Great post of ideas from Alfred Hermida, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, on how journalism schools should approach the teaching of social media, from newsgathering and verifying social media channels to managing an online presence as a professional.
Teaching social media is more than showing students the mechanics of Twitter. Rather, they should learn how to build a network of relevant followers and how to interact with them to be a better journalist.
In the classroom, we need to stress that social media technologies do not just offer journalists new ways of doing old things. They offer the potential to explore new ways of telling stories, of collaborating and connecting with audiences, of rethinking how we do journalism.