Join Peter Lovatt, a dance psychology expert and founder of Doctor Dance, along with Cayce Myers, a public relations professor at Virginia Tech, as they explore the dual role of social media in academia. They discuss how social media can enhance teaching engagement and foster critical thinking while tackling the challenges of misinformation. Lovatt shares insights on integrating movement into learning to boost attention, while Myers emphasizes the importance of adapting communication strategies in a digitally dominated environment. Learn how to harness social media as a powerful educational tool!
47:06
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
insights INSIGHT
Dance and Social Media Synergy
Dance and social media both engage people visually and emotionally.
Dance stimulates immediate engagement that social media leverages through interaction and sharing.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Leverage Social Media for Academia
Use social media to share academic work in short, engaging formats.
This can build connections and collaborations you wouldn't achieve through traditional methods.
insights INSIGHT
Pitfalls of Academic Social Media
Social media fosters fakery and polarized academic debates that can harm collaboration.
Maintaining respectful disagreement is vital for healthy academic discourse online.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Whether you love it, tolerate it, are a master of a compelling Bluesky thread or struggle with a LinkedIn update, social media has become an inescapable part of academia and university life. But it’s complicated. On one hand, scholars use it to build their academic profile, share research with the wider public, celebrate career successes or publications and connect with community and potential collaborators. And on the other, social media is a breeding ground for political polarisation, misinformation and harassment.
One aspect that is beyond question is social media’s ability to hook and maintain our attention. So, what can higher education take from social media’s compelling ways to improve teaching, critical thinking or outreach? How can teachers use its strategies to build engagement in class, for example? What can analysing influencers show learners about navigating AI-created content and deep fakes? What do online habits tell us about what students need from their teachers and each other?
For this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to two very different guests, a psychologist in the UK and a professor of public relations in the US:
Peter Lovatt is an expert on the psychology of movement and dance, a former professional dancer, and founder of Doctor Dance. During his 20 years working in university research labs, he led the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire and was a dance psychology lecturer at the Royal Ballet School. His books include The Dance Cure: The Surprising Secret to Being Smarter, Stronger, Happier (Short Books, 2020) and Dance Psychology: The Science of Dance and Dancers (2018).
Cayce Myers is a professor of public relations and director of graduate studies in the School of Communication at Virginia Tech. His work focuses on laws, regulations and ethics that affect public relations practice, and his books include Public Relations History: Theory, Practice, and Profession (Routledge, 2020) and Money in Politics: Campaign Fundraising in the 2020 Presidential Election (Lexington Books, 2023).
Campus by Times Higher Education 
