ABSTRACT
This chapter provides insight regarding how academics can utilize social media to draw attention to their scholarly contributions. Social media, by its design, has created a hybridized social status. Some of the more social media savvy publishers have Twitter accounts and a Face book presence; wise to connect to them so they can endorse your message as well via a ’like’ or retweet. Social media is a terrific way to circulate and broadcast interviews and news stories, in which one is the subject or expressing an expert opinion. Scholars can also leverage social media to redirect conversations that spiral out of control in the virtual marketplace of ideas. Social media helped clarify that police forces often escalated tensions by tear-gassing and arresting members of the media from organizations such as Al Jazeera and the Washington Post. Some of the clarification aspect of social media has certainly affected students, faculty, and staff in my community at the University of Texas at Austin.
