Salford Uni launches first social media MA: Interview

SALFORD University is to become the world’s first to offer a Masters course in social media.
The new course was, appropriately enough, announced on Twitter via the city’s Social Media Centre, earlier this week.
I caught up with the academic behind the idea, Associate head of Media, Music and Performance, Gareth Palmer to find out just what is going to be on offer when the first 20 students start in September.
He told me that now is the right time for such an area of study due to social, or participatory media, platforms such as Facebook, Bebo, Twitter now being the dominant source of news, information and entertainment for an emerging generation of so-called digital natives.
“OFCOM recently reported that students are more likely to be online than watching television and traditional media courses are not taking this into account.
“I’m very excited about it because it’s a really good idea and Salford has already been involved in plenty of firsts for degree courses – popular music, graphics and documentaries for instance.”
The course will be restricted to candidates living in Salford and Greater Manchester and is aimed at attracting students who want to engage with their local communities and are interested in exploring new forms of expression.
“We want to show that this university isn’t a place on the hill. If I could sum it up with one phrase it would be ‘to give the local an idea of itself’” said Mr Palmer.
“Social media can give the community a means of expression about stuff that would never make the dominant mainstream media, raise issues that would otherwise be ignored.”
Mr Palmer explained that while the course would include teaching on some more traditional areas such as interviewing, camera techniques and other basic skills the aims was to find new and different ways to engage people in storytelling which was likely to appeal to people wishing to pursue careers in a whole range of industries.
“We hope that people can find new ways of telling their stories.”

So how will industry receive these new story tellers? I asked three very different experts for their take on the course.
1. The educator
Mark Comerford teaches on the journalism leaders course at UCLAN: “This sounds like an excellent idea. My hope would be that the course actively involves the community(ies), digital and physical, in planning both the syllabus and active story-building. My concern would be that a number of applicants might see this as a short-cut to a journalism degree.”
2. The PR guru
Jon Clements is partner at Staniforth PR and a blogger.
“It will be interesting to see what comprises a social media MA as the field is evolving at a pace not seen before in communications, with new social networks, tools and ways of working springing up as soon as you think you’ve mastered the last lot.
”But building a more formalised expertise on top of what people are learning organically – using Facebook or Bebo for example – should be a great asset for communities and companies trying to make themselves heard and understood via the medium of the Internet.”
3. The social media officianado
Chi-chi Ekweozor runs social media consultancy Real Fresh TV: “It’s great that the University of Salford recognises that the media and marketing graduates of tomorrow are living in a world where just across the Atlantic, their counterparts have their President as their Facebook friend, watch his weekly address on YouTube and happily upload their video comments in response.
Any opportunity to allow students to learn this ‘by doing’ in an academic environment can only be welcomed.”
What do you think? You’re welcome to post your comments and links below.