A Little Bird Told Me: Social Media and

Academic Identity(s)Chris Ashford

Reader in Law and SocietyFaculty of Business and Law

@lawandsexuality

Jorn Barger, ‘weblog’ in 1997

Peter Merholz – ‘blog’ 1999

Evan Williams, Biz Stone – Pyra Labs

Twitter - 2006

Arab Spring The Stephen Fry Twitter Phenomenon Blur – single launch Rio 2012 – 1992

In excess of 500 million users by April 2012

The Culture Shift

140 characters – ‘tweets’ On your desktop or mobile device Integrated – e.g. iPad ‘Friends’ and ‘Followers’

Sharing information Social

What the devil is this befuddling tool of wonder?

Mention Favourite Direct Messages (DM) The Hashtag # Follow Friday #ff RT - Retweet HT - HatTip

Twitter Mechanics

Twitter https://twitter.com/ Echofon http://www.echofon.com/ Tweetdeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/ Tweetdeck (yellow)

http://theultralinx.com/2012/03/old-tweetdeck-download.html

Tweetbot http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ Hootsuite http://hootsuite.com/

Platforms

Using Twitter: Professional

Using Twitter: Audience & Clarity

Using Twitter: Personality

Using Twitter: Engagement & Impact

Using Twitter: Beyond the Lecture

Using Twitter: Be Social!

Acceptability

What am I saying? To whom am I saying it? What about student usage? Private Vs Public speech The Law – ‘flaming’ – Twitter Joke Trial

Paul Chambers Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve

got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!

Twitter Joke Trial

A person is guilty of an offence if he— (a)        sends by means of a public

electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or

(b)        causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

The Communications Act 2003

Who am I? Teacher? Researcher? Husband? Wife? Civil Partner? Manager? Celebrity? Politician? Academic? Breaking out of the Academy? Challenging ‘professionalisation’ of

academia?

Status

Identity Authenticity? Goffman – ‘performance’ of identity Cownie – application to the Law Teacher

@uoslec2012

What are the boundaries?