York College Prepares Communicators for "New Media" Careers

As businesses that were accustomed to using traditional media, such as print and television, opt for new and more creative ways to reach their audiences, the job descriptions of communications professionals have changed. With this in mind, the Communications Division at York College began adapting their majors for professions that now include the use of interactive digital media – also known as "new media."

According to Robert Carroll, APR, professor of public relations, over the last decade, most textbooks have been unable to keep up with the rapidly changing field of communications. In his public relations classes, Carroll uses information from trade publications such as PR Tactics and Public Relations Strategist, as well as information from the Internet, to introduce his students to current trends.

"Careers in all three of the Communications Division's majors – mass communication, public relations and speech communication – have always changed from year to year," said Lowell Briggs, assistant professor of communications. "However, today's careers require experience in new media, which changes and evolves every day."

In 2009, Briggs, who teaches in the area of advanced video production and public relations, joined forces with Carroll and his other colleagues in the Communications Division to determine what additional steps they needed to take to prepare students for the rapidly changing communications professions. While the group agreed that the foundation of the Division – effective writing, speaking and producing ­– was still needed, they also needed to introduce "new media" strategies to all of their majors. For public relations majors, this meant learning to use social media effectively for business promotion. 

Social Media

"Fortunately, most of our public relations majors are already using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools for their personal use," said Carroll. "We are teaching our students how social media techniques are being integrated by organizations to achieve strategic communications goals."

To reinforce their efforts, the Division brings in guest speakers to talk with the public relations majors about how social media has changed the public relations profession. 

"Recently, Susan Ewing, the social media marketing and Web manager at Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau, spoke to students about how she is using social media to further the interests of her organization," said Carroll. "This allows our students to see firsthand why we are focusing on this public relations strategy in class."

In the major's capstone Public Relations Campaigns class, students are asked to implement this strategy while developing public relations plans for nonprofit clients in the area.

"We want nontraditional communications such as social media to be a part of the strategies and tactics students prepare for their clients, because they will need to use these tools when they become professionals," said Carroll. 

Carroll has also found that organizations where York College students are interning now require this type of experience.

"One student completed an internship in Fall 2009 at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg," said Carroll. "In addition to writing numerous news releases for traditional media, she helped develop a blog for the organization and prepared information for the Whitaker Center Web site." 

J. Hope Carroll, a York College instructor who teaches writing courses for communi-cations majors, believes experiences, such as the internship at the Whitaker Center, are becoming the "norm" in communications because of the way society wants their information.

"No longer do we have a 24-hour news cycle, as it's now a 24/7 news cycle, thanks to Twitter and other means of distribution," she said. "My students and I talk about the ways that news is gathered and distributed and the fact that employers are seeking people with strategic knowledge of how to apply social media to their organizations' communications."

She recently noticed that social media specialist positions are appearing more frequently in organizations. In fact, a recent Public Relations Society of America's "Jobcenter" Web site listed several positions for communications professionals with social media skills.

Interactive Web Sites

Because media outlets are shrinking in number, broadcast journalists and producers are being asked to take on more responsibilities. In addition to working behind the scenes in video production or in front of the camera or microphone, they are often asked to maintain and monitor content on the media outlet's interactive Web site.

"Broadcast journalists are directing their audiences to their stations' Web sites for the rest of the story, so it is important that the sites are constantly updated with clear and concise content," said Briggs. "Our graduates must know how to produce a fast-paced newscast, as well as how to rewrite those same stories for their station's Web site."  

Most Web sites now include features such as videos, blogs and comment sections.

"As the number of people who get their news online via handheld devices and computers grew, Web sites became dynamic, interactive and frankly, more comprehensive than newscasts," said Briggs.

Briggs believes producers and broadcasters who understand the advantages of the Web and know how to complement breaking news with background online will be the first to succeed as technology changes. 

"In some newsrooms, reporters are responsible for setting up an interview, shooting and editing the video for their package that will be used on air, and then writing text for the Web site and posting it, along with a video," he said. "If a reporter can do it all effectively, they will certainly stand out in the crowd." 

New Media Sales

The Web also provides new opportunities and requires broader skills for future broadcast sales executives.

"If a local advertiser wants its product to be seen, they'll buy both air time and Web space; we're training our mass communications majors to capitalize on cross-promotional platforms," said Briggs.

To prepare mass communications majors for online sales, the Communications Division will expand its present broadcast sales area with a convergent sales minor beginning in Fall 2010.

"Students will learn how to cultivate potential buyers, pitch the viability of both on-air and online, close the sale and strategically manage the entire process," said Briggs. 

Similar to other majors and minors in the Division, the faculty is configuring its existing sales courses and internship experiences to prepare students for the future.

"It’s an exciting time to meet and exceed the expectations of broadcast, commercial production and public relations employers with the professionals we are developing here at York College," said Briggs.

The Future of Social Media by the Communications Division Faculty

If you "friend," "tweet," are "Linkedin," or you text far more than you email, then you are involved in the most rapidly expanding form of communication – social media. Generations of people worldwide utilize social media daily more commonly than earlier generations talked by phone, wrote letters or watched television, combined. 

Communication theorist Marshall McLuhan suggested over 50 years ago that communication would eventually make the world a smaller "global village." In the last 20 years, the Internet gave us the platform to be informed and to research virtually anything at anytime. In the last 10 years, email electronically connected us. 

Within the last five years, the cell phone keyboard has enabled the text message to explode in popularity. Text capability now instantly ties friends together with constant and immediate sharing of thoughts or reactions to life experiences. 

Social media essentially connects  "communities" of family, friends, business networks, as well as commerce, product marketing and even urgent emergency notification, among a myriad of other applications. Social media permeates nearly every aspect of our changing world in ways that are proving to be both good and bad, requiring business, industry, government and higher education to adapt, and more specifically, catch up. 

Social media is not without its critics. Some contend "texting" and "tweeting" has become an addiction for younger users, a distraction or worse, an actual impediment to speaking effectively, and flawed assumption that all online information is fact. 

Educators across disciplines have begun and will continue to research the social, psychological, communicative and business impact of social media. How educators design their courses to reach students through all online media, including social media, is an immediate and expanding academic concern.   

Perhaps, a more daunting question is what will the future hold. What will the next communication vehicle encompass? In five years, what will social media (as we know it now) look like? How much more profound will it be in our daily lives?

If recent history offers any clues, social media text and still photography will give way to a grand array of integrated audio, video and animated applications beyond what we can envision now, and all in a more wireless environment.    

As email once connected people by an address, social media links people to people, setting the stage for more emotionally powerful and highly professional interpersonal communication through continually evolving technologies. 

So it is no surprise that we are joining others across campuses in the realization that "new media," and its new operational technologies, demand our own attention. 

The people in our classrooms today are the future professionals that will make a name for us (and themselves) tomorrow. Their success in a new media world is ultimately our success here at York College.

(Pictured: Professor Lowell Briggs talks with Tyler Brode '10 (York, Pa.) in his Newswriting/Production class.)