A couple social media course descriptions came up today when I checked my recently-neglected feed reader. Both courses are taught by people whose writing I follow and respect: Trebor Scholz and Fred Stutzman. I thought it might be interesting to look at their respective reading lists to see what these courses are emphasizing in the study of social media.

First up Fred's course, Online Social Networks. These are five of the main texts he chose:

• Albert-Laszlo Barabasi - Linked
  
• Erving Goffmand - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life


• Sherry Turkle - Life on Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet


• danah boyd - "Why Youth (heart) Social Networks" and "None of this is real"


• Clay Shirky - "Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality"

Judging by the texts alone, Fred's students will be approaching social networks largely from a sociological perspective. Before going into any further thoughts let's look at a few of Trebor's choices for Web 2.0: What Went Wrong?:

• Yochai Benkler - Wealth of Networks


• Henry Jenkins - Convergence Culture


• Jurgen Habermas' writing on the internet and the public sphere


• Michael Hardt - "Affective Labor"


• Nicholas Carr - "Sharecropping and the long tail"


• Jeff Jarvis - "Who Owns the Wisdom of the Crowd? The Crowd."

These texts seem to imply a heavier theoretical influence than Fred's course.

One of the most apparent similarities between these two courses is their reliance on texts and writers most known or originating in blogs and blog writing. Fred relies on danah boyd and Clay Shirky, while Trebor looks to Nicholas Carr and Jeff Jarvis. These writers have worked out their thoughts in the very environment that these courses are examining and no doubt have been shaped by this factor. It's not just a curious fact, however, but a recognition that a great deal of contemporary scholarship on social media is happening in and between blogs.

The differing approaches (sociological/theoretical) to the topic is also quite interesting - but I'm not entirely sure what to conclude that academic investigation of these media is coming from these two distinct sources. Library scientists, sociologists, and the poststructuralists are all pumping out fascinating work on the subject. Despite my affinity toward what I'm calling the theoretical end (among other things, I would have added Deleuze's "Postscript to Societies of Control" to both syllabi), I would have been pleased to see more intermingling between the two to take advantage of the interdisciplinary play between the different approaches.

Either way, both strike me as interesting courses.