#SMStudentChat Connects Students and Industry Professionals

In January, 2018, Amanda J. Weed—in collaboration with Karen Freberg (University of Louisville), Emily Kinsky (West Texas A&M University), and Amber Hutchins (Kennesaw State University)—launched #SMStudentChat.  The monthly Twitter chat focused on trending topics in social media communication.  Each month, a rotating guest lineup of industry professionals discussed topics such as personal branding, analytics and measurement, and augmented reality.  Chats were open to all students, educators, and professionals working in, or studying, social media communication.  More than 300 participants from nine countries joined the first “season” of #SMStudentChat, earning a combined reach of more than 24 million.

#SMStudentChat was featured in the 1st Place submission for the GIFT (Great Ideas for Teaching) Competition, sponsored by the Public Relations Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).  The GIFT submission was recently published in the Journal of Public Relations Education.

The next season of #SMStudentChat will premier in September, 2018.

PhD student Amanda Weed named among Promising Professors

by Michael Sweeney, Professor; Associate Director for Graduate Studies, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University

PhD student Amanda Weed has won second place in the 2015 graduate student Promising Professor competition conducted by the Mass Communication & Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Weed, who teaches strategic communication classes in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism while completing work on her doctorate, will receive the award Aug. 8 at the division’s business meeting during the AEJMC conference in San Francisco. Weed will give a brief presentation at the meeting.

The Promising Professor Award honors three junior faculty and three graduate students for excellence in teaching. The second place award carries a prize of $150.

A professor’s endorsement letter of support stated, “On her own and with the help of her mentor, Professor Craig Davis, she has developed an innovative teaching style that creates a learning environment that mirrors the real world, with students in her strategic communication class making pitches on behalf of clients and voting on which presentation team they would hire. She also has brought recent, real-world case studies into the classroom that have tapped into her research, including her publications, about marketing and branding. . . . She is quite savvy about strategic communication, and we as a full-time faculty know her classes are in good hands when she is in charge. She receives some of the top course evaluation scores in our department, and her students are getting top-tier internships and jobs.”

via The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University

Strategic Social Media Student’s Case Study Picked Up by AdWeek

Olivia Usitalo’s #socialfail case study about McDonald’s #mcdstories was picked up as linked source in an AdWeek Technology article on May 14, 2015.  Usitalo, a student in the Spring 2015 session of Strategic Social Media, wrote the case study as part of the #socialwin/#socialfail series of assignments.  In only four hours after the article posted, her case study was viewed by nearly 1,000 visitors from 48 countries.

PhD student Amanda Weed is named to the NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar

by Michael Sweeney, Professor; Associate Director for Graduate Studies

E.W. Scripps School of Journalism PhD student Amanda Weed has been accepted into the National Communication Association Doctoral Honors Seminar in the Mass Communication group. The seminar will be July 17-20.

According to the NCA, the doctoral honors seminars “bring together promising doctoral students and distinguished faculty members from across the discipline and around the nation to discuss current topics in communication. The seminars are held annually at a selected host institution. Approximately 30 doctoral students are chosen to participate based on submitted papers and recommendations from their advisors.”

via The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism