Speaking Engagements

Voicing a Campus Icon: Twitter, a bronze goddess, and hyperlocal community engagement

Where do information design theory, digital media, and community engagment intersect? One location is on the Queens University of Charlotte campus inside a fountain in the middle of a major courtyard. That’s the home of @QueensDiana.

At the National Communication Association annual conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, I presented a paper on the hyperlocal community engagement enhanced by @QueensDiana, the Twitter page of the bronze statue Diana, Goddess of the Hunt.

My presentation surrounded the intersection between the user-experience of Diana and the sense of community created in that experience. Here are the visuals that accompanied my presentation.

If you’re interested in this topic and other case studies about the intersection of digital media and information design, look forward to our book on the topic coming out this spring.

Online Credibility and Digital Ethos

How has the digital landscape changed the way that we view credibility? As credibility emerges as a core struggle in the online environment, researchers are discussing this issue at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association (NCA) this week in New Orleans, Louisiana.

I had the privilege of responding to a set of four papers on Ethos in the Digital Era, co-sponsored by the Argumentation and Forensics Division and the Human Communication and Technology Division at the convention. I’ve included my notes for the researchers in the descriptions below as we all seek to investigate this topic more fully in the field of digital and media literacy.

The four papers presented all address the definition of digital and media literacy posed by Renee Hobbs in a white paper funded by John S. & James L. Knight Foundation. In it, Hobbs brings together literature on digital and media literacy and identifies five key components of literacy: the abilities to (1) access, (2) analyze, (3) create, (4) reflect, and (5) take action in the digital environment.

The Effect of Online Review Message Characteristics on Helpfulness Ratings
Yuhua Liang, Briana DeAngelis, David D. Clare, and Timothy Levine, Michigan State University

In a study about online product reviews, researchers tested perceptions of the helpfulness of these reviews. The findings suggest that online product reviews that focus on either positive or negative aspects (but not both) an product reviews that contained specific examples were perceived as more helpful than their alternatives. Helpfulness is most closely tied to the descriptiveness of the review. Perhaps helpfulness ratings add to our ability to create, analyze and reflect on information online.

Sent from my iPhone: The Medium and Message as Signals of Sender Professionalism in Mobile Telephony
Caleb T. Carr, University of Oklahoma, and Chad M. Stefaniak, Oklahoma State University

I found striking personal relevance in this study as I have grappled with excusing grammatical errors in emails sent by mobile phone. I often cringe when the signature block of an email says “pls xcuse any typos. Sent from my iPhone.” This study suggests that such messages increase perceptions of sender professionalism (if, and only if, errors are present in the email). The signature block in this case becomes a vehicle for addressing errors and saving face. As we move toward ubiquitous mobile adoption, will we place different expectations on messages sent from different technologies? This study suggests we will.

An Investigation of Youth and Digital Information Credibility
Miriam J. Metzger, Andrew J. Flanagin, Rebekah A. Pure, Ethan Hartsell, and Alex Markov, University of California at Santa Barbara

This paper deals with the issue of analyzing information presented digitally. The extensive survey-based study, with over 2,700 participants, documented teen perceptions of online credibility and the strategies they use to assess it. The research suggests that as kids get older, they become more concerned about the credibility of information they find online. In addition, the strategies they employ to assess credibility (the authors point to expert identification, site design, and currency among other criteria) become more numerous as teens age. The data suggests that these teens overestimate their own abilities to identify credible sources.

This type of research is crucial to an understanding of how we develop the ability to analyze in a digital world. Further research agendas I suggest as a result of this effort might include continued attention to the overestimation identified, the development of a robust measure for assessing relative credibility of digital sites (perhaps building on Metzger and Flanagin’s excellent work in this area), and an assessment of sources to which teens attribute their learning in this area.

Credibility in a Social Media Environment
Rebekah A. Pure, Amber Westscott-Baker, Miriam J. Metzger, and Andrew J. Flanagin, University of California at Santa Barbara

In this theoretical argument, researchers explore the cylical nature of the digital media literacy model. They explore the relationship between credibility and user-generated comments. If a peer-review were to occur through social media, for example, who would know the difference between “expert” feedback and “uncredentialed” feedback. The issues of authority, expertise, and ego interplay with the type of information found online – whether it is based on personal experience or theoretical knowledge. I appreciate the theoretical nature of the argument contained in this paper and hope that it leads these researchers or others to develop tangible assessments of this difference between user-generated content as primary vs. secondary sources as vehicles of credibility.

Digital Media Consumption

Consumption of online media is a hot topic in the study of digital literacies and at NCA 2011, the annual meeting of the National Communication Association occurring this week in New Orleans, Louisiana.

This morning, I had the pleasure of responding to competitive research surrounding the topics of Facebook, social networking and online media consumption. I’ve incorporated my responses into this blog post in hopes that the presenters can have this resource for their writing and to inspire further research avenues in digital and media literacy.

From Loving the Hero to Despising the Villain: Sports Fans, Facebook, and Social Identity Threats
James Sanderson, Arizona State University

Capturing months of data from a Facebook group entitled, “Get Out of Our City Brian Kelly,” this content-based research identifies fan reactions to a social identity threat (an event that could be damaging to a group’s sense of self). In this case, that threat was the sudden resignation of a winning football coach, Brian Kelly, at the University of Cincinnati.

Sanderson’s excellent review of research in this area makes the case for viewing Facebook as a gathering site for groups. Through an extensive content analysis, he identifies five particular response categories related to threat response on this site: rallying, stigmatizing, victimization, intimidation, and degradation. While I was reading the selected comments left in this Facebook group, I was shocked by the comments of these fans. Many were vile and vulgar, vitriolic and reprehensible. The author spends some time discussing the comments from the vantage point of misogyny and homophobia, but never as simply hateful.

As our society invests in online group participation and response, I am left wondering what our role as researchers is. Should we document instances like this one or should we find ways to ask our fellow citizens to move from participation (kind, hateful, or otherwise) toward real, tangible contribution to a conversation. Perhaps the answer is both.
Sanderson’s expose of this behavior is well-constructed and thoughtful, with the ability to move us forward as we consider fan communication, digital literacy, and civility.

‘Tell Me What Company Thou Keepest, and I’ll Tell Thee What Thou Art’- Homophilious Relationships on Facebook
Mia Fischer, University of Missouri, and Amanda Ruth-McSwain, College of Charleston

So-called social media gurus and rockstars have often suggested that Facebook connects us with people we already know whereas Twitter connects us with those we want to know. This anecdotal claim might suggest that the authors are right: if we explore Facebook, we might find that people who like each other in real life tend to like each other online. So, our tendency to surround ourselves with like others in real life would be evident in the digital world.

In this exploratory study, Fischer and Ruth-McSwain set out to identify if that evidence exists. The study examines Facebook profiles and their similarities to the profiles of their friends. The researchers identified several classes of homophily (profile-friend similarity) including age, education, employment, facebook uses, network size, nationality and ethnicity, religious and political affiliation, and sexual orientation. Even though the researchers admit that their study is only exploratory, these classes of similarity can advance our thinking about online connections.

One of the limitations of this study is that a user’s assessed Facebook friend profiles were selected in an alphabetical order. This methodology might limit the type of diversity found in the sample (for example, last names are often culturally or ethnically based, in a way that could create issues for an analysis of the first 10 Facebook friends in an alphabetic list).
Nevertheless, the authors successfully attempt to explore and expand our understanding of Facebook as a tool for connection between and among people.

Facebook, Blogs, and Fake News: Teens Seek News with Attitude
Regina Marchi, Rutgers

The fact that the youth of America prefer The Daily Show and the Colbert Rapport to traditional broadcast news programming may come as no shock to many citizens. But, teens’ rationale for this preference might surprise us. Marchi’s investigation into teen news consumption is at once revealing and thought-provoking.

Teens interviewed in her study reported feeling that major television networks repeatedly “force-feed” them the same news in the same format. Conversely, satirical news options made the news relevant to them. Moreover, the satire acted as a catalyst for teens to seek out multiple sources with varying ideas about the topic addressed. This subtle difference between serving as a filter for consumption and serving as a catalyst for engagement with multiple perspectives might be an interesting angle for this paper, or future research, to address more deeply.

How might mainstream news sources learn from the preferences of these teens? Marchi suggests that, at the least, producers need to be paying attention to the changing landscape of personal news.

Talking about the YouTube Indians: Images of Native Americans and Viewer Comments on a Viral Video Site
Maria A. Kopacz and Bessie L. Lawton, West Chester University

Native American portrayals on YouTube and their resulting comment feeds were assessed in this study to determine what factors influence the tone of viewer comments. Based in thier review of relevant research, the authors utilize existing media stereotypes to characterize the videos and assess user-generated responses. It might be interesting, in this case, to also look at author intent. Perhaps the case could be made that the tags placed on the video could be suggestive of author intent. Combined with user-response, research can give a broader picture about responses to these videos.

Whereas many of the responses to videos in this study are positive, the majority are reportedly negative. Again, I am left wondering how this type of user-participation in media might be honed into a contribution to media making. Using this data, the public relations approach of educating an audience is rightly addressed in this study and well-justified. As the authors note, accurate information should and can be presented alongside stereotypical information. The question remains: will people respond? And, if they do, will their responses to accurate information contribute to a productive conversation?

Is Public the New Private? A First Look at Multitasking and Online Video
Lara Zwarun and Alice E. Hall, University of Missouri – St. Louis

“Results may not always be what the researcher expects.” Zwarun and Hall are surprised by their findings in this study, and their findings suggest that the ways we immerse ourselves in media are changing. The real story here is in the relationship between public space and media immersion. In public spaces, viewers indicated that they were less distracted and more immersed in media than did their counterparts who viewed the same media in a private space.

This study, which was conducted primarily among college students raises all kinds of questions about media use and its relationship to demographics, socio-economic status, generational divides, and access to multiple forms of technology. I wonder if future research into online video viewing could control viewing in some way or seek out different demographics that may (or may not) be likely to access online information in different ways.

The chair for this panel, Thomas Ksiasek of Villanova University, is a perennial NCA presenter and I enjoyed hearing him speak at NCA two years ago on his own research.

The timely, current nature of these excellent studies leaves me concerned about the publication timeline imposed on academic research. I hope that these papers can continue to advance the field, but the field of digital and media literacy is moving faster than our current publication model. As we continue to do this type of research, we may find ourselves pushing the boundaries of academic publication – not from the perspective of quality, but rather from the angle of currency.

Twitter and Teacher Behaviors

Does Twitter influence student perceptions of teacher behaviors? As part of a session surrounding new and emerging technologies in instruction, I presented my research (co-authored with Kristen Bostedo-Conway) on Twitter’s role in the classroom at the National Communication Association 2011 National Convention in New Orleans, LA.

We conducted this research in Spring 2010 to better understand the role of Twitter in the classroom. Our findings give preliminary evidence that student-instructor interaction on Twitter has a relationship with student perceptions of teacher behavior. Most interestingly, students’ perceptions of a teacher’s non-verbal immediacy was heightened by out-of-class Twitter use.

These findings, the full text of which is under review for publication, have inspired us to continue this research into Twitter uses in the classroom.

Below is our handout from the convention which contains the research abstract and demonstrates the correlations identified between standard measures of student perceptions of teacher behavior (instructor credibility, content relevance, and immediacy) and instructor and student Twitter use:

My Digital Life: A Community Learning Lesson

Raahil Dhruva reached out gently across the generational divide and helped a community member learn how to use Skype so he could communicate with his daughter. Dhruva, a junior at Queens University of Charlotte from London, England, called the experience “an emotional moment.” His was one story of many.

Along with a team of students in the James L. Knight School of Communication, Dhruva volunteered to teach digital and media literacy skills to residents of Myers Park, the university’s neighborhood. Through a new partnership with Myers Park Home Owners Association, the school offered a digital and media literacy session entitled “My Digital Life: Social media meets personal privacy” on Oct. 12.

The school’s Knight-Crane Convergence Laboratory was filled with curious residents, eager to learn and to share their questions and worries about the Digital Age. Dr. John A. McArthur, an assistant professor in the school, led a discussion about social media and privacy, providing the context of Marshall McLuhan’s predictions come true and citizens’ growing need to keep up with rapid change. After the discussion, communication students and attendees met shoulder to shoulder at the computers.

Freshman Knight Scholar Zenzele Barnes taught several neighbors how to use Twitter. Others, like communication major Mena Shenouda, worked with parents who wanted to learn about their children’s use of Facebook. Senior communication students Amelia Farmer and Sara Beth Jones helped participants learn how to adjust Facebook’s privacy settings.

“Facebook today at 800 million users has the same number of people that used the entire Internet in 2004,” Dr. McArthur told the group.

The community members were appreciative of the hands-on training and being able to work one-on-one with a student to increase their knowledge. Students were eager to teach and the neighbors were eager to learn. One parent of two teen-agers said simply about the session, “I feel comfortable and I don’t feel stupid.”

“Our role is to be a safe place for people in the community to be able to ask questions and gain knowledge,” remarked Van King, dean of the school.

The Knight School of Communication is focused on increasing digital and media literacy in Charlotte. Students at the school will be involved in the community, teaching skills that empower residents to contribute to their communities through digital media. Myers Park, the community closest to Queens, is just the beginning. To learn more, download the Knight School Master Plan.

This article was written with contributions from Van King and Jennifer Hull at the Knight School of Communication. It was featured on the website of John S. & James L. Knight Foundation.

DM3C Live 2011: digital and media literacy and civic engagement

Starting today, the Knight School of Communication will host its inaugural gathering of the best minds in digital and media literacy on the Queens University of Charlotte campus in Charlotte, North Carolina. Invited experts will explore the relationship between digital and media literacy and civic engagement. In addition, we will discuss the opportunities and strategies to increase digital and media literacy in the Charlotte community – a core aim of the Knight School.

DM3C Live is a national gathering of the best minds in digital and media literacy and civic engagement. This “think-tank” event produces statements of intent that will help communities and civic leaders explore and invest in digital and media literacy to inspire the communities they serve.The James L. Knight School of Communication is a grantee of John S. & James L. Knight Foundation.

The event’s discussion leaders are:

Dan Gillmor
Dan Gillmor is the founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He is the author of Mediactive and We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Find Dan Gillmor online at http://www.dangillmor.com

Vanessa Domine
Vanessa Domine is an associate professor at Montclair State University and sits on the Board of Advisors for the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) for which she recently served as Program Chair at the 2011 Conference. She is the author of Rethinking Technology in Schools. Dr. Domine’s web projects include http://www.kidsplay.org

John A. McArthur 
John A. McArthur is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate programs in the James L. Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte and serves on the national Board of Advisors for Social Media Club Education Connection. His research involves communication, technology and instructional design. Find Dr. McArthur online at http://jamcarthur.com

The event will be using the hashtag #DM3Cclt on Twitter, and many of the invited experts will be tweeting and blogging about the concepts discussed at the event. In addition, the Knight School will disseminate the results from the forum in several media forms. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

A History of Social Media

Technology and media have always been social. This was my message to the Dialogue & Discovery Group at Charlotte City Club, June 1, 2011. Van King, Dean of the Knight School of Communication, and I presented to a lively audience at the club. While the real focus of the presentation was the discussion that ensued, this is how I got the conversation started:

In Memory of Audrey Crain Alley

On June 28, 2008, I delivered one of the hardest and most important speeches of my life: a eulogy in tribute of my grandmother, Audrey Crain Alley. Today, on her birthday, I thought I would finally make public the speech I designed 2 years ago in her honor.

Going Mobile: Phones in Class

A student glances quickly around before secretly texting a classmate. Holding the phone just out of sight of her professor, her attention turns to the keypad on her blackberry. The message is sent. She looks quickly up and feigns interest.

Her classmate sees the text pop up on his iPhone. He glances around. Holding the phone under his desk, he reads the text and chuckles at the comment. He types a quick reply. His head straightens and he begins nodding, pretending that he is following the discussion at hand.

Why do students feel the urge to text, tweet, email and surf the Internet during class? Are they multitasking? Are they talking about the class? Or are they just plain bored?

On Monday, March 7th, 2011 at 12:30 pm (Eastern) Dr. John A. McArthur will lead the weekly #SMCEDU Twitter chat on this topic. Issues discussed will surround:

• mobile phone technology
• the potential for in-class distraction
• course policies related to mobile use
• ideas for engaging mobile technology in the classroom
• strategies for harnessing the potential benefits of utilizing mobile phones in the classroom

Educators, students, faculty and interested people are invited to join the discussion on Twitter. To participate, follow the hashtag #smcedu on Twitter and include the hashtag in your tweets. All are welcome.

John A. McArthur, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate programs in the Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte. He is an active researcher on information design and media, technology, and society. Contact Dr. McArthur at http://jamcarthur.com or on Twitter @JAMcArthur.

Taming the Social Media Beast

“Can the benefits of social media outweigh the risks involved in its use?” Thus began the conversation about social media at Center Stage in Charlotte’s NoDa District on Tuesday night.

The National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate, WFAE 90.7, hosts a Public Conversations Series in Charlotte to encourage community dialogue on current events. On Tuesday, February 15, 2011, their program focused on “Taming the Social Media Beast” hosted by Julie Rose. I was honored to be a panelist at this discussion alongside Dani Burns, of FairPoint Communications, and Attorney Jonathan Crotty, of Parker Poe.

The conversation centered around social media and its personal and professional uses. Johnathan Crotty answered legal questions about personal and professional social media use, Dani Burns highlighted business, marketing, and branding issues in social media, and I discussed the societal implications of social media use and digital and media literacy.

Our major message (quoted by @thesicklecircle): People get the social part of social media, but they forget about the media part. Social media is public.

Here are links to some of the resources on my blog relevant to the questions and comments shared:

• A Field Guide to the Twitter Language: help for those trying to discern how to read and write effectively in tweets.
• 20 Digital Thinkers to Follow on Twitter
• Civility, Technology, and a Digital Society
• Resources for Digital Strategic Communication Professionals
• Book reviews: Digital and Strategic Communication texts to read

Thanks again to WFAE, Julie Rose, my fellow panelists, and the audience for an excellent conversation.