Communication
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Event Hashtags: Lessons Learned from NCA
The National Communication Association (NCA) may have gotten it right – according to its Twitter followers. With the consecration of the #NCA11 hashtag, for this year’s conference, attendees on Twitter might finally be pleased with the selection. However, use of alternate hashtags by the association Twitter account threatens to upend the discussion once again. A…
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Photos and Copyright Law
If you find a photo and place it on your website, in a paper, or use it as an image in some other document, be careful. More likely than not, you are in violation of copyright law. My rule for photos: if you didn’t shoot it with your own camera, draw it with your own hand,…
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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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Writing the Media Release
Even through the fast shifts toward online media, the press release remains a staple of the strategic communication industry. However, it has taken on two similar but divergent forms: the media release and the story release. A media release (or news release, or press release) is the traditional format for announcements to the media. Conversely,…
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Citing Sources Online
When we write papers or speak publicly, we usually understand how to give credit to others. However, sensibilities about plagiarism and intellectual property often disappear when writing online. But, citing sources can be easier and more productive in online media than it would be in any other form. Here are five strategies for citing sources…
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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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Developing a mindset of innovation
Breakfast was good at this morning’s meeting of Social Media Charlotte, but the real star was SapientNitro’s Joey Wilson. “A company’s mindset is more important than it’s organization,” says Wilson. Change in a mindset leads to a changes in the way a company might operate. Here are some current mindset changes that could lead to corporate…
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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…
J.A.McArthur 