Social Media and Scholarship as Two Sides of the Same Coin

Students already have the skills of scholars, if they know how to identify them

Posted on July 22, 2024 in Blog Posts

Authors:

Beth Carpenter
Two instructional librarians with various social media logos around them

When people begin their academic careers, coming to colleges and universities as first-year students, the language of the internet is often part of their vernacular, whether from being participants on social media, through conversations with friends who participate, or from gleaning insight into their daily lives. But students are also asked to learn a new language when they enter higher education— the language of academics and scholars.

Social media offers a pathway into talking about this new language. For students familiar with the communal logistics of participating on Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, etc., there are similarities to how the research community works. The difference is that social media is a far more egalitarian way to participate in conversations; in general, people can interact with whomever they want, without barriers. All it takes is some modicum of understanding about the conversation that’s happening.

Academia and scholarship have barriers to entry, inherent to how they have been constructed. When working with undergraduates, especially at the early stages of their academic careers, it is important to help them see these barriers as surmountable, or even negligible. One way to do this is to demonstrate the similarities in structure between social media conversations and academic ones.

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Building on students’ metaliteracy

Because of the internet and its pervasive and endemic nature within society, we have developed a metaliteracy when it comes to how we engage with information. Social media exemplifies the way we already show metaliteracy: we participate, collaborate, and create, all without labeling these activities as such. Responding to a post, making a video that discusses an issue, building on an internet joke—these are all activities that we engage in that demonstrate our cognitive, metacognitive, affective, and behavioral learning capabilities.

This means that students can have these capabilities as well. They are already subconsciously engaging in the kinds of activities that we encourage in research. Without labelling it or thinking about it too much, students are replicating scholarly conversation.

My colleague Mary Kamela and I have done work on creating a theoretical framework that can help us, as library instructors, think about harnessing the power of TikTok, or other social media platforms, to demonstrate to students that they already have the ability to engage in the practices of research and academia.

Using social media as a starting point

There is a certain kind of joy when we can participate in those brief internet moments when it seems like everyone is on the same page, speaking the same language, and finding delight in a shared experience. Everyone is experiencing an inside joke together and feels like they can participate in the conversation. Having the opportunity to share that same kind of joy but in terms of research and scholarship is one of the privileges of being a librarian that works with undergraduates. Helping students realize that they already have the skills needed to pass the first barriers into scholarship is important. Ensuring that students know they have a place at the table and things to add to the conversation helps assure them that they can be successful researchers.

When someone posts something online, it is usually based around a personal experience or commentary on current events, and the point of sharing it is to find community around shared experiences and values. Social media does not exist in a vacuum, and sharing revolves around the idea that these posts will be interacted with and built on.

When a scholar publishes an article, they are generally putting forth new information, but information that is built on the work of others. Even new theories and inventive concepts have a foundation in structures that already exist. Scholars are engaging in conversations, in debates, in collaboration.

Social media posts must be understood on multiple levels for full engagement. In those moments when everyone on Twitter/X participates in a joke, there is an understanding of the original context of the moment that is spawning the memes. But there is also an understanding of the community rules of engagement that are unspoken but understood when engaging online. And further, there is often an understanding of other points of reference that can build the joke and help it bridge into new arenas.

Scholarship requires researchers to do literature reviews to understand the work that has come before these new ideas. It requires an understanding of the strictures of publishers and the generally understood rules of authority within academia that dictate what an article, chapter, or book looks like. And then the author brings into the conversation their own viewpoints, informed by their life experiences and their values.

When working with students and information literacy, showing them that they are familiar with the ways of gaining context already helps translate to narrowing topics and developing research questions. The process of making social media posts teaches students to be confident in their own ideas. It’s our job now to reassure them that their ideas have merit and value in the academic space. Establishing the unspoken rules of successful internet engagement demonstrates that students can learn about how to engage in a space while also participating in that space—a skill they will need as they start the journey of academic research.

As librarians, creating confident researchers is our goal. When students can marry the skills they already have, conscious or not, to the new world of scholarship, they are bound to feel more confident, more capable, and happier to participate. Through this all, one maxim remains true for both social media and scholarship: it’s important to engage in these conversations to the best of our abilities, ethically and responsibly, and to hope we don’t become the milkshake duck of the internet.

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