Abstract
In a short period of time, social media has become an important, if not the dominant, communication channel in the workplace. Job seekers are expected to have a LinkedIn profile, and social media provides an effective tool for professional development and skill building (Samuel, 2016). Much advice is out there in the cloud about how to separate personal from professional; a recent Google search produced 161 million links. Scholars have been systematically studying social media, and this journal has published quite a few articles on this subject of inquiry. I, like others in our field, have argued for a long time that it is important to teach our students how to use social media ethically and responsibly. Even simple approaches, such as making a Facebook account private, can be appropriate.
Surprisingly, in my view, many students do not realize the professional value of social media. Our lead article reports that students in a course on writing for social media regarded social media as either unprofessional or as appropriately limited to reputation management. The author shows how these negative cultural narratives shaped the ways in which students mapped individual to professional concerns, separated academic from social media writing, and became preoccupied with improper use—the latter perhaps reflecting the voluminous advice on negative repercussions (Verzosa Hurley & Kimme Hea, 2014). A major implication of this research is that social media should be incorporated as a professional platform throughout a course, and not just as the focus of a single assignment, and instructors need to recognize that their students may previously have been bombarded with everything that could have gone wrong with their use of social media.
Our second article focuses on another skill of critical importance in business and professional communication: listening. The author concluded that listening positively produced compassion. Our third article continues the theme of social media, with a study of the emerging phenomenon of skills endorsement on LinkedIn. The authors found that participants made and received endorsements without consideration of epistemic criteria.
Also in this issue are articles on using genre theory to teach critical thinking, a social media ninja campaign, a study of writing apprehension measures, and the value of alumni perspectives as a resource for curricular decisions. Collectively, these authors demonstrate the variety of research methods and sites for advancing knowledge in the teaching of business and professional communication.
As we close Volume 80, I would like to thank those who have made our journal so successful: Martha Avtandilian (Publisher), Christy Batheja (Production Editor), Julianne Candio Sekel (Editorial Assistant), Lenny Grant (Book Review Editor), Joel Whalen (Convener and Editor of the My Favorite Assignment collections), and Association for Business Communication (ABC) headquarters and SAGE staff. I would also like to offer special thanks to our Editorial Review Board members and ad hoc reviewers, who have continued to provide the excellent feedback for whichBusiness and Professional Communication Quarterlyis known.
Up next, look for our special issue titled “Enabling Workplaces, Classrooms, and Pedagogies: Bringing Disability Theory and Accessibility to Business and Professional Communication,” guest edited by Sushil Oswal. We continue to welcome articles that extend our existing work in the impact of technology, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and transformative learning, along with other topics of interest to our readers.