Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

VP — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:42:54 -0000

I find it a little ironic that using social media tools is free, and here they are charging you to "prove" your skills... Practice makes perfect, so why pay for a class in something you've already mastered?

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

seo birmingham — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:08:01 -0000

Like people are going to be impressed with a social networking degree!!

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Josh — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:55:46 -0000

WHat a joke hahaha

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Dheeru — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:50:58 -0000

Spending 6000 usd on learning social media is i think waste of money and time as i don't see any job prospects for the graduates coming out of the university after completing their degree in social media. One can easily learn about every aspects of social media on the web itself.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

JJMacey — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:50:35 -0000

Well,

At this point consider me a Ludite. Look it up! Its a Brit term.

C'mon I live in PHX, AZ. You can get a degree in everything @ ASU. As long as the school is making $.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

cantubury — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:42:13 -0000

Maybe American Ford Motors and GM (government) formerly General Motors could send some executives to learn how to sell American cars. of course 12 month is a long time.....at city u of birmingham...those Brits are creative...

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Ellen Ross — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:49:35 -0000

And this degree program is NOT offered online? Seriously?

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Stephen James — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:08:53 -0000

Education on social media? It's called a blog.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Nicole DeRuiter — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:28:49 -0000

Annenberg school of Communications at Univ of Southern California has offered the Annenberg Program on Online Communities for some time now; I'm part of what will be the third graduating class. We're lucky to have great minds in lots of areas of internet/community research, soon to include Henry Jenkins who will be joining USC this summer! :) Had to toot our horn a little bit.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Phyllis Khare — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:56:11 -0000

to really make this work - it should mirror the social media structure and everyone teach each other

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

hall monitor — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:04:56 -0000

Can't we start teaching this stuff in middle school?

Hall Monitor
http://detentionslip.org

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

James — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:18:19 -0000

Excellent post!! Twitter is like a breath of fresh air on the Social Media scene. I have been on it for just a few weeks now and I have met several interesting people. It is a platform to network with people you would like to meet in real life. Check me out!!

http://twitter.com/spryka

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Robin Houghton — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:22:52 -0000

The question is whether there is any academic value in this course. It's not a new idea to study something as current and possibly fleeting as social media. I did an MA in Digital Media at Sussex University in 1999-2000, and I remember people laughing at the fact that I was studying 'the internet'. A lot of what we debated then and the tools we used would be outdated now, but the course was grounded in media theory. We spent as much time getting to grips with Adorno, Gramsci and Bourdieu as we did with hypertext, digital tools and the future of the internet. It was a scholarly approach which still informs my thinking now, as an online marketing professional, but I did it primarily out of academic interest. My dissertation was a study of online community, obscure at the time, and well before social networking took off of course.

If anyone asked me now about doing a course in social media in order to get a job in this field, I'd point them to the IDM or one of the many bodies offering 'social media for business' training, tell them to follow people like Chris Brogan on Twitter or attend the Social Media Influence conferences in London. My feeling is that university is exclusively for academic study and an MA should be about engaging with and extending research & understanding in the areas that social media touches such as social psychology, cultural studies, linguistics, philosophy and even history.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Hanson Hosein — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:04:16 -0000

Good to see universities taking this seriously, though I agree with some comments here that (1) you shouldn't get too caught up in the platforms of the moment; and (2) you need to "walk the walk" when it comes to guiding a conversation and changing the traditional top-down university classroom environment.

We take that seriously in our own digital media master's degree program at the University of Washington in Seattle (http://mcdm.washington.edu). We take a strongly collaborative approach to learning, both in-class and through online collaborative platforms. In my own "Social Production and Digital Distribution" class, we emphasize the need to understand the motivation and trends behind social production (Cluetrain Manifesto, The Wealth of Networks, Democratizing Innovation). We then apply the conceptual to the creation of hands-on strategies for various community organizations.

Twitter, Facebook, etc. may come and go. But what remains is the very real change in communication with the ongoing creation of online communities (which, as Clay Shirky says, share, cooperate and take collection action all beyond traditional institutional intermediaries). That won't go away unless the Internet self-destructs.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Vinay — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:13:47 -0000

University of British Columbia offers degree in Analytics.. does anyone even know about it? And degre in Social Media.. give me a break. you can learn them in 3 days by visiting Blogs, Diggs & Sphinn. They could have introdcued that as a part time or summer time learning course.. not a full time..! Hmmm

There are many colleges which offer the same under Masters in Digital Marketing. So nothing really new here. Cheers

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Baron Barry — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:04:28 -0000

What happens when Facebook and twitter are no longer the next big things? And its something else? I do hope its general social media principles.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

jorgeavilam — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:39:31 -0000

In one year facebook and twitter will be obsolete... social world changes much faster than that... ;)

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

swag — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:25:20 -0000

I'll frame it next to my degree in Telephone Use.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

swag — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:23:23 -0000

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

swag — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:20:53 -0000

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Steve Edwards — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:15:51 -0000

Temerlin Advertising Institute in Dallas offers a grad program with courses such as Social Media Marketing, Commercialization of Virtual Space, Metrics, and Interactive advertising!!

http://smu.edu/meadows/adve...

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

E E — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:11:07 -0000

Wow fantastic - I have been looking for the right course to complement to my first degree in Golf Course Management. As I am not earning any interest at the moment it's also a great way to use up my savings

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Stephanie DeLuca — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:08:44 -0000

I think this would be a popular class if offered in all universities. I wonder what the professors will be teaching besides the basics. Will they talk about the behind the scenes of a social media site? That will be interesting to find out.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

Chris — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:54:50 -0000

Great..now we are going to have thousands of 15 year olds, with Masters Degree. In 3 years, every 18 year old will have a Masters Degree, right out of high school. This is so dumb at many levels.

Re: University Offers a Master’s Degree in Social Media

@theusername — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:29:42 -0000

Valid. At least they are offering it before every other U bandwagons in a year, of which will all be extinct in two... by then "SocMe" will be retinal attention marketing and semantic media (well, that may be a stretch). anyways... what with numbers like these: http://bit.ly/5chJo