Winter 2023
Positive influences
Gillis Williams educates, inspires, and entertains about autism on TikTok. » More ...
Social media
Fall 2023
Kaitlyn Thornton
Agriculture looks pretty fun in Kaitlyn Thornton’s hands.
Big trucks, small trucks, pears and apples, belt buckles and boots, and lots of music.
Thornton, who’ll graduate from the Carson College of Business in December 2023, is an ag influencer on TikTok and Instagram with hundreds of thousands of followers.
Through videos and photos she educates her followers on what it takes to operate a more than 400-acre orchard in north-central Washington. For example, that “dust” on apples in the family orchards? It’s natural clay sprayed on the fruit to prevent sun damage. And imperfect fruit tastes … » More …
Fall 2023
More than a kick
Dean Janikowski is the kicker for Washington State University’s football team, a 2022 graduate and currently an MBA student at WSU. He also has a great time on Instagram and other social media with photos and videos playing football for the Cougs, riding dirt bikes, and kicking spicy Chicken McNuggets.
In this episode, Dean talks with Washington State Magazine writer Becky Kramer about raising money for the Heather Janikowski Foundation, a charity named for his mom, who died of cancer.
Dean also talks about how he started his sports career in soccer, NIL (name, image, and likeness), and his … » More …
Summer 2021
Ande Edlund and Dash Dog
The golden retriever has become a social media celebrity for the WSU family. » More ...
Spring 2018
Truth or consequences
Fake news nearly started a war between Qatar and its neighbors in 2017. In Pakistan, a highly placed official bought into a fake news story warning that Israel was going to destroy Pakistan, and tweeted a warning at Israel that his country, too, was a nuclear power. And in Washington, D.C., an armed vigilante burst into a pizzeria and fired three shots, thinking he was bringing down a sex-slave ring.
While news has never been neutral, something has changed: Information has become weaponized. What’s changed, says Washington State University communications professor Doug Hindman, is that the marketplace of ideas has broken down under the … » More …
Spring 2018
Fact or Fiction? Using the Web to Quickly Fact-check Social Media Feeds
Although titled Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers, Michael Caulfield’s book is in fact for all of us. That’s why he subtitled the book as also being for “other people who care about facts.” As he writes, the web “is both the largest propaganda machine ever created and the most amazing fact-checking tool ever invented.”
Most efforts at teaching web literacy have focused, the Washington State University staff member writes, on time-consuming critical thinking and on producing and publishing things on the web. While both are valuable skills, they fail to address the much more urgent need: how to evaluate the information we are presented with … » More …
Fall 2017
Privacy, Surveillance, and the New Media You
Edward Lee Lamoureux ’80 MA Speech Comm.
Peter Lang: 2017
You open your browser to your favorite news site, and there on top is an ad for Cougar logo socks. “Wait a minute,” you might ask yourself. “How did they know I just looked at a tweet about Coug socks?” Or you might not even think about it.
That slightly creepy sensation of losing one’s privacy, and … » More …
Fall 2016
Get out the tweet
Social media’s effect on political participation and civility
In the nonstop flow of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, it’s hard to avoid comments and news about politics, especially in a presidential election year. Many worry the geyser of political rhetoric and uncivil comments might discourage some from participating.
That’s not always the case, says Porismita Borah, an assistant professor in the Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University since 2012. As a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin and at WSU, she researches emerging technology and how it affects politics. She coauthored a study in 2008 that found young people became … » More …
Summer 2014
Legal Guide to Social Media: Rights and Risks for Businesses and Entrepreneurs
Kimberly A. Houser
Allworth Press, 2013
Millions of photos, links, and comments are posted to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter every day, yet the legal briar patch of copyright, privacy, defamation, and more can snag both personal and business users. Houser, an attorney and clinical professor in Washington State University’s College of Business, wrote this book as a guide to some common legal risks of social media.
… » More …