crisis readings for 11/1

Sadly, we have another real case study to examine as we look at how social media can be used in a crisis as the California wildfires rage on in SoCal.

Please read the following to prepare for class on 11/1:

• Red Cross case study: Building trust during a media maelstrom
• Great links to examples of social media sites tracking the fires from Voce Nation
  
• Step-by-step plan: Facebook crisis communications
• Social media, technology and tragedy: On YouTube, Facebook, MySpace today we are all Hokies (read entire page)
  
• Communicating during crisis: Use of blogs as a relationship management tool
• Slogging, and blogging, through Katrina

The Voce link is more of a resource - click around & see for yourself how Flickr, Twitter et al are being used.

org adoption readings for 10/30

Thanks to Edelman, you already have the hardcopy version of the "Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in the Blogosphere" booklet they did with First&42nd. (Thanks Edelman).

Additionally, please read "Blog bias: Reports, inferences, and judgments of credentialed bloggers at the 2004 nominating conventions�," which is an academic journal article in press.

See you after fall break!

social media spotlite #1: Brian Solis

Our very first social media spotlite live video conference with a social media industry leader will happen tomorrow at the beginning of class. We are lucky to have Brian Solis from FutureWorks talk to us:

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR agency in Silicon Valley. Solis blogs at PR2.0, bub.blicio.us and regularly contributes PR and tech comments and articles to industry sites and publications. Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club, is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup and also is a contributor to the Social Media Collective and ConversationalMedia.org

Before class, please read Brian's social media manifesto & be ready to ask him a few questions about how he uses social media in his practice.

social network readings for 10/9

Just in time for our next class on social networking, the NYT published an article about the explosion of Facebook apps. Read it & please be ready to discuss before class on Tuesday.

conflict readings

Please read these online articles & be prepared to discuss them in class tomorrow:

• Salam Pax wikipedia entry
• CNN: Soldier 'bloggers' report from war (why bloggers is in quotes, I don't know!)
• LGF blog: Reuters doctoring photos from Beirut (read entire post, including updates)
• USIP: How modern terrorism uses the Internet
• NYT: Logged in & sharing gossip, er, intelligence
  
• NSF press release: Scientists use dark web to snag extremists and terrorists online

See you in class!

interpersonal relationships readings

Please read the following before class tomorrow & be prepared to discuss interpersonal relationships in social media:

• Birnie & Horvath's "Psychological predictors of Internet social communication"
• iChat + JT = <3
• Social networking sites don't deepen friendships
• Online dating stats (read the report)
• Breaking up on MySpace is even harder
• Cyberbullying (read the report)

What do YOU want to talk about tomorrow?

Another SecondLife article to read before class

And this one posits that SecondLife is a place where advertisers are spending lots of money to reach few people.

SecondLife Article in NYT

Just in time for our upcoming visit by Dr. Shamp in class to talk about SecondLife, the New York Times published an article about the online world. Please read this article before class on Tuesday.

bring your book to class!

A little quick note to students - please bring your Cluetrain Manifesto book to class tomorrow so we can talk about about the reading!

Week 2 Readings: History

The Thursday reading for ADPR5990 Social Media is a NYT article from earlier this year about evolution.

Think it has nothing to do with social media? We'll see how long you feel that way after class on Thursday.

Week 2 Readings: Theory

There is a lot of reading to do before we meet as a class again on Tuesday, Aug. 21.

And it's 100% theory. Really, it isn't as scary as it sounds.

• Ruggerio's (2000) "Uses & Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century"
  
• McMillan's (2002) "Exploring Models of Interactivity from Multiple Research Traditions"
• Wellman's (2001) "Computer Networks as Social Networks"
• Rubin & McHugh's (1987) "Development of Parasocial Interaction Relationships"
  

The best strategy for reading & digesting this all is to print it out so you can highlight or make notes in the margins. This is important stuff. This is testable. But it is also interesting once you start to think about how this is related to social media.