Social Media MA

Birmingham City University has launched a Masters Degree in Social Media.

This course is designed for the end user academic with no IT background. he aim is to build and develop networks using the usual S & M tools that we all know and love (or hate). Students will learn how to use Social Networking within a business context. This includes low cost marketing and PR. It will also teach people about blogging and podcasting

The organiser is @johnhickman. He told the The Daily Telegraph that the course is "... not for freaks or IT geeks, the tools learnt on this course will be accessible to many people."

There has been some criticism of the new course. In the same Telegraph article a student at the university called it a "... a complete waste of university resources" and that "... most people know all this stuff already".

He's got a point. There is a great deal of information on social networks on the web. Much of it is free and there are plenty of lovely people around who are happy to share their experience. There is also a strong argument that the last thing the Internet needs is an army of highly trained PRs flooding our virtual galaxy. Having said, that without seeing a full breakdown of the course details it's easy to dismiss this as a course for newbies.

There is also one aspect which piqued my interest and that was the research element:

"The research-based nature of this MA draws upon the expertise of the Interactive Cultures research unit based in the Birmingham School of Media (http://interactivecultures.org/). Our established and innovative work with music and radio industries, policy, cultural entrepreneurship as well as the practices of social media will inform class work and the directions of individual scholarship."

Much of social networking development is by entrepreneurs who are talented and very clever but are essentially start-ups, not all of which will last long. Academic institutions can contribute to the Social Media industry and could enhance new and existing services by providing them with a forum to work with. If I were developing a hot new Twitter based app, I'd be knocking on their door wanting to hook up with them.

An academic research centre will also create a timeline of Social Media's development. Sadly, a number of great services that we know and love now, will not succeed and wither away. In time, a Social Media research centre will, presumably, have data on legacy services and allow aspiring gurus to look back on applications of the past and learn valuable lessons from what they did and what they did wrong.

So all in all I think it's a good thing. I only wish I had the £4000 to pay for the course.