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Social media is rapidly become deeply ingrained as part of the journalistic process, and in some cases is replacing traditional journalism as a means for distributing news. To effectively teach journalism at the university level, we must incorporate social media as both a learning tool and a subject for examination in our classes. This chapter looks at three areas that should be incorporated in teaching journalism. The first is media literacy and social media. The chapter examines the tools and critical thinking needed to distinguish reliable from unreliable information before it is passed on to a news audience. The second is the use of social media as a tool for gathering information. The chapter looks at how social media can be used to make and maintain contacts, dig for unique and impactful stories, and use your social media contacts to improve and enhance your reporting. The third is how to effectively use social media to distribute information, and the pitfalls that can occur when your personal use of social media conflicts with your professional life as a journalist. Each section of the chapter ends with exercises teachers can use with students to hone their social media skills.

Over the past decade, the rapid evolution of social media has impacted the field of human resource management in numerous ways. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to begin an investigation of the myriad of ways that social media impacts organizations. To date, research evidence on a range of HR-related topics are just beginning to emerge, but are scattered across a range of diverse literatures. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current literature on the study of social media in HRM and to integrate these disparate emerging literatures. During our review, we discuss the existent research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, and summarize key research findings and themes into a coherent social media framework relevant to HRM. Finally, we offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of social media’s impact in organizations.

This chapter presents insights about prospective students’ information experience when using social media to support their decision-making concerning which university to attend. When choosing a university, prospective students experience different ways of using information, engaging with a variety of sources, which have changed rapidly from traditional print and mass media, exhibitions and road shows, to the Internet and university websites. Increasingly, prospective students use information via diverse social media platforms where they can engage, participate and collaborate as information users on the social web. As a result, their information experience is expanding beyond information seeking to engagement with social media and participation in a dynamic online community.

Drawing on a literature review and my own research, I demonstrate that prospective students’ information experience involves collaboration, engagement and communities via social media. I present findings that contrast prospective students’ dynamic and wider multidimensional information experience of the social web, with static and unidimensional information seeking of traditional sources. In particular, I demonstrate that prospective students can now ‘experience’ the university and seek peer advice by collaborating in online communities. In this way, they gain tangible as well as intangible university information.

This chapter seeks to understand the intersection between eGovernment, social media, and digital inequalities by examining the disparate flow of information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Developed economies are increasingly transitioning to digital interfaces for information dissemination and provision of services. The authors explore the potential of, and challenges facing eGovernment by looking at the use of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter employs a case study approach to probe the dynamics of government-initiated efforts at information dissemination through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website and social media account on Twitter. The analysis in this chapter uses NodeXL to examine communication roles played by government and non-governmental actors within this slice of the Twittersphere centered around CDC@gov. As the findings demonstrate, non-governmental actors played key roles in the dissemination of public health messaging. The authors analyze these data with an eye to the potential of social media for public health communication and extrapolate that understanding to the use of digital access and social media for the provision of accurate, official information in other circumstances. While the COVID-19 pandemic was a global health crisis, individuals and households face individual or local crises every day. This angle of vision allows the chapter to conclude with recommendations pertaining to government-led information dissemination for the public good during crisis and non-crisis situations alike. In the concluding section, the authors probe the degree to which eGovernment can also address digital inequalities including connectivity, device, and literacy gaps. The authors offer solutions needed for eGovernment initiatives in light of challenges posed by digital inequalities to ensure that digital information sharing and services are accessible to all.

Purpose – To examine the connection between social media and games, and to analyze information phenomena relating to them.

Design/methodology/approach – A survey of existing research is combined with results from two studies.

Findings – Players use game-related social media as an expansion of play and as a substitute of it, while avoiding information overload in the form of finding out so much that it damages the play experience.

Research limitations/implications – The number of potential game-related social media sources is so high that this chapter mostly presents just the early steps toward researching them further.

Practical implications – The chapter reveals the tight connection that has been formed between games and social media, showing that to properly research one, a look at also the other is necessary.

Originality/value – The chapter presents initial guidelines on where to start in researching game-related social media, an area that has so far seen very little research from both game studies and information scholars.

Purpose – This research examines the nexus of two important phenomena: established information practices and the uptake of social media tools to facilitate or extend these practices. It aims to provide a conceptual account of how social media is embedded in the practices of the information sector.

Methodology – The research design is based on qualitative multiple case studies and grounded theory following Eisenhardt (1989). It uses an information practice as a unit of analysis and collects data as written and spoken descriptions of practice.

Findings – Existing knowledge and expertise in the use of social media is nascent and disparate and often available only as anecdote. As a result of this research, it is captured and conceptualized and a theoretical frame for social media use in information work emerges – a deeper understanding ensues.

Originality/value – This research uses a practice perspective to focus on the activity involved in social media adoption to support information work. In theorising across multiple descriptions of information practices, this research provides a steadying influence in information environments that may feel obligation to embrace the global phenomena of social media. Clarifying guidance for purposeful information work will benefit the information profession and advance its various practices.