The annual conference of AEJMC, the journalism educators’ association, is where I go to reconnect and recharge with colleagues and friends about teaching and research — the twin backbones of college professordom.
My takeaways:
1. Social media isn’t going away, and those who don’t embrace it are doomed to irrelevance. Just because it’s not the media interaction we grew up with doesn’t mean it’s not the present and future.
2. At the same time, as West Virginia professor Bob Britten said on a panel, social media is both the “big, new thing” and the “last, old thing.” It’s a tool, one that our students and current professionals should embrace to do their jobs better.
3. Though it’s the ”big, new thing,” we sure don’t know that much about social media. Researchers and practitioners are making it up as we go along, doing the best we can to apply old modes of thinking to the new tools. It’s a long transition. We need more study of the field, more collaboration on addressing and understanding the challenges of social media.
4. Somebody, and I’m looking at me here, needs to write a book about social media and the law. The implication of current cases and issues on jurisprudence, legislation and regulation of social media outlets must be addressed. We need a sense of best practices to take advantage of the best parts of social media tools while avoiding the potential pitfalls they bring. What are the limitations on copyright? Should the Communications Decency Act be revised to avoid shielding sites that actively encourage anonymous sliming of people? In journalism education, what can we do to coach responsible, legal, ethical use of social media without severely cramping the way our students learn and write?
Thank goodness I’m surrounded by amazing colleagues who get this and are interested in researching it.
5. I wish I had more time to actually pull off all of the research ideas I get at the AEJMC conference. I came up with about a half dozen that I’d love to do, if time permits. Maybe two this fall — best practices for developing social media policies, and researching the way the Civil Rights Act has been used by people who assert violations of the free speech/press provisions of the First Amendment — if I’m lucky. Plus a book proposal on social media and the law. Plus clearing my desk of other research articles that need to get out to publishers.
All I need is a legion of minions (I mean, um, research assistants), and it will all get done…
