MAC250: Class of '08

Hard to believe that this is the last session of 250. We have covered a lot of ground, gained some new skills, and have been challenged to rethink our notions of PR and journalism. As you know, this is the second time we have run 250 and the difference in content between what seemed appropriate in Semester 1 of 2006/7 and S2 of 2007/8 has been considerable. No doubt it will change again as 250 evolves into the 20 credit MAC299 that will begin in January 09 - thanks for all your contributions which have helped shape that new incarnation.

It is worth taking a few minutes to think about what we gained from MAC250 - please add your comments.

For me, one of the most interesting aspects has been thinking about wikis - both in the context of the essay title which invited you to think about accuracy, truth and authenticity, and Wikipedia as a platform for evolving news stories. Let's watch a 'video' of how the entry for the London 7/7 bombings grew and mutated... (It's a big download, but I found it here). The 250 wiki will live on after the module - feel free to keep contributing.

We have talked qute a bit about the implications of social media for personal privacy... here's another take.... two people's idea of the Google Masterplan.

Crystal ball gazing is always risky, particualrly in social media, but it is reasonable to sugegst that one of the factors shaping its evolution will be the increase power, usability and affordability of what we still call mobile phones. How much impact will the emergence of robust, functional handhelds change news delivery and reputation management?

As the first 250 drew to a close, chatter about Second Life was dominating the blogosphere - has it come and gone?

There is no doubt that the big talking point today is Twitter. If you don't Tweet, here's an introduction ....

Now let's have a look at what Paul Bradhaw has to say about Twitter on his Online Journalism blog....

(Before you click, think about the implications of your lecturer so casually urging you to follow a class given by a colleague at another (rival) institution.... And think about why Paul has taken the decision to make his work public...).

Let's end the module by looking again at you have achieved....

Hope you have had fun...... It would be good to think some of you might pick up some of these ideas in 393, 395 or 390.

One of the most exciting and most challenging features of the online world is that suddenly everyone (potentially) has a voice. In theory, your own blogs can be read by anyone on the planet who has access to a computer and to the internet. Is this a good thing?

PR students doing MAC264 this week looked at Marketplace Theory, which suggests that if everyone can contribute equally to debate then truth will out. We need to think about the implications of this 'flat' hierarchy of knowledge - do we believe in the 'wisdom of crowds'? Or do we believe the public sphere is debased by the offering a platform to a myriad of ill-informed voices...

How open, how accessible is the blogosphere? Can 'anyone' contribute? What are the limitations?

Even if this is true, is it a good thing? And if not, what could or should be done to restrict access?

Traditional 'dead tree' publishing - newspapers and magazines - has taken place in a relatively structured and controlled environment. At its most fundamental level, publishers become aware of the law, not least laws governing defamation, and the collective nature of publishing, combined with economics, create a culture of shared values - a news operation comes to know what is acceptable through a normative process. This does not necessarily happen in an environment of no/ low cost, individual publishing.

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You are on the Metro. Someone assault you. You have the technological ability to make this incident known to the world. What do you do?

Something similar happened to Jackie Danicki. Follow the debate through Mediations here here here here and here. Perhaps you can take the story beyond this (partial) conclusion

The core posts in this story (appear to) have some transparency. This is not always the case. A debate is beginning on PROpenMic about JuicyCampus, a site which makes a virtue of anonymity. Is this a good thing?

Key in the name of any organisation into Google and see how quickly you can find negative comment, and comment that would not be legally safe to publish in a 'traditonal' news outlet. It is not just disgruntled customers who are using such techniques - read about Troll Tracker. And think about the impact on Google rankings.

Next, think about the implications for personal privacy of this open and endlessly accessible world. Imagine you are a journalist, trying to collect background information on, say, a student involved in a newsworthy event. How would you have done this ten years ago? How would you do it now? (Journalism Class: go to WebCT and download the article, published in the British Journalism Review from Kim Fletcher, chair of the NCTJ: 'Why blogs are an open door'; and then also read views on the use of social media presence from the Virginia Tech massacre)

Spend a short time researching yourself. What would a prospective employer find? What would be their impression of the brand of you? What would a journalist find? Of this information, what would it be ethically acceptable to publish?

Have a look at the Social Media guidlines drawn up as an adjunct to the CIPR Code of Conduct. Is this necessary? Is it helpful?

To what extent do your own actions impact on the reputation of the University, or your employer? Are you aware of guidelines or limitations on what you might say? If you were an employer, how would you deal with an employee who set up a Facebook group that encouraged 'open' comment on your product or services. Find examples and discuss.

This week's class looks at the rise of 'citizen journalism' in relation to at least two of the essay questions (questions three and four in particular).

Citizen journalism is the process by which the group-formerly-known-as-the-audience plays an active role in news and information gathering, reporting, editing and dissemination. Topically, for essay question four, here's the definition from Wikipedia. It is the process by which people like you and me, outside of official media institutions (e.g. The Times, BBC), start up blogs, post images to Flickr and videos to Youtube, and begin to change the debate by providing access to stories that remain untold by those 'official media institutions'.

But even though the term 'citizen journalism' is barely out of its nappy, is it being replaced with the idea and ideal of 'networked journalism'? The idea of networked journalism focuses not on citizens replacing or sitting alongside journalists as the providers of news; rather, the future of journalism looks as if it is about the networks of citizens-and-journalists working together.

I'm pleased. One, because we all know what citizen journalism is, and I think networked journalism is more interesting and a more realistic snapshot of the future. How about you? I'm not the only one. The decision of the Press Gazette to launch its Citizen Journalism Awards drew a fair bit of criticism, for four key reasons:

Broadly, there are four objections to the term “citizen journalism”. One objects to the word “journalism”; another objects to the word “citizen”. In between are two objections that the common usage of the term does not overlap with its empirical reality. One says the use of the phrase is overbroad; the other says that it is too narrow.

Read more at the original article.

It's also more interesting for PR students, I'd argue, as the creation of the news agenda has always been about a network of journalists, editors, PR, marketers, business, audience, etc... Don't know enough...? Then here are a couple of posts on this topic that I'd like you to read prior to class on Friday:

Citizen-journalism start-ups are doomed by John Ndege, founder of Scribblesheet

Networked Journalism by Jeff Jarvis on Buzzmachine.com

Breaking news social media tool for journalists by Robert Hamman, BBC Blogs editor

And for the adventurous among you, I'd like you to go and read Sue Robinson's article in the October 2007 edition of Journalism Practice (which you can get through the library and your Athens account), entitled 'Someone's Gotta Be in Control Here'. In this article, she illustrates through interviews with 35 editors (in the US) that "the good reporters are going to be the ones who want to tell a story using all the tools available to them" - i.e., they are going to be the bloggers, the video creators, the podcasters. In other words, the successful journalists are going to be the ones that adopt the practices that we are calling 'citizen journalism'. As such, what I'd like to talk about is:

not that concerned citizens are becoming more like journalists; it is that journalists are becoming more like concerned citizens.

Citizen journalism is dead. Long live networked journalism.
Alex

Three weeks without lectures... so time to start thinking about your essay (questions on WebCT) and to really make progress with your blog!

You will instantly have opinions on the essay topics, but what frameworks, perspectives and paradigms will underpin your academic critique?

The obvious start point would be to examine social media as a technological advance - in the simplest terms, this might be to ask: What do we have now that we didn't have ten or 20 years ago? Is the impact of digital/internet comparable to the adoption of the fax machine? Or to the arrival and mass acceptance of TV and radio?

What are the implications in terms of reach, immediacy, interaction plus associated factors including aggregation, porosity and transparency? Define these terms.

Sociological approach - examination of communities and networks (Facebook, forums etc) - associated with power and (online) identity, self and personality (Giddens); Cavanagh, A (2007) Sociology in the Age of the Internet OUP

Collaboration, uses and gratification, user generated content - Shirky, C (2008) Here Comes Everybody.

How does social media change Political economy models - implications of 'universal' (is it???) access, level playing field; low entry threshold means anyone can have a voice.

Does this mean a greater plurality of voices - or is it still elites talking to elites (bloggers as a digital chattering class)?

What are the implications for Public Sphere (Habermas) and Social Space.

We might examine the transmission of messages: increased role of mediation; mass media to micromedia, implications of shared/ fragmented experience.

McQuail's Mass Communication Theory (2001:66) discusses perception of mediation roles - different ways media may connect us with reality

• as a window on events and experience, which extends our vision, enabling us to see for ourselves what is going on, without inetrefernce from others

•as a mirror of events in society and the world, implying a faithful reflection ... albeit the angle and direction of the mirror are decided by others and we are less free to see what we want

• as a filter or gatekeeper acting to select parts of experience for special attention and closing off other views and voices whether deliberately or not

• as a signpost, guide or interpreter, pointing the way and making sense of what is otherwise puzzling or fragmentary

• as an interlocutor or informed partner in conversation who not only passes on information but passes on information in a quasi-interactive way.

We could ask what implications does the advent of social media have for effects research tradition?...

McQuail (2000: 416) “... it makes little sense to speak of 'the media' as if they were one thing rather than the carriers of an enormously diverse set of messages, images and ideas. Most of this material does not originate with the media themselves but 'comes from society' and is 'sent back' to society by way of the media"

How is useful is this in the age of YouTube?

How does online challenge established concepts such as Framing effects (454) and Agenda-setting (455)?

Does the internet increase knowledge and understanding - search, discovery, foraging etc (Jennings, Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll 2007) or is it dumbing down (Cult of the Amateur etc?)

There's a really useful (if not very academic) overview in Cook and Hopkins Social Media white paper (see Resources page of 250 wiki).

If you choose to cite this in your essay Rob Jewitt suggests: Trevor Cook & Lee Hopkins, 2008, Social Media or "How we stopped worrying and learnt to love communication": Your organisation and web 2.0, Edition 3.0, white paper available at http://www.LeeHopkins.net/downloads/cook-hopkins-social-media-white-paper.pdf)

PR students will want to consider the impact of social media on Grunig Excellence models of PR (Young, 2006) Download file
- though we suggest you read Scoble and Israel's Naked Conversations first!

Journalism students in particular will be interested in the thoughts of former Mirror Group chief executive David Montgomery who has outlined a radical future for newspapers in which subeditors are redundant and publishers no longer own their own printing presses.

Montgomery, now executive chairman of European newspaper group Mecom, said newspaper bosses and their staff had to be more flexible in their working practices and how they generated income.

And now, if you are still awake, go to the Our Blogs page on the MAC250 wiki and let's see what you have been up to....

A good week for three bloggers in particular, winners of the Media Guardian Innovation Awards (Megas) for Independent Blogs.

Pete Ashton (createdinbirmingham.com) has created a site as reported in The Guardian that is “a digest of cultural events, brought to life by photos, audio and video clips”. Lovely, but nothing too exceptional, except that when you read the site, it makes you want to live in Birmingham. Which is worth a prize alone. How does it do this? What is both fundamental and simple about Pete’s blog?

Regine DeBatty originally thought “I’m a proper journalist, this [blogging] is for teenagers” – discuss. But her site we-make-money-not-art.com, which archives everything she can find about new media art, gets 35,000 unique users a day. More than many art magazines. Who’s proper now? To be honest, it feels more of a magazine than a blog – what does it feel like to you, and why? But in five years time, what will the difference be?

Last one, Vaughan Smith is a former soldier turned reporter, who set up fromthefrontline.co.uk to cover warzones from a different angle. An interesting thing I found out from Vaughan’s blog is that Wednesday was International Online Free Expression Day. Have you downloaded your updated version of the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents? If you want to know how to set up an anonymous proxy or hide your IP address when protesting, this is your guide.

What do you think are the commercial applications of these websites? How much of the individual’s income do you think comes from the site? How do they make money – for commissioned writing, or by Google Ads? Promotion?

There are a number of ways that commercial bloggers find employment. Big corporations have not been slow to pick up on the reach and influence of blogging. Take a look at the GM Blogs run by General Motors, talking about their new products. What’s the difference between a blog and the GM PR office in this case? Where do you think these writers sit?

The first NUJ recognised freelance blogger was admitted earlier this year. Conrad Quilty-Harper (even the double-barrelled can blog) writes for Engadget, the gadget blog.

But there have been plenty of people who’ve made their niche of the market as a blogger. Just look at the Shiny Media portfolio.

What we’ll do today (Friday 14th) is look through a real world example of a commercial application of blogging. And from there, you’ll look through a number of blogs of writers and journalists and marketing/PR professionals who are now starting to generate income from their influence as bloggers.

We'll look at Dean Whitbread, Ewan Spence, Lloyd Davis, Thayer Driver, Rachel Clarke, Mike Atherton and Christian

Of course, paid for blogging all needs to be above board and fully disclosed, as new laws from the European Union make clear. See you in class and good luck to Phil at Euroblog2008. [Alex]

Some of you will remember the Subservient Chicken from last year. As you will see, he is still going strong!

In fact, can learn more about the campaign by looking on Wikipedia... Read the entry, and think about who created it and how reliable a source it might be.

Now have a look at the entry for the University of Sunderland - is this a useful/ credible source? As a journalist, would you trust it? As a PR, would you be feel comfortable with the image it projects? Can you see dangers for reputation management?

Click on the history tab and see what you can discover about how the page has developed.

Now, follow a link to something you know a lot about - football club, home town, favourite band or film etc. How reliable a source is Wikipedia? Add your comments to this post.

I just looked at Manchester United - football excites strong passions but you may think what is remarkable is that the entry seems balanced and surprisingly free of critical comment. (There is an interesting article about deletion wars here... and a website devoted to Wikirage.

Now have a look at the About page.

For an informative and thought-provoking discussion of wikis read Ch5 of Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky (2008);

Wikipedia is certainly the most famous wiki - but they can be useful at a much more limited level. Let's watch a short video that tries to describe what a wiki is.

Can you think of ways in which wikis could be used in journalism? In public relations? Discuss...

PR students might remember the roomba vacuum from last year - and the roomba wiki.

Journalists might think about the 7/7 London bombings. Shirky p116: Within minutes of the bombs going off someone created a Wikipedia page "7 July 2005 London bombings". It began as five sentences and attributed the explosions to a power surge... The page received more than 1000 edits in its first four hours.

Have a look at the edits - a first draft of history (Is this Googlewhack Dave Gorman? One minute he is tidyin up entries on The Clash, next minute it is one of the the bggest news stories to hit London...).

Now let's try it ourselves.... welcome to the MAC250 wiki!

Finally, the library now has copies of Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll: How Digital Discovery Works and What it Means for Consumers, Creators and Culture, by David Jennings - well worth reading!

Well, Lisa Hogan, your comment made it onto Dave Lee’s journalism blog. After watching the ‘BBC Earthquake coverage’ video, most of the MAC250 class posted comments onto Dave Lee’s site; as did the head of editorial development at Sky, and Sky’s news presenter that night, Faye Barker. Our friend Dave over at Lincoln University might just have got some valuable newsroom work experience out of his citizen journalism (the term he uses when talking about the failure of the BBC to just get out there and cover the story).

And Jamie, Sean and Phil, your comments are still live on the Press Gazette post regarding the defamation of lecturers online. Good to see what you think ;-)

This posting and commenting across the web is an important part of the professional blogger’s toolbox and a good way to keep developing your voice. The task is new enough that its name hasn’t settled down yet, but head of the UK Podcasting Association and blogger Dean Whitbread calls it ‘lateral blogging’. While much of what you do will be vertical blogging (that is, writing in one place, vertically, down the page) the role as a professional blogger also means writing laterally, across the web. It is, after all, about connectivity. And to encourage the practice, why don’t you comment here on how you feel the exercises went?

The MAC250 PR students sent through their thoughts about their voice at the end of the class:

I want my voice to be enthusiastic, motivating and opinionated. Having all these values i want my voice to be edgy, entertaining and most off all FUN!

I want my voice to be an extreme mix of the informative and the humorous, to entertain people and to change or provoke opinion.

I want people to know that my voice is honest. I won’t lie and if you don’t like what I have to say, well, I won’t care.

I want people to worship my blogging voice!

Can you tell who said what?

And the MAC250 Journalism students created Twitter accounts and posted their thoughts about voice there – it makes a difference when doing it for real, online, when people could be listening. And who is? You can follow your Twitter Karma and see who’s following you.

In this session (both taken with Alex, 9am and 1pm) we’re going to look at developing voice. The outcomes of this session should be:

1. That as a group, we can talk together about what makes for a strong blogging voice

2. That individually you all have an idea of what you want your voice to be, and how you are going to develop that voice on your MAC250 blog

We’ll take a look around some sites, but to begin with I want you to think about this. Wired (http://www.wired.com), the online magazine, published its ‘Ten Usage Principles’ for writing for its site, including its blogs (http://blog.wired.com/underwire/). They’re not online any longer because they’re now sold in book form! The first three are useful for thinking about your own voice:

1. ‘The medium matters’ ... In a world of scarce bandwidth, small screens, and evermore media sources competing for our attention, every word and sentence must score a high noise-to-signal ratio

2. ‘Play with voice’ ... There should be linguistic inventiveness, creativity, play, in the form of new words and odd constructions. Celebrate subjectivity. Write with attitude. Play with voice.’

3. Flaunt your subcultural literacy’ ... Most net audiences are relatively small groups who have their own identity and behaviour, and will share a certain background and style. So consider your own context. Talk to your audience. Speak the culture.

[Taken from Crystal, David: Language and the Internet, Cambridge University Press, 2001]

The other seven also say that you should play around... with syntax, dashes, style, using colloquial language etc. So we’re going to do a little playing with language in the class, developing your voice with a writing workshop.

(Remember this though... as The Guardian notes in its Blogs Comments Policy “tone of voice - sarcasm, humour and so on - doesn't always come across when using words on a screen. Be aware that you may be misunderstood, so try to be clear about what you are saying, and expect that people may understand your contribution differently than you intended.”

...

You might want to take a read of some conversations that have addressed this issue. Although this site (http://9rules.com/writing/notes/2528) is asking a question about multiple authors, it’s got some interesting things to say about voice.

And just look at the strength of opinion when Wired tried to introduce a dash into their writing of e-mail http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2000/10/39651.

For those of you still thinking about your blogger voice, you can visit some of these sites:

How You Can Fine-Tune Your Blogger Personality

Developing your voice

Marketingblogs.com tips (http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/2005/02/another_quotama.html)

Lastly, this might be of interest to you... If the United States Air Force is banning its servicemen and women from reading blogs then what does that say about how powerful blogs are becoming...?

Four weeks in and we are on our way. Let's begin today by everyone giving a short account of where they are up to with their personal blogs - let's share ideas and tackle problems together! Write a short comment to this post, including the URL of your blog and your delicious account. then be ready to talk about your exerience.

So far we have spent a lot of time thinking about the way social media has disrupted the balance of communicative power; until recently 'publishing' was constrained by money and geography, now everyone has the potential to be heard on the world stage.

How has the 'dead tree' press responded? In groups of two/ three have a look a one of the following sites - The Sun, Daily Mail, Guardian, Evening Chronicle and Sunderland Echo and write a report outlining key developments. Think about interactivity, richness of content, media channels used, and news values. Take some time over this!!!!!

Then have a look at "the worst newspaper video" and read a few reflections on local online news by Paul Bradshaw...

And finally here are some interesting sites suggested by Alex....

Online Journalism Blogs
Andy Dickinson.net
Mindy McAdams, teaching online journalism
Neil McIntosh

Personal Portfolios
Thayer Driver, ChinWag.com Jobs Manager
Twitter Blog; New Media Consultant
Dean Whitbread, head of UK Podcasting
http://www.dave-lee.org/jblog/ Dave Lee Journalism Blog
and Press Gazette student blogs

It was great to see former student Louise Robinson, now of Press Ahead, in today's MAC266 class ... and saying all the right things. Here is Louise's presentation, including information about the Student Challenge which will be of interest to all 250 students. Enter!!!!!!

Here, too, are links sent to me by Lee Henshaw, who is using social media to promote his novel, Queer Fish in God's Waiting Room.

Ho told me: "The Guardian published a review on Saturday. Amazon then sold-out and the book jumped up the rankings to 29,000-and-something from 300,000-and-something.

"This inspired my publisher, Legend Press, to give away the first third of the book for free at their website, where they're also showing the trailer for it.

Are you tempted to read Lee's novel?

Hi there. I'm Alex, the new Lecturer in Magazine Journalism at Sunderland, and looking forward to working with you on MAC250. I’ve spent the last thirteen years working across print, radio, online, even a little advertising, before moving into academic work. I taught first at Middlesex University and now in the North East and completed my Masters in 2005 at Sussex.

I maintain my blog at www.alexlockwood.net. Although a lot of the content on the site is driven by my work and my research interests, it
remains my personal site, and so you might also get bits on there about being new to the North East, and the novel I'm working on. I’ve just relaunched my site from its previous incarnation, with the move to Sunderland with a focus on journalism and new media. As I become a little more settled in the new post, I hope to have the site more populated.

I'm looking forward to discovering more about blogs and social media together with you as a group. See you soon.

Thanks for the positive comments! We are now well into the module and you should have a clear idea of what you intend to get from it...

To succeed in MAC250 you now have set up a delicious account (preface your username with 250), registered for your My Sunderland blog (go here and follow the instructions), and included links to them in a comment submitted to this blog. If you haven't done so already you MUST do so by Friday. We will not be wasting the time of committed students by spending half the session rounding up stragglers!!! As ever, if you are having problems, please contact Philip Young - I will do all I can to help.

If you are doing journalism, you might do well to read comment 4 on Paul Bradshaw's post, How important is it for new journalism graduates to have their own blog?

Neil Macintosh writes:

"I tell all the journalism students I meet this: blogs are the minimum. There’s no excuse for a student journalist who wants to work online not to have one. The only exception (and even then…) might be if they were heavily involved in student media, or were working for a publication part-time, or were doing some kind of other digital work which trumped having a mere blog. And no, MySpace/Bebo/Facebook pages don’t count

"Moreover, the quality of the blog really matters, because it lets me see how good someone is unedited and entirely self-motivated. If I were to see a decent pitch with a blog address on it, I’d look, and the quality and frequency could count heavily in the author’s favour. And if a brilliant graduate didn’t have a blog, but still made interview, I’d be asking, politely, why not..."

I suspect Macintosh knows what he is talking about - he is head of editorial development at guardian.co.uk and he blogs at the very useful Completetosh.

This is how to write a MAC250 post. This a link to Philip's Mediations site.

Here is how to write a simple post for a 250 blog. Here is a link to Mediations. Here is how to add Philip's email address.

Hopefully everyone has now signed up for their delicious account.... Have a look at what I have added (OK, it's been a busy week and I haven't been paying as much attention as I might...).

By the end of today's session I want everyone to add a comment to this post which includes the URL of your blog, your delicious account, and the address of a blog you think the rest of us will enjoy (with a reason!).

We are going to spend most of today's lesson trying to work out what is out there in the 'blogosphere', learning what might be useful as an information source, and what might influence the blogs you write as a core part of MAC250.

First of all, we will look at ways of capturing our discoveries in a systematised way, using tags and social bookmarking. Let's start by watching a video...

Now let's set up an account at Del.icio.us. Here's one of my accounts. And we will look at blog-focused search engine, Technorati.

We will also look at some interesting resources... including examples of wikis (The New PR Wiki and PR Books) a couple of excellent journalism blogs (Online Journalism and Martin Stabe), a couple of equally excellent PR blogs, PR Studies and Stephen Davies) and pay a visit to some friends in the USA.

Have a look for sites that interest you, and see how well they fit with this Taxonomy of Weblogs I drew up as part of a paper presented to Euprera Congress in Lisbon, Noevmber 2005.

As Matheson (2005) observes, weblogs are not a clearly delimited category. Drawing on correspondence with Trevor Cook, of Corporate Engagement (http://trevorcook.typepad.com/), and discussions with Chris Rushton of the University of Sunderland, I would suggest web logs can be categorised as either:

• About me: people who write about their daily lives for micro-audiences of friends and family;
• Focused interests (niche/ hobbyists): people who use blogs to communicate with fellow enthusiasts/ with shared experience ie workplace. Usually amateurs and generally recreational.
• Campaigning: political blogs, pressure group, protests
• Networking/ Education/ Development: people who use blogs to debate professional subjects with fellow practitioners
• Personal marketing: people who use blogging to promote their expertise to clients, employers and others who can influence their careers or businesses.
• Commercial: organizations which use blogs to promote goods and services, (including news organisations); these can include employee blogs (moderated) and blogs that encourage customer participation

Over to you to add your comments....

This is the class blog for PR and Journalism students taking MAC250 Introduction to Weblogs (which already sounds like a very old fashioned title!).

Scroll down the page to have a look at how the module ran last time - but he warned, an awful lot has changed since autumn 2006! Look at the comments, and investigate the archive.

Before you go any further, read the first two posts, that date back to September 2006 - still very pertininent today, for the guide to staying safe in the social media world and a overview of what we mean by social media.

As you know, there is no session this week (no presentations!), but here's an at-a-glance guide to hand-ins etc.

1a: Individual web log (50%)

You will create and maintain a web log on a topic of your choice.

To pass this assessment you must make a minimum of ten posts before the assessment deadline of 5pm, Friday January 12 (Week 13). You will be marked on creativity, clarity of purpose, quality of writing and response from readers. You are encouraged to make use of a variety of multimedia techniques, including sound, graphics and video.

1b: Critical Evaluation (20%) 1,000 words
This will contain a description and evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of your individual weblog. What did you set out to achieve and to what extent did you meet your objectives? How did your approach to blogging evolve? Did you attract visitors and comments?

Your evaluation must include a bibliography, and you must use references from the Reading List. Hand in to the LRC by 3pm on Thursday, January 18, 2007.

2: Essay (30%)
To demonstrate your understanding of the impact of web logs and social software on journalism and/ or public relations you will be asked to write an essay of 1,250 words which will be marked to a standard MAC essay feedback form. The essay will follow academic conventions, and must include citations from academic texts. Failure to include a full bibliography will seriously affect your mark.

Hand in to the LRC by 3pm on Thursday, January 18, 2007.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the comments about MAC250. I'm pleased you all seem to have got something from the last 12 weeks - I certainly have.

The biggest grumble seems to be about the UoS blogging platform itself which most of you deserted... which led to problems with technical support (I don't know how to use the other ones!). Then again, if social media is to mean anything it is important that non-technical people like us can use it. And, maybe after a struggle, you all did.

James and Sian commented on the lack of theory. To an extent, I agree, but I would also argue that it was there, deep down. One of the criticisms of academic research is that it can take an awful long time for papers to make it into print, and anyone hoping to understand the latest developments in social media can't afford to wait... And I would suggest there are useful links on the Mediations wiki and the New PR Wiki that do try and address these issues. Meanwhile, here is the bibliography for my paper, The New PR: Towards a Theoretical Perspective: Download file

A problem I have faced is in trying to explore social media simultaneously from both journalistic and PR perspectives; I don't entirely agree with Chris when he says that "PR content unimportant" and "is a lot of style over substance"... but I do have sympathy for a journalist outnumbered 12 to 1 by PR students. Especially today when he has to listen to my SNCR paper.... Please do not distribute or link to this document.

Download file

James also questions whether we spent enough time looking at the downsides of social media. He's right.... and we'll let him lead the discussion today...

And as for Sian's comment, "The least useful part of the module has been spending too much time on YouTube!!!! Although amusing, the videos that we were finding were usually irrelevant..." Well, check this out...

Now I want you all to look at everyone else's blogs.... and give them a mark out of ten - all anonymous, and I won't be issuing league tables....

Take a bow....

Jaclyn: It's a Student Life
Erin: Sundays
Michelle: Live sounds
Sian: I am not very good at this but...
Rosie: Celebrities
Ian: Why oh why oh why...
Charlie: Not just a pretty face...
Chris: I didn't see the incident... blame the new stadium.
Matt: Half the man I used to be....
James: Boombox
Laura: I'd love to come to your lectures but actually I'm in London
Sam: I'm outta here

I will be giving my own awards to the blog with the....

Most posts....
Most comments...
Funniest picture...
Worst spelling mistake
Made me nearly by a CD (he doesn't win a new iPod)
Best "Things I did while I was drunk post ... (sorry, not you Lisa)
Enduring image... yes, you Lisa...
And a special .... Bye, bye ... I got a job...

(This may or may not affect your marks for the module).

I think the true worth of MAC250 will show through when you tackle the practical and theoretical challenges that lie ahead in MAC262 PR Strategy. Good PR demands a challenging mix of sound business judgement and creative thinking - if you can match the inventiveness and sparkle you have shown over the last few weeks with a sharp understanding of organisational objectives you will do well.

We will see... Anyway, most of all I have enjoyed seeing a creative side to you that is not always given free rein in our modules.... well done!