Over the course of this semester, my engagement with INF506 has deeply broadened my understanding of social networking and social media, revealing my surface level understanding of the tools social media offers. This has had significant implications for my ongoing study, my personal life, and my continued development as a teacher librarian.
Prior to commencing my studies in INF506, engagement in social media was a daily occurrence for me. Living in a rural community far from family, friends, and opportunities for professional development, social media engagement is necessary to stay connected to the wider world. For the most part, my involvement was passive – I would post infrequently, but mostly my feed was full of book-related content, holiday and life updates from family and friends and, most importantly, posts on teacher education pages.
The importance I placed on social media as a professional development tool was evident at the very beginning of INF506 when I posted my initial thoughts about the importance of social media (Coddington, 2023a). In this post, I ruminated on the invaluable nature of social media as a tool to “connect and exchange resources and ideas with colleagues” (Coddington, 2023a, para. 1), and aligned myself entirely with Giannikas’ contention that, in a professional context, social media does indeed foster and facilitate connection, community and collaboration (2020) between individuals in similar professional roles, regardless of the physical distance that separates them. It is clear from the onset I had a firm understanding of the potential and use of social media and social networking to collaborate and professionally develop one’s knowledge and connections.
However, upon reflection of this blog post, my idea of social media for professional use was firmly grounded in my use and understanding of Facebook alone. Prior to engaging with INF506, it is clear I had never considered the use of other social media platforms to socially network for professional development even on a surface level, let alone critically. My engagement in INF506, particularly in the first assessment task where I had to propose and justify a social media strategy, and the Online Learning Journal Task (OLJ) 11 (Coddington, 2023b) , where I explored potential professional social media sites for functionality and issues demonstrate a burgeoning critical knowledge of social media and social networking in a professional sense. My critical analysis of Reddit and Buzzfeed (Coddington, 2023b) and my analysis of different Twitter/X feeds (Coddington, 2024a), for example, demonstrate this progressive movement beyond surface level appreciation of the professional development opportunities afforded by social media. In the former I discussed issues of algorithms informed by data tracking, and the major follow-on effects of this – censorship, which occurs on such sites and perpetuates the spread of misinformation and the dismissing of perspectives from minority, disadvantaged groups (Tripodi, 2023). In the latter, I analysed the effectiveness of approaches of two different X feeds, focusing on success, post rate, and appropriateness for intended audiences. Clearly, the critical approach taken with these posts further into the semester and the increased complexity and depth of concepts addressed reflects the development of my professional understanding of social networking as an information professional.
Despite a casual mention in an early blog post (Coddington, 2023c), what I had not taken into serious consideration yet, however, was another crucial concept and issue associated with social media and social networking: privacy. Reading Douglas’ post on privacy and security concerns in social media (Douglas, 2024) and engaging in unit reading materials, I too found myself reflecting on my personal attitude towards data collection and tracking that occurs through social media. Prior to engaging in INF506 I, like many others, (Crocco et al., 2020) found targeted advertising to be a convenient by-product of harmless data collection. Indeed, I even referred to this tracking as a way to “train the algorithm” (Coddington, 2023b) and failed to address it beyond surface level mentions of student privacy in other posts and comments (Coddington, 2023c; Coddington, 2023d).
However, after identifying this as an area of knowledge in need of development for professional and personal growth, I compiled a list of resources on privacy and ethical dilemmas with social media (Coddington, 2023e). This identified gap in my knowledge directly informed my approach to assessment task 2. Whilst the first assessment allowed me to explore the positive potential of social media use in schools, the second assignment promoted the critical evaluation of social media in terms of the core issue of privacy violations. The subsequent expansion of my knowledge of personal and professional social media engagement is evidenced in a later blog post, where I explored the personal risks of engaging in social media (Coddington, 2024b). This research prompted me to seriously consider my shadow profile (Tactical Technology Collective, 2024), and has resulted in a number of changes made not only to my privacy settings across a range of platforms, but also to my general browsing habits in personal, academic, and professional contexts.
Interestingly, from an academic perspective throughout this unit, I found myself reluctant to engage in social media with my fellow students despite my extensive use of the platform in my personal life. This occurred despite my early acknowledgment of the benefits of it, which are well documented (Coddington, 2023a; Ginnikas, 2020). Upon reflection, I attribute this to apprehension about the new communication format. In previous units, emphasis was placed on formal communication through university-regulated channels. Suddenly being provided with the opportunity to communicate casually with my peers, regardless of my acknowledgement of the benefits of it (Coddington, 2023c) was daunting, and as a result I didn’t participate as actively in the INF506 Facebook page as I would have liked. Rather, I was a passive viewer, predominantly silently observing the posts of others and engaging through reactions primarily.
Overall, the depth of knowledge gained about social media and social networking in INF506 has and will greatly inform my personal, academic, and professional lives. My personal and academic habits have changed, and whilst I am incredibly keen to implement the social media proposal of assessment task one in a real world context, I am also now keenly and critically aware of the privacy concerns associated with such an endeavour, and will be building strategies for mitigation of this into future social media policies I will create out of associated necessity in my professional role (Mon & Koontz, 2020). Given the ever-changing nature of social media and social networking, it is also clear that I will need to keep updated with issues, concerns, and updates in the social networking and social media fields to ensure my professional, academic, and personal engagement stays up to date.
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Reference List
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2023a, November 16). Social media in professional settings – initial thoughts. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2023/11/16/social-media-in-professional-settings-initial-thoughts/
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2023b, December 13). OLJ Task 11: Social news sites. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2023/12/13/olj-task-11-social-news-sites/
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2023c, December 2). OLJ Task 2: The influence of technology on society. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2023/12/02/olj-task-2-the-influence-of-technology-on-society/
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2023d, December 2). OLJ Task 3: Mobile exploration. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2023/12/02/olj-task-3-mobile-exploration/
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2023e, December 6). Resources for a range of topics. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2023/12/06/resources-for-a-range-of-topics/
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2024a, January 10). OLJ Task 10: Twitter feeds. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2024/01/10/olj-task-10-twitter-feeds/
Coddington, M. [monica.coddington1] (2024b, January 29). AT2 – Privacy and Social Media Use in School Libraries. The Learning of a Teacher Librarian in Training. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teacherlibrarianintraining/2024/01/29/at2-privacy-and-social-media-use-in-school-libraries/
Crocco, M., Segall, A., Halvorsen, A., Stamm, A., & Jacobsen, R. (2020). “It’s not like they’re selling your data to dangerous people”: Internet privacy, teens, and (non-)controversial public issues. Journal of Social Studies Research., 44(1), 21-33.
Douglas, C. [catherine.douglas] (2024, January 24). OLJ Task 14 – Areas of concern – Privacy and security. Catherine’s Comments. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/catdouglas/2024/01/24/olj-task-5-areas-of-concern-privacy-and-security/
Giannikas, C. (2020). Facebook in tertiary education: The impact of social media in e-Learning. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 17(1) https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol17/iss1/3
Mon, L., & Koontz, C. (2020). Ch02. Marketing and Mission, Goals, and Objectives. In Marketing and Social Media. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated.
Tactical Technology Collective. (2024). Me and My Shadow: Take Control of Your Data – What Are Digital Traces? Me and My Shadow. https://myshadow.org/
Tripodi, F. (2023). Ms. Categorized: Gender, notability, and inequality on Wikipedia. New media & Society 25(7), 1687-1707. DOI: 10.1177/14614448211023772