Social Media for Academics
- Mark Carrigan - University of Manchester, UK
Social media has become an inescapable part of academic life. It has the power to transform scholarly communication and offers new opportunities to publish and publicise your work, to network in your discipline and beyond and to engage the public. However, to do so successfully requires a careful understanding of best practice, the risks, rewards and what it can mean to put your professional identity online.
Inside you'll find practical guidance and thoughtful insight on how to approach the opportunities and challenges that social media presents in ways that can be satisfying and sustainable as an academic. The guide has been updated throughout to reflect changes in social media and digital thinking since the last edition, including:
- The dark side of social media—from Trump to harassment
- Emerging forms of multimedia engagement—and how to use to your advantage
- Auditing your online identity—the why and how
- Taking time out—how to do a social media sabbatical.
Supplements
Mark Carrigan is a leading authority on the topic of digital scholarship. This book will definitely sharpen your sense of what social media can do for academics and academic work.
Carrigan does a great job of demystifying social media for newcomers to the fray, while also prompting veterans to reassess how (and why) they post, tweet and share their scholarship.
A great reminder to switch off your device and reflect critically on the nature of scholarship in the digital age.
Three years on from Carrigan’s first edition of Social Media for Academics he has once again captured everything you need to know right now about this phenomenon through a higher education lens. He gives solid practical advice backed up by evidence, like how to employ social media in an impact driven environment whilst avoiding its pitfalls.
A thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be a scholar in the digital age. All academics interested in how social media produce knowledge and complicate traditional models of knowledge production should read this book. The internet as both text and organic growth is set out for all to see.
This updated edition of Mark’s compelling and pragmatic guidebook makes a clear and extensive case for how and why social media can work in many facets of daily academic life, whilst also grappling with the emerging and ongoing pitfalls and problems facing scholars in a digital age. #RequiredReading
Social Media for Academics is an insightful introduction to the benefits, challenges, and complexities of being an academic online. Carrigan’s easy-to-read and comprehensive guide explores social media from a range of perspectives, filling a much needed gap within academic development literature. The expanded second edition widens the discussion, providing thoughtful and critical discussion on academic identity, post-trust, and the role social media will play in future universities. A must read for all researchers, lecturers, and Higher Education Professionals.
Both young academics -- well versed in the mechanics of social media -- and more senior scholars will find the book interesting and provocative, and many will find useful new ways of presenting and discussing their work using the resources created by social media platforms.
Mark Carrigan is an astute and well-informed follower of the topic of the rising role of social media in the academic world, and the book is well worth a close reading. And it raises an interesting question: what would Socrates' Twitter stream have looked like?
