1223 - Follow the Leader: Building your Audience and Making an Impact with Twitter (Sponsored by the Public Engagement Advisory Committee)

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Description

The Task Force on Engaging Sociology is proposing to sponsor this and other workshops that focus on illuminating best practices, key strategies, and innovative techniques for engaging new publics in sociological dialogues. Our discipline has much to say about many of the most controversial topics on Twitter: race, immigration policy, gender inequality, sports, and the rise of Trumpism. Many of these topics touch on the 2018 theme of “Feeling Race” and the workshop leader is committed to featuring panelists who don’t shy away from such controversies, but choose instead to engage them in the digital realm. This panel will be of interest to any ASA member seeking to increase the knowledge of Twitter and how to use it to make an impact in the public sphere

Description

Launched as a social media platform in 2006, Twitter has grown to become a powerful platform for making and breaking news, with over 300 million regular users. As sociologists increasingly strive to go public with our sociological research, how can we best harness this tool for disseminating scholarly research? How can we use it to intervene in public conversations and debates, sharing relevant sociological perspectives and concepts? And can we really do all that in 140 characters or less? These and other questions—including the important issue of how to build and activate a base of Twitter followers—will be explored through this panel discussion, composed of a diverse panel of sociologists active on Twitter.

Sub Unit

• Workshops / Professional Development Workshop

Session Organizer

• Dustin Kidd, Temple University

Panelists

• Nancy Wang Yuen, Biola University

• Tennille Allen, Lewis University

• Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, University of Delaware

• Lisa Wade, Occidental College

• Dustin Kidd, Temple University