Two articles, one after the other: 1 + 1 = 0.5?

Toward the end of last year, two extremely similar articles about one study showed up in social media networks for language educators worldwide. Both articles splashed on sensational headlines to make it sound almost like the findings represented everyone in Japan – population: 127 million (2010 estimate, WolframAlpha). 

1. Nearly 90% dissatisfied with Japan's English education: survey – The Mainichi, December 3, 2012; and
• Arama, they didn't! LiveJournal, December 4, 2012
• 21st Century English Langauge Learners, Teachers and Administrators: Ajaan Rob Hatfield, Scoop.it, December 5, 2012
• TESOL Intl Assn, Twitter, December 5, 2012
2. Japanese highly unhappy with English education quality in the country – Ida Torres, The Japan Daily Press, December 4, 2012
• TESOL International Association, English Langauge Bulletin; December 12, 2012
• ELT Professionals around the World: Ian Butler, LinkedIn, c. December 15, 2012

Neither of those two articles cites the Rakuten Research study in a way that enables readers to find it easily. Nor do any of the other as-is social media representations of the articles shed any additional light on the subject.

If you're interested in reading either the original Rakuten Research press release, or the online report, both dated November 21, 2012; they're here:

• 楽天リサーチ、「日本の英語教育」に関する調査を発表 (press release)
• http://corp.rakuten.co.jp/news/press/2012/1121_02.html
• Apparently not published in English (press releases [2012])
• 日本の英語教育に関する調査 (report)
• http://research.rakuten.co.jp/report/20121121/
• PDF: http://research.rakuten.co.jp/report/pdf/english_20121121.pdf
• Though the filename seems to suggest that the PDF is in English, it isn't.

At best, both articles cherry-picked findings from a Rakuten Research report covering only 1000 subjects, parents of children whom the articles describe variously as "underage" (Mainichi) or simply "young" (Torres). The survey actually involved 1000 16- to 69-year-old men and women with non-adult children (report, ¶1). The prospective population from which those 1000 responses derived included approximately two and a quarter million subscribed monitors (report, ¶1) earning points redeemable for Rakuten services – a response rate of approximately 0.04%.

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com

"TED ideas worth spreading" mesh easily with Blogger. With a single click on the Blogger button below a video display on site, it generated a post with an enclosure link to the video on site (now removed) and the linked text that remains above the video here. Code for embedding the video in this post was just two additional clicks away (Share, then Copy).

Wesch introducing YouTube at the U.S. LoC

Billed as "an excellent backgrounder to social media, user-generated content, and online communities through the lens of anthropology" by Alec Couros (2008.08.03), this YouTube video resonates in a similar post by D'Arcy Norman (2008.08.06). The video represents a June 23, 2008, appearance of Professor Michael Wesch at a U.S. Library of Congress (LoC) podium to display and describe his and his students' findings from ethnological investigations into YouTube as participant observers (Wesch, 2008)

Wesch describes media such as YouTube as neither content, nor tools of communication, but rather as a landscape that mediates human relationships. He suggests that changes in "the mediascape" correspond to changes in human relations (approx. 12 of 55 minutes in), reflecting manifestations of participatory culture and networked individualism. Eschewing Powerpoint, he and his students remix dozens of independent video productions to portray a mediated state under tension between personal expression and social aspiration:

• individualism and community,
  
• independence and relationships, and
• aggrandizement and authenticity.

"More info" in the YouTube sidebar provides a timeline for the video itself (Added: July 26, 2008). However, you've got to see the presentation to believe it!

Reference

Wesch, Michael (Dir.). (2008). An anthropological introduction to YouTube. Retrieved September 9, 2008, from http://youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

Social media: Is there anything but?

August 7, 2008, Chris Brogan listed ebooks that he'd found available for free, and thought looked worth reading to learn about social media. I've made five quick picks from his list of twenty; my fifth pick (his 19th) is actually a journal article:

1. The Zen of Blogging, by Hunter Nutall (2008);
   
2. A Primer in Social Media: Examining the Phenomenon, Its Relevance, Promise and Risks, by Eric Karjaluoto (2008);
3. Effective Internet Presence, by Ted Demopoulos (2008);
• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
  
4. Introduction to Good Usability, by peterpixel (2008); and
5. How blogs and social media are changing public relations and the way it is practiced, by Wright and Hinson (2008).

I've made one more tentative selection from Chris' updates:

• The Essential Guide to Social Media, by Brian Solis (2008)
  

IBlogged with the Flock Browser

[Notes: What first caught my eye was Siemens' musing about Brogan's list, "In the sense that all media ... require a producer and consumer, doesn't the notion of media have an inherent social trait?" (elearnspace, 2008.08.21). I'd been wondering the same thing with regard to a local course entitled Social Communication, because even though communication may manifest anti-social characteristics, it is fundamentally social.

Though I've only peeked under the covers of a couple of items on my short list, it seems that my choies differ in concentration on marketing from other items and articles Brogan later added to his list. As a subset of social activity, he may be focusing more on the commercial than the educational. (2008.09.08)]