Millions of people use social media on a daily basis. On its own, Facebook has 175 million users all actively using its site to make connections, both new and old, and foster relationships. So is the use of social media really a suitable topic for a Masters degree?

I’m a huge fan of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and podcasting. These new forms of communication or member communities are taking over from email, the first mass communication device spawned by the creation of the World Wide Web.

I’m not alone either, with most people having an account on at least social network, or being an active Twitter user, or communication via the publication of a regularly-updated blog or podcast. But this fact that everyone is already doing it hasn’t stopped a British university from offering a Masters degree in social media.

According to The Guardian, Birmingham City University is now offering a one-year social media degree, which will cost students £4,000 ($6,000) to attain. The course will look at the different forms of social media and how they can be used for communication and marketing.

Techniques for starting and maintaining a blog, and creating and producing a podcast will also make up part of the course. As soon as the course was advertised – via a video on the university’s Web site – it became the target for criticism from technologists and students alike. Jon Hickman, the course convener, has responded to the jibes in the most suitable fashion: via his Twitter page.

He said:

[The course is not for] IT geeks. The tools learned on this course will be accessible to many people. It will definitely appeal to students looking to go into professions including journalism and PR.

The course does entail synoptic research and scholarly activity, which are the fundamental criteria for masters degrees. It’s very relevant and very scholarly. It’s a new course, but its importance is unquestionable.

Social media is very important for jobs within the marketing and communications sector, as a skill set within other jobs, and as an industry within itself.

The man has a point and I do have some sympathy with him. Certainly there is a case for social media being an important tool in both communications and marketing in this day and age. But a whole degree about how it works? That seems over-the-top and a little unnecessary, especially when the majority of us already have a basic understanding of this topic.

There’s also the same problems associated with this degree course as there is to social media being added to the curriculum of primary schoolchildren. Social media is very now, happening in the present. But it’s likely to have evolved or been replaced in ten years time. What then for people who spent a year studying and obtaining a degree in what could become a dead technology in a very short space of time?

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Entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:08 pm under Internet, Opinion, Social Media.

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