I had the honour of introducing the keynote speaker on social media, Sidneyeve Matrix, at the WorldViews conference on media and education.
The session was packed, though some arrive after we started since an earlier session over-ran.
So I am posting my introductory comments that were intended to seed the discussions.
“Welcome to this afternoon’s stream on social media and new technology. The question on our agenda: Is this the dawning of a new age?
First of all social media is an elusive term to define – we know when we see it, but how do you explain it? Social media can refer to an activity, a software tool or a platform: in any case, media has always had a social side to it.
And it’s not about technologies either. Rather we are talking about new forms of media that enhance communication and foster the formation of social ties.
I look at social media from the perspective of journalism. But there are parallels with the world of education.
Journalism developed as a relatively closed professional culture for the production of knowledge, based on a system of editorial control. Does that sound familiar?
Social media is characterized by its connected and collaborative nature. It allows for relations that can disrupt existing hierarchies. Like journalists, we as educators need to figure out how information flows in a social media ecosystem, instead of simply applying established ways of working.
The significance of social media lies less in current services and tools, and more in how these networked, asynchronous, distributed and always-on systems enable dynamic interactions. These are interactions that prize participation over publication, collaboration over individual authorship, sharing over selfishness and fluidity over stability.
As with most conferences, we have the lecture format – but we’d like to foster a discussion, both here and on Twitter. The conference hashtag is “wv2011” – post your observations, comments and questions.
We’re very fortunate to have as our keynote speaker Sidneyeve Matrix. We can all read her bio online, so I won’t go into details.
This is the first time we’ve met, but I feel like I have known Sidneyeve for sometime. Why? Through her online persona and messages on Twitter. She has been on Twitter for almost three years, has sent more than 4,000 messages, is following almost 10,000 people and is followed by just under 14,000.
I ran an analysis to see what Sidneyeve tweets about. As you might expect, the topics include social media, the internet, mobile technologies, Facebook and one surprising entry – the snack food industry. I’m sure there’s a good reason for that. Please join me in welcoming Sidneyeve Matrix.”
(Photo by Caitlin Kealey)
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