Media, Technology & Society
Posts concerning the impacts of media and technology on our society.
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Earthquake has East Coast a-Twitter
When our office started quaking this afternoon at Queens University of Charlotte, one of my colleagues thought his vertigo might be flaring up. The bushes shaking outside my window disconfirmed that theory. We turned to Twitter. Eight minutes after the event, we learned that the magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook Virginia 87 miles outside of Washington…
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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,…
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Diffusion vs. Translation
…or, “Why we want to hear from the President rather than Twitter.” Due to what news anchors called “technical difficulties with the press conference,” Twitter users and the news media had a forty-minute jump on the White House in the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden. Yet, Americans across the nation tuned into…
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Are newspapers all washed-up?
Even though our copy of the Greenville News was drenched by a downpour this Saturday morning, my commitment to reading the paper did not wane. As I stood in my garage methodically drying wet newsprint with a discarded hair dryer, several things occurred to me: Content is king. As I dried the paper, I crumpled…
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Popular Music meets Digital Subcultures
“Digital Subculture: A geek meaning of style” was selected as a chapter for the Sage Benchmarks in Culture and Society reference text, Popular Music. The research article — originally published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry — was an argument that subcultures could gather in digital spaces the same way that they convened in coffee houses and…
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Building a Class Twitterfall
Mobile phones keep surfacing in the classroom. As students multitask (or just get bored) they often turn to the closest iPhone for a brief moment of respite. Instead of discouraging phone use, I wonder if it could be harnessed. Twitterfall served as my most recent attempt to do just that. In my integrated strategic communication…
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What happened to the #OSCARS?
James Franco walked onto stage carrying his iPhone — his live tweets part of a strategy co-host Anne Hathaway revealed as “appealing to a younger demographic.” Names of award winners were tweeted out in real-time by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. And before every commercial break, the web address for oscars.com and…
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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,…
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When Egypt Went Dark
“Media can instigate change, but media cannot topple governments. People topple governments,” remarks Dr. Mohammed el-Nawawy to a standing-room-only crowd that gathered to discuss the precarious situation in Egypt, a country el-Nawawy calls “the heart and center of the Arab world.” On Friday, January 28, 2011, the Egyptian government shut down 90% of Internet access…
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Running (not-so) Alone
I like to run 5Ks. The distance provides me with an appropriate level of challenge and reward. I enjoy running among groups of thousands who gather to promote active lifestyles. And yet, even among a crowd of thousands, I can still feel like I am running alone. Onlookers often suggest to me that social and…
J.A.McArthur 