Article Topics
My thoughts and the thoughts of talented others on digital strategic communication, digital & media literacy, information design, education & instruction, and the field of human communication.
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No names, just rants and raves
The Charlotte Observer’s social media columnist Eric Frazier wrote a feature on Charlotte-based startup Fastnote.com, published on December 28, 2010. Below are excerpts from the article: Richard Shaffner hardly fits the hip young social media CEO stereotype. He’s a 55-year-old father of six, a former banker who’s still finding his way around the new world…
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Engage! (Solis, 2010)
Engage!: The complete guide for brands and business to build, cultivate, and measure success on the new web (Solis, 2010) I assigned several books for a graduate seminar in Digital Strategic Communication, taught at Queens University of Charlotte in the Knight School of Communication’s master’s program. The favorite, by far, was Brian Solis’ Engage! In…
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Wikinomics (Tapscott & Williams, 2006)
Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything (Tapscott & Williams, 2006) Premised around four major ideas of a new economy – (1) Openness; (2) Peering; (3) Sharing; and, (4) Acting Globally – Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything suggests that mass communication turns the traditional inward business model toward an outward focus. The authors point to…
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What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (Gee, 2007)
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (Gee, 2007) James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy is less about video games and more about a theoretical approach to education, says Kristen Odell. The concept behind the book is a discussion about learning, arguing that…
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Emotional Design (Norman, 2004)
Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things (Donald Norman, 2004) Three basic processes (visceral, emotional, and reflective) guide our interactions with the everyday things in our lives. The visceral reaction is our gut reaction; the behavioral reaction is based upon our ability to use a product; and the reflective process is the cognitive…
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A Month with @Mashable
When I decided to immerse myself in Twitter in early 2009, my goal was to learn the means whereby a business might effectively tweet. I chose Pete Cashmore of Mashable (then named “Mashup”) as a guide for my learning and performed a content analysis of his 747 tweets in the month of May 2009. The…
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Moving from Chalk to YouTube: Teaching with Technology
Dan O’Hair, Dean of the College of Communications and Information Studies at the University of Kentucky and past-president of the National Communication Association (NCA), is a leader in the field of communication. At the NCA 2010 annual conference, Dr. O’Hair presented on his experiences with online and hybrid instruction. Online and hybrid education has many…
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Digital Privacy and Digital Literacy
Knowledge of the role of Internet surveillance could play a role in our privacy behaviors online. For the typical Internet user, survelliance knowledge could include Internet tracking, marketing research, and demographic-driven advertising, among others. Yet, many typical Internet users lack basic knowledge of the surveillance practices that occur on sites they visit regularly. Some of…
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Social Media for Crisis Communication
Social media outlets have a role to play as one tool in an effective crisis communication strategy, say researchers Shari Veil (University of Kentucky), Tara Buehner (University of Oklahoma), and Michael Palenchar (Univ of Tennessee, Knoxville). At the National Communication Association 2010 annual conference, they presented a paper entitled, “Increasing Dialogue in Disasters: Incorporating Social…
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Connecting to Publics with Social Media
Public relations practice has been dramatically impacted by social media. Papers presented in the Public Relations Division at the National Communication Association 2010 annual conference tied social media and web-based tools to core functions of public relations practice – using a variety of theoretical frames. Each provides unique insights into the theory and practice of…
J.A.McArthur 