In the U.K., get your master's degree in Twitter studies
It is easy to ignore your academic obligations when you're consumed by social networking sites.
But what if studying Facebook and Twitter was a huge part of your degree?
The Birmingham School of Media at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom has created a new master's degree program in social media this fall.
According to the school's web site, this program will analyze the different techniques in social media and focus on its development and direction as a creative industry, contributing new research to the ever-growing field.
Alan Rudy, sociology professor at CMU, has been using social networking sites for years in his class and said the Birmingham program deserves legitimate scholarly investigation.
"The master's program has been instituted because of the movement of social networking into the traditional realms of political and economic activity," he said.
Rudy also said that social networking via the web is very powerful and everyone from college buddies to terrorists are using it.
"This will surely continue to grow and differentiate itself and no one is yet sure in what directions these developments will go," he said.
One thing is certain, advertising and other industries are placing more and more emphasis on Facebook and Twitter.
Ken Cherry, assistant professor of marketing, said social networking sites are amazing for their ability to communicate instantly and advertise.
"CNN has been especially proactive on Facebook, including telecasting President Obama's inauguration on the site," he said. "Other companies have also started to use Facebook as a promotion tool, including Burger King and Kraft," Cherry said.
The main thing for Facebook and Twitter is how to monetize the amazing network they have, he said.
Non-traditional graduate student, Nancy Hempworth, 54, of Clare, is a Facebook user, but is unsure of how effective the social networking site is in the professional world.
"Technology is changing the way we communicate and Facebook is helping a lot more people, but the downside is a lot of them are not using standard grammar, and that format won't work when they are writing a term paper," she said.
Hempworth does realize the importance of online networking, especially
integrating social media programs in school and taking the good with the bad.
"I think expanding communication is a good thing, it connects us with family," she said. "The only problem is if we have a power failure it is upsetting to people and it is very stressful in modern society."
features@cm-life.com
