Tweeting Effectively

Twitter is based on a person tweeting about what they are doing. A persons twitter page is only successful if their tweets are good.What makes twitter so popular to people? What determines if a twitter page is good or interesting? What are you favorite twitter pages and why? If you have a twitter page, what do you tweet about that you know people will be interested in? If you don't have a twitter page, what would you tweet about?

Media Sites & Trust

Where do you get your news? Whom do you trust?

Media sites want to draw you to their pages and even more, to get you to return. There are all kinds of methods for this. Using Capital News 9 and the media site you chose, consider the following questions and whether both sources address them in the same way:

How are they set up? What is the balance of images v words? How do they use tabs (if they do)?
What do they think people are looking for?
How would you assess their level of responsiveness to the audience?
How do they establish a sense of "authority"?
Who is Channel 9 (and your other media site)? How are they presented? How complete is the information?
Do they work on your anxieties (e.g. the kind of stories that end with "...or your children may be in danger!"
How do they present themselves as part of the community?
How much user-generated content is there? Does it affect your assessment of the site as a "news" source?

Welcome to ENG 252

You will find most of our necessary materials at our Blackboard page. From our course description:

OBJECTIVES:
This course will examine the rapidly expanding field of New Media, an awkward umbrella term usually used to refer to the web, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other kinds of on-line communities. Much of this course will require engaging in the actual production of writing within these spheres. We will examine how New Media reflects cultural assumptions including sexism, racism and classism. A key issue will be "ownership" in the age of instant digital copying. While analyzing texts within their cultural contexts, we will utilize a variety of approaches to help develop further your critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. You will be expected to write pieces that demonstrate your ability to read closely and analyze carefully, building upon and broadening your writing skills (4 credit hours).