Blog

By Travis Feil, KSPA President-Elect

A Common Problem

My basic journalism course is offered opposite band and choir – both very popular courses in my district. My J1 desks, consequently, have traditionally been populated by students more interested in avoiding music than embracing journalism. They confess it, and I’m fine with it. I think we’ll all take them however we can get them.

The problem this often creates for me is one of motivation. I can teach the basics of photography, writing, design, and ethics to anyone, but making them want to learn it has not always been easy.

I think it may be slightly easier this year.

A Different Start to the Year

On the first day of J1, I played a YouTube video highlighting social media statistics and the impacts that online communications are having on society in general. The greater part of the discussion following the video centered around this question: It is undeniable that people are consuming social media more than they are consuming traditional journalism, but what would it be like to live in a world where the only news you have access to is the name of the band Ashton Kutcher is watching in concert or the number of people who used to love Brittney Spears but can’t stand her now?

Of course it took some time and some serious Socratic questioning, but before the block period was up – the final block of the day on a Friday, no less – my openly disinterested kids had done three important things:

• They admitted that their participation in social media meant they actually were slightly interested in the business of information dissemination.
• They didn’t complain when I gave them a research assignment over Edward R. Murrow and Woodward and Bernstein instead of Lindsay Lohan and Lady GaGa.
• They asked me questions about the fairness doctrine and Watergate.

That’s more than I’ve been able to accomplish on the first day of school since I started teaching.

Isn’t Social Media Old News?

It is true that it’s been several years since “social media” became the buzzword of the day and journalism instructors were encouraged to create all sorts of accounts for their publications so that students could Tweet or Facebook the breaking news instantaneously to their audiences who, for better or worse these days, only choose to digest the “news” if it comes in 140 or fewer characters. I realize I’m not original in bringing up this issue.

But as the boom of social media continues to develop, authority figures are still frantically searching for ways to legislate and restrict access to the point criminalizing it for a teacher in Missouri to “friend” her own daughter on Facebook simply because her daughter happens to be her student.

It would be nice if administrators, school boards, and legislators could hear the discussions we’re all having with our students about the importance of using social media to circulate information, but I’m really not here to argue whether access to social media should be allowed at school or whether teachers should communicate with their students online. I’m just here to share a redirection in my own thinking on this subject that seems to have struck a cord with my students this week.

Do What You Do – Just Do a Little More

Yes, we need to deliver the news in these forums because that’s where our audiences live, and that’s how we use social media to teach the die-hard journalists in our classes to reach the audiences they serve. That’s an excellent application of social media in school.

At the same time, let’s not overlook the interest generating capacity of social media for a student who is simply not a consumer of traditional news and sees no value in becoming one. My kids seemed to appreciate traditional news more after being exposed to the impacts of social media and exploring the consequences of a society void of people who use it for anything but making narcissistic noise.

Confession of “Abuse”

Yes, social media sites were, in part, created for that very reason, and I am also guilty of filling my Facebook wall with photos of the wonderful meals my wife makes or the ridiculous clothes my sons put on to play spy games. To a degree, that’s why such sites exist. So Tweet on with fervor, Mr. Kutcher, for social media is lots of fun. I’m just asking that we help our most disconnected students see that knowledge of journalism fundamentals enables one to participate in a world of digital communication with a degree of discernment that most of the population lacks. Students trained to both recognize newsworthy issues and also to write intelligibly about them creates a better society for us all.

And at the very least, talking about it created a better class period for me.