Blog 7: Balancing PLN & Public Discourse

For this week’s learning materials, I learned a lot of helpful strategies that I could use in my PLN in order to balance the content of my public discourse and also to avoid creating a bad reputation to my PLN members. After creating my PLN, I would say that it is really effective in allowing me to engage with a public audience. Nevertheless, engaging with public audience may not be that risky for me but for public figures and professionals like educators, lawyers, and government officials, they need to be very careful with what they post online. This is because their posts on social media will always be attached to their line of profession. For example, if a lawyer posts about Human Rights 101, the audiences would be quick to believe in him/her knowing full well that as a lawyer he/she must be acquainted to human rights. On the other hand, if this lawyer post inaccurate information on human rights, the public will consider him/her unreliable and his/her reputation will be forever tainted.

In addition to risking their reputation, public discourse also allows audiences to criticize the post of a professional or public figure. With regard to this, I learned from Jody Vance that public figures must know the best time to stop and know where the line is (Miller 21:50-21:57). This means that in instances when a public figure receives a criticism or a negative reply, the public figure must first draw the line so that he/she would know when to stop. This is not to say that they would keep quiet or ignore negative comments. He/she could still defend their point but the moment they feel that the argument is not going to end well, the public figure must stop. Just as Vance said, “It takes years to build a reputation and a heartbeat to break it.” (Miller 21:35-21:40)

Despite the risks that engaging in public discourse can bring about, public figures are still inclined to use social media because it allows networking. Building networks is integral whether one is looking for a job, selling products, or starting a business. Journalists, for example, use social media as a good source of gossips and interesting stories to tell (142). On the other hand, journalists can also use their social media and PLN as a medium to share their news and stories. With the diversity of features being offered by social media these days, news reporters can just click “live” and proceed to featuring a breaking news (142). Nevertheless, the reach of commonly used social media can still be considered limited as there are companies that use their own online tools in building their own community. Having a community separate from the common social media can help the company protect their privacy but this would also limit the reach of the company. According to Martin Hirst, crowdsourcing is one of the most common way for people get the information they need (142). For instance, if a journalist saw a short video and found it interesting, he/she can ask the people online to lead him/her to source of the video. If a company only do the crowdsourcing within the company then the help that they would get would be also limited. On a last note, crowdsourcing does not only allow one to get help but this can also be used to verify a source and minimize risks in sharing misinformation. Hence, expanding one’s reach via social media can be beneficial not just in getting but also in verifying information.

Works Cited

Hirst, Martin. “Social Journalism and Establishment.” Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism, Routledge, 2018, pp. 125-147.

Miller, Jesse. “EDCI 338 – Jody Vance.” YouTube, 1 Mar. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgZOJgJkdyI.