Global Influence of Social Media in Politics and in Our Lives

Jim Jorstad [right] addresses a group after his lecture on social media.
{photo courtesy-Larry Sleznikow}

A live streamed webcast was broadcast from the campus of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse on the evening of October 29th. The lecture was entitled, "The Global Influence of Social Media in Politics and in Our Lives." The presentation explained how Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have dramatically changed the political landscape as well as our personal lives.  Through an insightful documentation of politics in Wisconsin since 2011, through the national political scene of 2012, the interactive program showcased a long series of historical events through social media and citizen reporting.  Using CNN iReports as the framework, the audience saw first hand photo-journalistic reports of the Wisconsin Recall, the presidential and senate races, and a variety of human interest stories.

The lecture was streamed live on Mediasite and Live Polling was used to measure the political demographics of the audience, as well as gauging the audience's perceptions in regards to how specific media outlets may or may not be biased in their news reporting. The event was carried on Twitter at #GlobalSocMedia

You can view the presentation by clicking on the image.



Some key takeaways when effectively utilizing social media include:

1) use relevant images and video to document authentic events.
2) use analytics to track dissemination and distribution.
3) use social media to tell personal and relevant stories
4) use social media to engage faculty and students
5) go global with your social media story
6) go local with your social media story 

Live Polling was used in this presentation.  You may be part of the poll, or view the responses by clicking here: