Is influencing the new journalism? With the new Digital Media Influencing bachelor’s degree program UTSA offers, a difference in opinion has sparked among the community. The new degree program is an undergraduate major housed in the communications department of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts.
According to the UTSA website, the “Bachelor’s in Digital Media Influence is designed for aspiring content creators seeking to refine their digital production skills and improve audience targeting through persuasive messaging.” Charles “Chad” Mahood, an Associate Professor in the communications department, designed the degree program.
“Influencing is a movement right now and we hope to capture that, but the tools and techniques of media influence have been studied really closely for over 50 years,” Mahood said in regards to starting the program. “The Digital Media Influence Degree takes decades of knowledge and applies it to teach today’s content creators how to be more effective with what they create.”
Based on a mix of administration observation and student advocacy, the degree program was born with the hope of appealing to the interests of the 21st century.
“We’ve been teaching Digital Communication at UTSA for over a decade, and we offer really great classes on multimedia production using Adobe Creative Cloud, which is free to all students,” Dr. Mahood said. “We know from the students that these classes are very popular, so we decided to expand them into a full degree. In order to make it relevant to 21st century students, an emphasis on audience analysis, data analytics, and media psychology become central to the major. How do you create effective digital content that will influence your audience in meaningful ways? How do you become a really good influencer? That became the focus of the degree.”
Social media marketing, much like influencing, is a field that has become increasingly desirable. Social Media Marketing Professor Wendy Gratereaux has been expressive about the new degree program on social media and felt it necessary to educate “trolls” on the importance of digital media.
“I saw the hate and the misunderstanding from a lot of the community around this,” Gratereaux said. “They’re thinking it’s a money grab, and I get it, you don’t want degrees to be cool sounding but no jobs to back it up, and I really want people to understand I would not be doing this if there wasn’t such a huge demand.”
“Every single thing has to be on social [media]. It’s like what TV or the newspaper used to be. Social media is just another platform for storytelling, but that’s also where people hang out, and we spend a ridiculous amount of time on social media than on TV.”
Micro-influencer Mia Rivera is a UTSA alum who majored in communications and is experiencing post-graduate life. Rivera has been passionate about content creation since high school and has steadily gained followers during her college career.
“I got started with social media in high school, I used to have a YouTube channel,” Rivera said. I loved watching YouTube and content creators, creating content like that was something that I wanted to try in high school. When it came to college, I knew I wanted to do something creative, so being a communication major allowed me to do that.”
“In my second year of college, I applied for an internship in New York Fashion Week. I got hired. It was a lot of fun, because I got to meet a lot of people and network as much as I could because I was working with all the VIP guests.”
Rivera has also secured a part-time position as a Digital Marketer for the San Antonio Rodeo which has given her a well-rounded perspective on the new degree program.
“A lot of the time when you’re applying for jobs they don’t look at your major; they look at your experience,” Rivera said. “I don’t think anyone would have cared if I was in business, marketing or communications. I don’t think like the field that I went into cared as much. I think it’s really about the experience that you have on your resume.”
