海角大神

The cynical way to say it might be that we鈥檙e all our own best spin doctors these days.

There are a lot of ways to say it, though 鈥� e.g., protecting one鈥檚 public image, reputation management, maintaining your personal brand, or just online spin control 鈥� but there鈥檚 nothing cynical or unsavory about this skill, and it鈥檚 a life skill, not just an online one. It鈥檚 an especially important one for social media users to develop.

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The need for it reflects badly on social media only if we choose to see it that way. There are upsides to this call for self and other-awareness, to having to think about how we present ourselves and how we appear in relation to others.

All student athletes at Pennsylvania State University have a required course their freshman year which includes image management in social media,聽PennLive.com reports.

Taught by the assistant director at the university鈥檚 academic support center for student athletes, Sue Sherburne, it focuses on what their personal brand is. This would also make for a great family or classroom discussion for media and social literacy.

Sherburne asks her students to come up with 鈥渇our anchor words鈥� that express who they are. She told PennLive that those four words are usually their core values. Then she has them take each word聽鈥撀爁or example, 鈥渋ntegrity鈥濃�撀燼nd evaluate their Facebook timeline, Twitter page, photo albums, etc. with that value in mind.

The students are asked, 鈥淒o those posts, messages, and tweets express that value?鈥� In the class, and I think ideally within a family, this isn鈥檛 a one-shot conversation.

Sherburne said that students are asked throughout the semester how whatever they post online, or say and do offline, fits their 鈥渂rand.鈥�

Whether we think of it in that commercial way, which is entirely appropriate for top athletes, or as the idea of being true to ourselves 鈥� face-to-face as well as in digital spaces 鈥� this is important social literacy for success in all aspects of life.

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