Saturday, June 13, 2015

University and Student Interaction

Universities are constantly looking for ways to engage students. Whether it is to encourage them through finals or to have the students feel welcome, participation is always wanted. Most universities have multiple Twitter accounts as ways to gain student engagement and participation. Through tweeting, retweeting, and posting pictures, schools like Texas A&M are able to communicate with the students. The only problem is, if the students respond well to it.

In the analysis or student participation and engagement, I looked to Texas A&M for information about how effective it was. TAMU Dining is the Twitter account for the dining services at the University. The account currently has 1,678 followers and is following 2,000 accounts. With the large amount of people seeing their tweets, one would think that the participation would be rather high. However, this was not always the case with the tweets. Many times, the account would request a retweet to gain involvement from the students. For example, the following picture was posted to the account but only had six retweets.

Yes, the account did have some engagement with students, but compared to the amount of followers, I would say it is pretty low. In comparison, when the Texas Lutheran University Dining twitter was examined, there were usually an average of five retweets on most posts. The difference is TLU Dining has 56 followers. As the authors of Spreadable Media discuss:
"In a similar fashion to our spreadability model, Clark describes how such works offer resources to sustain public conversations, how audience members intensity their involvement through acts of curation and circulation, and how spreading the word may help prepare them to take action around the issues being discussed" (Jenkins et al, Ch. 4).
In most circumstances, Twitter accounts related to the University dining does not post controversial topics, usually things to excite the students about coming to school. When the authors discuss taking action, it would be the act of retweeting about a food related event or something they want to share with students on campus. If students are excited about the event themselves, the potential of them sharing it with others is much higher. University Twitters also provide useful information to students, these type of posts do not require as much interaction but it does aid in encouraging students to participate The last thing this particular page posted was humor. Let's face it, what college student doesn't enjoy a bit of humor every once in a while?

TAMU Dining entertains students with posts like the one above. It is another way of encouraging engagement with the students. If the page can relate to the students, the students are more likely to relate to the page.

Another Texas A&M Twitter page is the Texas A&M Bookstore. Similar to the dining Twitter, the bookstore aims to engage students as well. While some methods are the same, some are different. They often use advertisements and local deals going on. Again, they are relating to college students and one way to do that is through discounts and free things!


 Spreadable Media talks about listening and hearing. While it might seem strange to listen and hear social media, it is important for the spreading of the message they are aiming to achieve (Jenkins et al, Ch.4). Companies, or in this case, Twitter accounts to need listen to what they audience is saying. If the account only posts what they want, never listening to the audience, there will be no engagement from them at all. We are a society that is only interested in what we want. In order to gain participation, the different accounts need to give the University students what they ask for.

Lastly, the authors bring up an important point. Participation versus collaboration. Derek Johnson recommends a move are from resistance and toward collaboration. While it might be more morally complex, it will in return create new opportunities and tools (Jenkins et al, Ch. 4). Considering the University Twitter accounts, collaboration might be a game changer for their engagement with students. By allowing the students to collaborate with the page and contribute to the content, it will likely encourage the involvement they are looking for from students. Yes, participation is important, but collaboration allows the students to be one step above just participating. Students that have the capability of collaborating with the dining services or bookstore will feel more inclined to spread the page and media that is being posted.

In conclusion, Universities are student focused (or at least should be) and are interested in harboring the relationship with each and every student. By using certain social media pages, it gives them the privilege of being able to reach many students at once. Spreadable Media gives us the tools to understand what is important in regards to participation and how it can be achieved. Students are technology minded and the schools have to accommodate that in ways to gain student engagement, participation, and collaboration.

Works Cited:
Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
TAMU Bookstore. Twitter, n.d. Web. 13 June 2015.
Texas A&M Bookstore. Twitter, n.d. Web. 13 June 2015.
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