search the bookmarks of others interested in the topic

Social bookmarking

• Delicious

Using social media digital tools

• Digital tools links• Michelle’s multimedia course blog