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The article discusses the dangers posed within the college campus communities to which social media may contribute including cyberbullying, racial hostility, and stalking behaviors as well as dangers posed by the evolving threat of coordinated disinformation. The needed pedagogical changes to help students engage with the world through social media are explored. The essential role of standard digital media literacy interventions in addressing the influence of social media is also tackled.

On January 27, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order that attempted to bar citizens and refugees from seven countries from entering the U.S. for a certain time period. One of the contexts most directly affected by this order was higher education. This study examined college and university communicative responses to the order from a public relations perspective. We qualitatively determined a range of responses from U.S. universities then quantitatively determined variables of particular colleges and universities that had a correlation to the nature of the responses. Responses were then assessed using public relations best practices. The data suggest variables with relationships to type of institutional response were number of international students and political stance of the state where the institution is located. While there was no single “correct” type of response, best practices suggest two options for appropriate responses to the order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colleges and universities have increasingly looked toward social media as a means of engaging with stakeholders. Using the relationship marketing framework as a lens, this study explores how institutions are employing the social media platform Pinterest. Content analysis of the types of college and university pins being used and their relationship to the number of user repins suggests that the tool is not being employed in a manner consistent with user expectations. Our findings suggest that some colleges and universities need to reevaluate their social media plan to acknowledge the different audiences, uses, and functionality of specific social media platforms. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This study explored how colleges and universities are employing Twitter, a popular micro-blogging tool. Using Kent and Taylor''s principles of dialogic communication, a content analysis was performed on individual tweets (n =1130) from 113 colleges and universities. Tweets were coded for whether or not they met each principle of dialogical communication and why. It was found that institutions are not employing Twitter in a dialogic way and they are, instead, employing it primarily as an institutional news feed to a general audience. The implications of this finding are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]