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UGA South Campus Colleges Try Social Media

2009-11-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

South Campus colleges have hopped on the Facebook bandwagon, but they may be missing out on some key new technologies to get information to current and potential students on-the-go.

Currently, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources are using Facebook to connect with the over 50 percent of all adults in the U.S. that now have a social media profile.

CAES holds two Facebook accounts created in 2008. "Ag Alum" was created to connect with one of the largest growing segments of new Facebook users-middle-aged adults. Its are primarily focused on promoting alumni events. The second account, named "Conner Hall" focuses more on posting photos, events, job and internship opportunities and study abroad programs for students.

FACS and Warnell also run Facebook accounts with a similar function, titled "UGA FACS Alumni" and "UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources."

With the recent redevelopment of Warnell's website, some new "web 2.0" features have emerged, including instructors' webinar videos, a Skype account to talk with potential students, and integrated RSS feeds on most of their pages to allow subscribers to keep up-to-date with new information added to the website.

Many of these features could be added to the rest of the South Campus websites, and the use of Facebook could be displayed more publicly on home pages and student pages to gain friends and fans.

As university students use social media on a daily or even hourly basis, using new forms of digital connectivity could allow South Campus to reach more potential students. Social media also provides a different experience than reading a brochure or pamphlet. It allows the reader to respond and interact with the organization. Having a two-way conversation is crucial in making students feel like a part of something.

The current trend of social media is towards a faster-paced and more open discussion. On this aspect, South Campus still has potential to grow. The buzzword today is Twitter. Although many people think it's just about keeping track of when your friend eats a PB&J or watches Twilight for the 38th time, Twitter also allows users to stay current with a constant display of tweets by organizations of interest, news sources, and much more.

Laura Ledgerwood of the UGA Career Center makes perfect use of the tool. She tweets potential jobs "full-time, part-time, and internship positions" relevant to agriculture and environmental majors @UGAAgGreenJobs. The South Campus colleges could use Twitter in a similar fashion to spread news and event information quickly.

From hosting professors' blogs about their research to including short student films shot around UGA, South Campus has a lot of room to grow in the transition to web 2.0.

A Perspective on the Power of New Media

2009-11-23T09:18:00.001-08:00

Just to preface this post-- I am definitely no expert on the subject matter but I do find all of this very interesting. So I'm just going to throw out some various ideas i've been thinking about in regard to media, the spread of information, and government transparency.

What spurred all of this thought on media? Scientology.

I've been reading the crazy battle between Scientology and the group "Anonymous." If you haven't been filled in on this whole thing here's a quick intro:

"Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986), starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics.[1] Hubbard characterized Scientology as a religion, and in 1953 incorporated the Church of Scientology in New Jersey." [read the full wikipedia article]

"Project Chanology (also called Operation Chanology[1]) is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous. The project was started in response to the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove material from a highly publicized interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008." [read the full wikipedia article]

What I've found so fascinating about all of this is that the battle all started on the internet.

Originally Anonymous fought back by spreading a video against Scientology by posting it on YouTube January 21, 2008. From then on it has been a down-right war.

Of course it has been a struggle between the two groups, but also a battle of traditional, word of mouth, celebrity-spread advertising and against society's self-made beast--social media and the spread of information on the internet. Leaving all of the crazy hacking DDOS attacks, blackmails, protests, and tax evasions out of it, the can of worms that has been opened called the internet has proven to be a very powerful and unstoppable tool.

Really. How can you stop a constant archiving force of opinions and postings on forums and blogs, sharing of videos on Facebook and Twitter, wikipedia and the Wayback machine archiving it all?

And thus, this idea brings me to my point. The internet and this vast network of connecting technologies through phones and cameras and constant updates has morphed into a virtual version of what Eisenhower envisioned after signing the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956--an interstate of information, no matter if one section goes down, the information can still spread and function, no matter if one computer stops working here, there are others, a vast network of constant connection and record that make it almost impossible to edit history. A smart-grid of information.

In regard to news and media, unless you've been under a rock for the past few years, we've been watching a new emerging trend of "I-reporting" as deemed by CNN or "citizen reporting" as a general term. People witness events around the world, record them with their small, transportable cameras and phones, and upload them online, send them to friends, and now hand them over to the big boys on the cable networks for them to instantly retell the story firsthand.

Some famous examples of these media phenomena include "Don't taze me bro", and Saddam Hussein's execution (a bit graphic, watch at your own risk) among many others.

The creation of a rapid and established information network has suddenly transformed from an entertainment source to a vital facet of our society's want for honest politics, business, and news. It's a "transparency tool" to reveal events in their raw form which companies or governments may not want spread to the masses.

With all of this said, it surely won't be long until another Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter emerges and acts as a game-changer in the way we share and spread information across the globe. Although many may see the internet as having a dangerous potential in turning us into media fiends and web junkies, I think it holds the solution that we've been looking for to allow the curious to no longer be hindered by societally-banished topics or questions and ultimately open our society to stop being so closed up about everything.

On Twitter

2009-10-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

When I first heard the term, I thought--well how useful could microblogging really be? I don't think that I'm alone in this initial impression. Does it really matter that your friend Dave just took a shower or your mom is on her way to her favorite restaurant? Not really. But I think we have to look to the trending phenomena of the day to understand just how much potential this has in it.

As most anyone with a cell phone knows, we've started to move away from longer, less frequent calls to shorter and more frequent text messages. With so many messages per month or many with unlimited plans, it just makes sense that when you see someone slip on a banana peel in the parking lot or you want to send out a general reminder to group members about a meeting... you text it. A little, insignificant reminder, anecdote or question that can be sent rapidly and without all of the fluff that goes into placing a call. Also, your chances of taking a text message at work or in class are a lot higher than a drawn out conversation. Texting is generally easier, faster, more frequent, and most especially, casual.

Even writing this blog post takes time that I could otherwise be studying for my journalism lab writing quiz or my microeconomics test. But a simple and sweet message sent to Twitter can ease my mind, get the word out, and most importantly save me minutes if not hours of thought and editing.

So, yeah, yeah. The same old story. Life is moving faster and we're using technology to do it. Everyone says this. We'll aside from the fact that it is changing our lives a bit in the present and future. I would like to point out what it is simultaneously doing to our society as well.

Tweeting, texting, emailing, messaging, and searching... the world's thoughts, feelings, opinions, and ideas are constantly being written, transmitted, and stored. Beforehand, the effort to post your thoughts and feelings on a blog were much greater. You required an account, logging in, making a title, writing your story and then posting it. Most people wouldn't ever set foot on your page especially if you were just griping about your math test. Suddenly, sites with the purpose to gripe about your day and hurdle comments about Kanye began. All you need is an account and thoughts of less than 140 characters to say it.

Effectively, what twitter has created is an advanced method of tracking current waves of thought and emotion that surface while simultaneously spreading new information and seeking new opinions as it does so. It is as simple as trending topics (TT). Tracking and understanding these emotions has potential. They could help us foresee what is going to bubble next in the international conversation or what new trend may emerge--the opinion of the UK on our new stance in Afghanistan or the American opinion on the taste of veggie hot dogs.

Also, on the historical side, Twitter is creating a historical record of how opinion behaves from start to finish in the general public. By examining how the company handled a crisis, how the government distributed its message, and how a non-profit was able to spur interest in fundraising, one could correlate the data and truly measure the effectiveness of different advertising, marketing, and PR techniques as they occur.

No longer is it a rough correlation study from various campaigns to number of sales. Now you can see instantly how many clicks, how many responses, what the opinion is and how to manipulate it. For better or for worse.

It won't be long until a majority of cell phone users are holding a smart phone, tweeting or something of the like while concurrently archiving their lives, thoughts, and opinions. Technology never ceases to amaze me. And the power of finding a global consciousness through correlation data and archiving a minute by minute world history can open up so many new possibilities for information and research.

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Here are some interesting sites which have started to harness some of the valuable information from correlation data and put it into a usable form.

http://www.google.com/trends
http://www.google.com/flutrends
http://www.harpers.org/index/
http://www.trendingtopics.org/
http://whatthetrend.com/
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Mark Smith is a senior undergraduate at the University of Georgia studying Agricultural Communication.

Contact

2008-10-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

Mark A. Smith
678-223-3356
thismarksmith@gmail.com
http://www.thismarksmith.com