On the 16th and 17th of March, ampoule I had the pleasure of traveling to Zaragoza to join the International Conference on Digital Culture, pharmacy Communication & Society organized by the Cyberspace Working Group of the Faculty of Communication at the University San Jorge. The event was well covered, the local media and journalism students present publishing many articles (in various forms) afterwards.
I dedicated my keynote address to sharing tips, insights and lessons learned from working with digital media for research and from conducting research using social media tools. My prezi (in Spanish) is included below. Judging from the feedback received after the talk and from the comments on Twitter during and after the session, the researchers and students participating found the talk as an invitation to try something new.
I also had the opportunity to share a panel on social media, journalism and communication (including PR) with Pilar Gimeno, USJ alumna and journalist in Warsaw, and Stephen Burgen, journalist, author and correspondent for The Guardian in Spain. We spoke about our uses of social media in particular and the challenges it poses for journalists and communicators alike, agreeing that a higher level of literacy is needed, that goes beyond the use of the platforms and should focus more on the implications of their use for privacy, personal data, business and more. Our talk also touched on convergence and citizen journalism and interpreted their practice through utopian and dystopian views of the internet. Finally, we spoke about the relationship between journalists, communication practitioners and their interdependency even if social media provides an environment for both to bypass each other. A good summary (in Spanish) is on Yael Morales’ blog.Â
All in all, it has been a wonderful experience. Besides enabling me to practice my Spanish, I had the opportunity to meet with researchers and lecturers with whom I will keep in contact, I visited an ambitious and inspiring new university and met with many enthusiastic students, ready to take on new challenges, at home and elsewhere.