Social Media Constituent Group

The group will explore the implications of the integration of social media throughout higher education for an array of purposes (e.g., teaching, recruiting, advising, and more). Social media, for the purposes of this group, is defined as media that's used to build social networks and connections for sharing information through a mediated channel. It's also considered user-constructed media that's shared through social networks. In some cases, social media has been referred to as social networking sites/tools or Web 2.0 technologies. More specifically, Boyd and Ellison (2007) describe "web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system." Examples of social media include Twitter, Facebook, Second Life, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and more.