I was supposed to write only about the one-year course specializing on social media but then I also came across this article re a book catalog using Twitter. So decided to write an article about them together as it clearly shows how social media is becoming a way of life today.The social media course will be offered by Birmingham City University and it will be about how social networking sites are being used as communications and marketing tools. It will include among other things, how to set up blogs and podcasts. Finishing the course earns a student a degree – MA in Social Media for £4,400 course fee.
Reactions to the new MA Social Media course from the community are varied. There are some who say that the course content is too simple and can already be learned without having to attend a full formal schooling.
But the course convener, Jon Hickman argued that the tools that will be learned from the course would be accessible to many people and not just some minority IT Geeks. Mr. Hickman also said that the course will look into how social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter can be used for communication and marketing.
The other thing that caught my interest while browsing through my regular RSS feeds is about Countryman Press’ plan to put their entire book catalog in Twitter. Yup, what used to be a record in a computer database will soon be transformed into a 140 character long description posted as a tweet.
These two things not only show social media has become part of our lives now. This is both positive and negative depending on how you perceive the importance of social media. Or it could also show how some are using social media in a wrong way.
While Twitter may have a robust search engine, however, describing some books takes more the 140 characters long. Giving the gist of what book contains won’t certainly fit on a 140 character statements.
As for social media being a degree course, well for as long you can apply what you will learn from the course into real life, then by all means enroll to that MA in Social Media course.