Banned: Blogging and Twittering

Where do I even start on this one …

Alana Taylor, who I discussed a couple weeks ago for a post she wrote for MediaShift, has been banned from blogging and twittering on the class she remarked on in her post.

Her original post popped up on Romenesko with a line about how she disliked carrying the bulky New York Times to class. The post about her banned status also showed up on the Poynter blog yesterday.

Taylor’s article took a close look at the class she was taking called “Reporting Gen Y,” raising questions about the ability of the class and NYU to prepare students for a future career in journalism, which is increasingly become more and more multimedia-driven.

We won’t be seeing any more posts from Taylor, though, since her professor wasn’t exactly appreciative of the critical look at her teaching and the class.

Let’s start with “Twittering” since that’s a bit easier to dissect.

It’s one thing to ban twittering during class — as it would fall under the distraction clause, but it’s an entirely different thing to ban it after class is over. First of all, you can only say so much in 140 characters and as a social networking site, Twitter is no different than Facebook in that students will moan and complain about classes on the site. Could professors start to follow their students on Twitter to see if they update their status during class and thereby give them a lower grade for participation since they were essentially ‘texting’ in class?

And if this NYU professor is setting a precedent, could students at other schools, especially private ones, be admonished for twittering after class how they hate a class, or a professor? Could they even twitter ‘nice’ things about the class? What about just remarking on the classwork or an exam coming up? What happens when we shift this debate to a public college or high school?

Onto the more sticky point — blogging.

Without students like Taylor blogging about the classes they’re taking in J-school, would we know how bad the situation is? How much J-schools are failing?

Does Taylor’s blog and others like it draw attention from other J-school administrators so that they change the policy of only providing print classes to print journalists and broadcast classes to broadcast students?

If we eliminate all blogging about J-school classes, where will we end up five years from now compared to where we would end up with prolific blogging on J-schools?

Lots of questions and probably few answers we can all agree on.

Some have replied to the newest MediaShift post saying that Taylor was being “sneaky,” that she was going behind her teacher’s back in directly quoting her.

I’ve run into semi-similar situations where I’ve wanted to take something from a class and remark on it. Always worried about upsetting people, I’ve usually just been generic and said “my journalism professor” or “a student in the class.” Even then, I worry that criticizing a professor would have backlashes should that professor find my post.

But should I really have to worry?

I go to Penn State, a public university. We house a First Amendment Center and many knowledgeable journalism professors who understand that students have rights too.

Professors hope their words and teachings will surpass the classroom, remaining with and influencing a student for years to come. What better way to preserve their teachings and spread them to a wider audience than by students blogging about it?