I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Social Media Editor Sharif Durhams the other day. Sharif was a wild guy, with many interesting facets to his work. Just a brief checklist of his duties:
1. News blog
2. Main twitter account: Newshub
3. Direct use of twitter account above
4. Direct use of facebook page
5. Developing Google+ account
Sharif also expressed an interest in looking into various ways the newspaper could use pinterest to tell stories.
Sharif had some interesting insight unto the evolution of journalism (spoiler alert: it involves social media!) and how news consumers could interact with the stories. He explained that people have different expectations from their news outlets now. No longer are the days where journalists would write a story, send it out print it and walk away. Media is now a two-way street, and consumers and journalists alike should expect to interact on a daily basis. As news travels faster, people need to be able to interact with it and each other in an open and meaningful way, in order to create a conversation. Social media is now ushering in a new era of citizen journalism and democratization and conversation on a huge level, which is pretty awesome. Social media allows for the ultimate Republic in that citizenry is always connected. I believe this is shown furthermore in the "Arab spring" we are seeing in the middle-east and Africa, and the revolution of young people who are finally able to converse and interact in an open forum.
As journalists, Sharif explained, it is our duty to figure out how people are continuing to take in this information and stay ahead of it so we can cultivate that forum for discussion.
Furthermore, this explosion of social media is interesting in the constructs of political election. Sharif brought about the example of Gov. Scott Walker, and how he used his twitter (@ScottKWalker) so effectively during the campaign. He mentioned how it was clear that he was the one twittering and that it really drove home and allowed people to feel connected to the guy. On the other hand, my guy Tom Barrett may have not even known he had a twitter (@Barrett4WI) when it was pretty evident he did none of his own twittering, like this tweet which tells how he's just "wrapping up my speech" while he had a picture of him doing an interview.
1. News blog
2. Main twitter account: Newshub
3. Direct use of twitter account above
4. Direct use of facebook page
5. Developing Google+ account
Sharif also expressed an interest in looking into various ways the newspaper could use pinterest to tell stories.
Sharif had some interesting insight unto the evolution of journalism (spoiler alert: it involves social media!) and how news consumers could interact with the stories. He explained that people have different expectations from their news outlets now. No longer are the days where journalists would write a story, send it out print it and walk away. Media is now a two-way street, and consumers and journalists alike should expect to interact on a daily basis. As news travels faster, people need to be able to interact with it and each other in an open and meaningful way, in order to create a conversation. Social media is now ushering in a new era of citizen journalism and democratization and conversation on a huge level, which is pretty awesome. Social media allows for the ultimate Republic in that citizenry is always connected. I believe this is shown furthermore in the "Arab spring" we are seeing in the middle-east and Africa, and the revolution of young people who are finally able to converse and interact in an open forum.
As journalists, Sharif explained, it is our duty to figure out how people are continuing to take in this information and stay ahead of it so we can cultivate that forum for discussion.
Furthermore, this explosion of social media is interesting in the constructs of political election. Sharif brought about the example of Gov. Scott Walker, and how he used his twitter (@ScottKWalker) so effectively during the campaign. He mentioned how it was clear that he was the one twittering and that it really drove home and allowed people to feel connected to the guy. On the other hand, my guy Tom Barrett may have not even known he had a twitter (@Barrett4WI) when it was pretty evident he did none of his own twittering, like this tweet which tells how he's just "wrapping up my speech" while he had a picture of him doing an interview.
It's funny how fast political elections change: time to catch up there Tommy.
Thanks,
Keivn
Side-note: I'd like to apologize to Dr. Lowe, I really tried to embed that tweet into this post, but it's a lot harder to do than I thought. I may need a quick seminar in that again.
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