THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC EDUCATION, 46(1), 56–67, 2015

Copyright 
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0022-0485 / 2152-4068 online
DOI: 10.1080/00220485.2014.978922

ECONOMIC INSTRUCTION

Incorporating Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

in Economics Classrooms

Abdullah Al-Bahrani and Darshak Patel

Social media is one of the most current and dynamic developments in education. In general, the field
of economics has lagged behind other disciplines in incorporating technologies in the classroom.
In this article, the authors provide a guide for economics educators on how to incorporate Twitter,
Instagram, and Facebook inside and outside of the classroom. The authors’ aims are to discuss the
potential benefits of social media for economics curricula, explain how to effectively use social media,
and reduce some of the concerns associated with implementing new technology.
Keywords economics, education, information technology, social media
JEL code A22

Increasing the number of students who choose economics as their major and engaging students in
the classroom are important objectives for educators. Becker (2004) documented a decline in the
number of economics degrees awarded annually and cited teaching methods, such as the traditional
lecture method of “chalk and talk,” as the cause of waning student interest. Salemi (2002) has
found that students have a better understanding of economics concepts when innovative teaching
methods are used. Currently, economic education is experiencing a renaissance of innovative
teaching methods. New resources, like the American Economic Association’s Annual Conference
on Teaching and Research on Economic Education (CTREE), have inspired such pedagogical
improvements. Additionally, technology makes it easier for instructors to introduce new ways
to engage students (Hoyt, Sheridan, and Imazeki 2014) using resources such as popular media,1
blogs (Cameron 2012), podcasts (Choi et al. 2014), and most recently, social media. Some of
these innovative technologies have been shown to increase student understanding of economic
concepts, elicit deeper retention of information, and spur increased interest in the field.

Abdullah Al-Bahrani (e-mail: [email protected]) is an assistant professor of economics at Northern Kentucky

University. Darshak Patel (e-mail: [email protected]) is an assistant professor of economics at the University of
Tennessee at Martin. Patel is the corresponding author.
 TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK IN ECONOMICS 57

As a pedagogical tool, social media provides a new and efficient way for instructors to
share ideas with students. Becker and Watts (1996) demonstrated that economics instruc-
tors’ implementation of instructional innovations has historically lagged behind that of other
disciplines. Introducing social media in the classroom requires a good understanding of its
applications, and the learning process may be time-consuming for the instructor. Further-
more, the integration of technology is usually based on the perceived ease of use and need
for the technology in the classroom (Huffman and Huffman 2012). The reservations of eco-
nomic educators may be caused by (1) a lack of knowledge about the technology and how
to use it, (2) not seeing the benefits of the technology in the classroom, and (3) instruc-
tors’ concerns about their own and their students’ privacy. To help overcome these bar-
riers, we provide a guide for incorporating social media in economic classrooms via this
article.
The research completed for this article supplements the work of Kassens (2014) by providing
economics instructors with a more general approach to using social media, understanding different
social media platforms, and how to best incorporate them in their curricula. While Kassens
established a good introduction to using Twitter in principles of macroeconomics courses for
graded assignments, in this article we offer advice on incorporating Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook in classroom activities. Moreover, it provides an overview on incorporating social
media in the classroom as both a voluntary exercise and for assessment purposes. Specifically, the
expected benefits of social media use, managing privacy concerns, and incorporating these tools
in the classroom are explored. Our approach is to provide a guide on new technology available to
instructors, similar to Goffe (1994), who provided a guide for economists on resources available
on the Internet, and Manning (1996), who provided a guide on how to incorporate e-mail in
economics courses.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media are virtual communities or networks that allow participants to interact with each
other, develop communities, and share information and ideas. There are several social media
platforms available to incorporate in the classroom. However, for this article we focus on the
most popular social media communities used by students: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
(Al-Bahrani and Patel 2014a).2 Blogs and wikis are also popular and have been discussed thor-
oughly by Cameron (2012).
Choosing a platform depends on functionality and the instructor’s purposes. Facebook is a
social media platform that allows users to create profiles and become “friends” with other users.
Friends are able to communicate and share videos, pictures, and links with each other through
“status updates” and private messages. Users can also create groups, “like pages,” and event
pages. Similarly, Twitter is a network that allows users to connect with other “tweeters” and
communicate with them publicly or privately. However, the biggest difference is that Twitter
restricts communication to 140 characters of text, necessitating the use of brief posts. Instagram
allows users to share pictures or videos that are 15 seconds or less with their networks. Posts on
Instagram can be simultaneously shared with other social media sites, including Facebook and
Twitter.3
58 AL-BAHRANI AND PATEL

The relationship between faculty and students on social media introduces boundary concerns.
Al-Bahrani and Patel (2014a) found that students in principles-level courses are reluctant to
connect with faculty members via social media due to concerns about faculty viewing the content
of their personal accounts. Therefore, if social media is used in the classroom, students may prefer
a connection that allows them to view the information the instructor is sharing without allowing
access to the students’ information in return. Twitter and Instagram make this type of connection
easier to establish, as these platforms do not require reciprocation and therefore allow a one-way
link for the student to view faculty members’ posts (Java et al. 2007).4 Facebook, on the other hand,
is a more intrusive, two-way “friend” connection. However, instructors can use Facebook pages
or Groups and adjust the settings to accommodate privacy concerns. The use of private and direct
messaging (DM) on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook allows for students to communicate any
issues in a private setting. In some cases, students may be hesitant to create online profiles due to
increased risk of identity theft or private information becoming publicly available. These students
may require more assurances that their private information will not be revealed on social media.
Instructors can discuss these issues during a class period devoted to introducing social media in the
classroom.
Other than Kassens (2014), no documented research exists on Twitter use in economics
pedagogy, while much more research exists on the use of Twitter in marketing classrooms
(Lowe and Laffey 2011; Lytle 2011; Miners 2010; Rinaldo, Tapp, and Laverie 2011). List and
Bryant (2009) found that Twitter increases student accountability and is effective as long as
other forms of peer-to-peer communication are also used. Their study shows that instructor
use of Twitter helps students feel more connected to others in their class, improves evalua-
tions of course delivery, and enhances learning. Croxall (2010) found that Twitter promotes
frequent class discussions. A class that uses “live-tweeting” encourages students to listen more
carefully, be more attentive, gather information, and introduces them to multi-tasking (Wankel
2009). Junco, Heiberger, and Loken (2011) focused on students enrolled in pre-health classes
and found that they experienced an increase in engagement and grades when Twitter was a
part of their classroom instruction. Furthermore, Twitter supports informal learning beyond the
classroom by allowing classroom discussion to extend outside of class (Ebner et al. 2010).
Students who interact with instructors on Facebook report more motivation and higher lev-
els of learning (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Other pedagogy tools, such as visual
presentations (e.g., sharing photos over Instagram), have also been shown to increase reten-
tion levels (Endestad, Magnussen, and Helstrup 2003; McBride and Dosher 2002; Stenberg
2006).
Based on evidence from other fields, as documented above, economics instructors who
incorporate Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook in their classrooms may expect an increase in
student engagement level, grades, and instructor evaluations. However, the effectiveness of
social media in economics education has not been assessed. Kassens (2014) argued that mi-
croblogging on Twitter helps economics students become better writers. While economics ed-
ucation would benefit from more formal implementations of social media, learning how to
use various platforms and utilizing them effectively are prerequisites to assessment. Our in-
tent in this article is to make economics instructors more familiar with three of the most
popular social media platforms and to provide examples of incorporating them in classroom
settings.
 TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK IN ECONOMICS 59

TABLE 1
Twitter Terminology

Term Description

Tweet Text-based message of up to 140 characters

@ A Twitter handle or ID (@username). The authors’ handles are
@teach econ and @patelnomics.
Twitter feed A running list of tweets
Retweet (RT) When a user’s tweet is shared or rebroadcasted by another user
Quote RT When a user’s original tweet is retweeted, but the current user adds
characters to the tweet
Modified tweet (MT) Some adjustment was made to the original tweet before it was
retweeted.
Reply A reply to another user’s tweet that is broadcasted publicly
Direct message (DM) A private exchange with another user
Followers Users that receive another person’s tweets on their Twitter feed (Note:
Following does not need to be reciprocated.)
Follow Friday (FF) On Fridays, users usually recommend other users to follow.
Hashtag (#) The use of hashtags is confusing for some because its purpose can be
twofold. Initially, hashtags were introduced to organize or file
tweets. However, their use has evolved and at times they are used as
a “punchline” or to indicate “irony.” Excellent organizational tool
when asking students to tweet/follow a political debate, event, etc.
Trending When a lot of people are talking about the same subject at the same
time

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitter

Twitter users share thoughts, news, jokes, links to images and videos, or other information in
140 characters of text or less. According to the company’s Web site, as of August 2014 there
are 271 million users sending 500 million tweets (posts) per day.5 Twitter can be accessed easily
through any Internet connection; however, 76 percent of users access the platform through mobile
connections (Al-Bahrani and Patel 2014a).
To get started, new users create an account and a “handle,” also known as a username, by
visiting twitter.com. To communicate with followers, an instructor must compose a “tweet”
(posting). In the event the instructor wants to interact with a specific user and vice versa, they
will do so using the “@” symbol followed by the username.6 This allows the “tweeter” (poster)
to reference and notify the specific user that was mentioned. It is important to note that other
followers can publicly view these “tweets.” However, Twitter also allows for DM, which permits
users to communicate with each other privately as long as both parties are following each other.
Table 1 explains certain words and abbreviations that are used frequently on Twitter. A symbol
that instructors will most likely use and must be familiar with is the hashtag (#). The hashtag is
used to denote a topic of discussion or conversation. Using “#” before a topic of interest enables
anybody interested in that topic to search and find, in real time, all tweets that also contain
that hashtag. For example, some economics educators sharing content with other instructors and
60 AL-BAHRANI AND PATEL

students on Twitter use #teachecon as an identifier. This signals to other users that this tweet
pertains to economics educators or discusses an economics concept. A tweet is not limited to
one hashtag; several may be used. Due to the 140-character restriction, limited use of hashtags is
recommended, but at times multiple hashtags are justified. For instance, users may want to tweet
something about both economics and incentives. The tweet can contain a hashtag to indicate that
the conversation is about incentives and economics by simply using “#incentives #teachecon”
following the text of the tweet. This allows readers to identify that the tweet is directed toward
the economics education community and discusses incentives.
A hashtag is also a “filing” system and allows tweets to be organized and searched easily. New
users can connect with their community on Twitter by searching for terms, concepts, or hashtags
used by the profession. This allows new users to connect with active users who have tweeted
the term of interest in the past. For instance, those interested in connecting with the economics
education community could start by using the search function on Twitter and searching for
#teachecon. This will provide a list of all tweets that were classified by the tweeter as belonging
to the #teachecon identifier. The tweets will list the handle, the content of the tweet, and the time
of the tweet. The results will be listed by popularity and in reverse chronological order.
Once an account is created, users can either make their profile public or can elect to make
their tweets private. Public profiles allow any person on the Internet to view their tweets, and
any Twitter user can “retweet” postings.7 To stay abreast of a particular user’s tweets, that user
can be followed. Given the huge volume of tweets daily, we recommend “following” people
or organizations to receive posts of interest. To “follow each other” means users can view each
other’s tweets on their Twitter “feed.” Users also can choose to keep their profiles private, in which
case other users must specifically request to follow their account; that request can be accepted,
ignored, or declined. Only upon acceptance will the private account’s tweets be visible to the
requester. Thus, an instructor could make his/her account private, and then any tweets would be
visible only to their chosen group of followers (i.e., the instructor’s students and/or other accepted
users). Students who are not already on Twitter and are concerned about creating a new account
just for a class could make their accounts private so they would be able to follow the instructor
but would not have a public profile themselves.
Instructors can choose the level of engagement they want with students. Some instructors use
Twitter as a one-way communication tool, and some choose to respond to any student who elects
to provide his or her feedback. In either case, users can switch on/off notifications via e-mail or
text. The level of engagement and frequency of communication is an individual decision.

Instagram

Instagram and Twitter have the same operational structure, and their differences are marginal.
The most apparent difference is the content being shared. Instagram is a photo-sharing platform.
Recently, video-sharing capabilities were introduced, and video length is restricted to a maximum
of 15 seconds. Posts are accompanied by a caption. Unlike Twitter, the caption length is not limited.
The hashtag and username functionality are identical to their use on Twitter. From personal use,
we have noticed “Instagrammers” post photos that include but are not limited to pets, food, family,
sports, travel, and so forth to convey information to their friends and followers. The growth of
Instagram has been prolific. According to the company’s Web site, as of August 2014 the platform
 TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK IN ECONOMICS 61

has grown to 200 million active users averaging 60 million photos each day since its inception in
October 2010.8
There is a growing trend of using short videos to break up classroom lectures, as evidenced by
recent textbooks that provide short introductory videos to economics concepts on CD-ROM or as
online supplements. Furthermore, there is increased interest in the use of visual presentations to
reinforce various economics theories and models (Chiang and Vasquez 2014). Visual presentations
are considered anything that can deliver information to students using imagery (e.g., photographs,
diagrams, videos, animations, etc.). Due to its photo- and video-sharing capabilities, instructors
may find Instagram a useful platform for their classes. Sharing graphs or equations via a photo or
a short video can engage students and reinforce ideas presented in class. Students’ retention of
information increases when presented in visual format (Levie and Lentz 1982), and understanding
can even be enhanced when students are required to create their own visuals (Collett-Schmit 2014;
Vacca and Vacca 1993).
Although information is primarily conveyed by the visuals, instructors can use captions to
elaborate, without length restriction, on the content of an image or video. Instructors can use a
caption to supply a link to other online resources or assign activities for students that include
posting photos that relay similar economic concepts. We have used Instagram as an extra credit
assignment where students are asked to take photos at university events and upload the photos
and relate them to economic theory learned in class. Privacy concerns for Instagram are similar
to those of Twitter (i.e., accounts can be public or private, and connections do not need to be
reciprocated). Similarly, there is a DM feature available for private messaging.

Facebook

Facebook allows users to communicate and share videos, pictures, and links with other users
who are identified as “friends.” According to Facebook, as of August 2014, it is the most popular
social media site, with more than one billion users.9 Most users have a personal account that
they use to connect with friends and family members. Personal accounts include information that
users must designate as private. Therefore, instructor-to-student connections make the private
information of both parties accessible, and thus privacy concerns are raised. To ensure privacy,
it is recommended that instructors create a page or group rather than ask students to become
“friends” using the instructor’s personal profile.
Facebook pages and groups reduce the amount of private information shared. However, these
two tools have different functions. Facebook groups are better for creating discussions and
restricting who can access the group. Of the three social platforms discussed, we believe Facebook
groups best replicate Learning Management System’s (LMS) discussion forum in the social media
arena. After instructors create a class group, students are required to gain approval to enter the
group (and can use their personal accounts without providing access to their private information).
Facebook pages, on the other hand, are visible to everyone, and any user can follow updates
on that page by clicking the “like” button on the page. Students will receive updates from the
instructor on their newsfeed and can choose to interact with the instructor by commenting on
the “status update.” Alternatively, students could visit the page and check for updates without
“liking” the page. Facebook pages work similarly to Twitter’s one-way connection. By creating
a page, the instructor does not need to worry about befriending students, or vice versa, which
62 AL-BAHRANI AND PATEL

helps to keep the personal and professional lives separate for both parties. Students can access
the liked page even after the course ends.
Choosing between groups and pages should be based on the instructor’s goals. If the instructor
wants to restrict information to certain groups or classes, then the instructor can manage each
class by creating a group for each class every semester. In this case, the students should join the
respective group created for the course. The instructor can share and communicate with students
about course information, exams, assignments, announcements, and so forth through the group
posts. If, however, the instructor’s goal is to simply disseminate economic news, articles, and
videos pertaining to economics, then he or she should create a page that can be used continuously
every semester. Students attending any course of the instructor may choose to “like” the page.
Similar to Twitter and Instagram, instructors may use hashtags to direct students’ attention, but
hashtags are not as popular on Facebook.

HOW TO INCORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE CLASSROOM

Determining the role of social media in lesson planning and which platform to use in the classroom
are nontrivial decisions. This section details some possible ways to use Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook in the classroom, including how to incorporate these platforms depending on whether
the instructor wants to make their use a voluntary or mandatory part of class.
Foremost, an introductory class should be dedicated to providing a short summary on how to
use the platform of choice, how and why they are to be used for the course, and how assignments
will be graded.10 While the majority of students will be familiar with all three platforms, instructors
should be aware that some students may choose not to use social media or some nontraditional
students may not be up-to-date with the latest technology. Thus, all students can benefit from an
introduction on how to use social media for class purposes. For the instructor, incorporating social
media implies a strong level of comfort with laptops, tablets, smartphones, or any Internet-based
system.

Voluntary Method (Nongraded Assignments)

Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook can be used as a replacement or supplement to a LMS or e-mail.
LMSs, such as Blackboard, lack certain characteristics that can be remedied through the collab-
orative use of social media (Dhir, Buragga, and Boreqqah 2013). One important shortcoming of
LMSs is the capability to handle spontaneous communication and accessibility. Instructors use
LMS platforms to upload lectures, assignments, articles, and announcements. Communication
with students about class material, homework, lectures, and announcements are posted on the
LMS, and students generally receive e-mail notifications at their university e-mail address. Some
LMS platforms have begun to incorporate social media functionality, but Al-Bahrani and Patel
(2014a) found that students check their social media accounts more frequently than their univer-
sity e-mail and LMS systems. Instructors can easily tweet or post an update on their Facebook
group/page about the same announcement, asking students to refer to the school platform for
further details. Announcements may include but are not limited to tweeting/posting due dates,
readings, sharing a link to an article, class cancellation, reminder of an exam date, and so on.
For some purposes, the instructor can make social media participation completely voluntary for
 TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK IN ECONOMICS 63

students. It is important to make it clear on the syllabus that the student is responsible to check
the school platform for announcements and not to completely rely on the social media platform
used for the course. In this set-up, social media is used primarily as a communication tool and to
share classroom information with the students. Announcements can vary from homework, class
readings, exam information, class cancellations, and so on.
Social media can be used to further enhance students’ learning experience by relating eco-
nomic concepts to the real world. Instructors can share articles, comments, or ideas that per-
tain to economics so that students can see the relevance of concepts beyond the classroom.
As instructors come across articles pertaining to a relevant topic in economics, a tweet or
a Facebook update with the link to the article can be sent out with a small description and
a hashtag (#) to capture the concept covered.11 While this information can be shared on a
LMS, we expect students to receive information more quickly via social media due to easy
accessibility.
For example, to share an article on rent controls, we posted a tweet “NYC rent control,
lease buyout, and game theory create a $17 million buyout,” describing the article followed
by a link to the article and the hashtags #nkumicro #teachecon. The hashtag #nkumicro was
a predetermined creation for students in principles of microeconomics courses at Northern
Kentucky University, which informs students that this post should be of special interest to
them. The #teachecon identifier was used to direct the attention of economic educators to the
post so that they could make use of it in their lectures. Another benefit for economics edu-
cators is the collaborative environment and resource-sharing inspired by social media, espe-
cially Twitter. A similar post can be shared on Facebook with a description of more than 140
characters.
Posts are not limited to articles. Instructors can share or update their students with exam-
ples of economic occurrences in their daily lives. For example, instructors can tweet or post
a connection between an event, TV show, or any other “real-world” experience and class
material. Social media can be used for real-time updates of economics topics, allowing the
instructor to connect concepts and experiences in real time. Students are also able to con-
tribute by providing a take on their own real-life economic experiences. On Twitter, students
can include the class hashtag or bring the instructor’s attention to their posting by mention-
ing the instructor in the tweet (via the instructor’s respective username). On Facebook, the
instructor can elect to receive a notification that a user has contributed a post to the page or
group.
Instagram is a more intimate setting for communicating ideas. An instructor can use In-
stagram for the same purposes of communicating with students and sharing economics-
related content. The difference is that the instructor takes a picture portraying the in-
tent of the posting and uses the caption to describe the picture. The caption can be fol-
lowed by a link to an article or other media and hashtags to indicate the nature of the
content. An instructor can also provide a short announcement via a video. Students have
the capability to respond to each posting in the comments section below the photo or
video.
One drawback of Facebook and Instagram, relative to Twitter, is that Twitter enables in-
structors to communicate directly with faculty members from other colleges as well the eco-
nomics/political community concerning economic events. Kassens (2014) summarized other
benefits of Twitter, where students from different schools can participate in discussion of
64 AL-BAHRANI AND PATEL

the same topic and further engage students by asking them to live-tweet an important eco-
nomic event such as the State of the Union speech, election debates, Federal Reserve an-
nouncements, unemployment reports, and so on. Although this is theoretically possible on
both Facebook and Instagram, the collaboration and engagement culture on Twitter is more
developed.

Mandatory (Graded Assignments)

For a nonvoluntary and more structured approach, social media can be used as a part of graded
assignments. Kassens (2014) provided a detailed discussion of using Twitter for assessment as a
mandatory part of class. Instructors can ask students to read an article or view a video and require
them to tweet about the material. Students can also be required to respond to other students’ tweets
by either asking a question or commenting on the original tweet. Through this discussion-based
assignment, the instructor poses questions to students or has them ask each other questions. The
instructor then proceeds to communicate with the students through tweets or revisits each tweet
in the classroom to promote further discussion. This structure allows students to be contributors
and can create conversations with a community of engaged students. Instructors also can use the
other platforms for graded assignments, specific to the instructor’s needs.
Instructors can modify any of the voluntary approaches to make them graded assignments
or extra credit. For instance, we have both used live-tweeting for extra credit assignments.
For example, watching the State of the Union address (#SOTU) and tweeting questions about
the economics discussed can create engaged students and increase curiosity about the role of
economics in politics. Furthermore, it allows faculty to bring those questions to the classroom
and use them as a teaching tool.
Although not detailed in an economics setting, both Facebook and Instagram allow for the
same assignment structure. In fact, Facebook comments and students’ contributions to dis-
cussions are easier to track. As an assignment, students can also be asked to upload pic-
tures portraying economic concepts on Instagram experienced in their daily lives. The in-
structors’ decisions on which platform to incorporate should be a function of the content
they want to share and what platform(s) their students are already using. The main goal of
using social media in economics classrooms is to increase student engagement and commu-
nication, and this would be best met by using a platform with which students are comfort-
able. Overall, we believe this will expand the classroom to be part of a larger educational
community.

Drawbacks of Using Social Media

Incorporating Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook in the classroom has some drawbacks. Privacy
concerns remain a major issue. Another concern is that students may over-utilize phones, com-
puters, or tablets in the classroom. To counter these problems, instructors must clearly define the
ground rules on the use of each technology. Also, introducing social media allows easier access
to faculty, which can lead to higher time-costs that increase with class size and if students are
unfamiliar with the platform.
 TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK IN ECONOMICS 65

CONCLUSION

Social media technologies are among the most current and dynamic developments in education.
Despite the American Economic Association’s recognition that innovative teaching methods
have a positive impact on the field, economics has fallen behind other disciplines in incorporating
technology in the classroom. There are many benefits to using social media in the classroom,
including but not limited to (1) facilitating communication in making announcements, providing
students direct communication with instructors, allowing shy students to communicate, and
enabling connections among students; (2) improving the learning experience through posts about
relevant economic articles or videos; (3) promoting collaboration among students; (4) allowing
students to actively learn through the composition of relevant posts; and (5) making learning an
enjoyable experience.
Many times, students are either shy or not comfortable answering questions in classrooms. On
social media, students can live-post answers to questions posed in the classroom or participate
in discussions about economics. One of the advantages of social media is instructors can move
discussion beyond the classroom by asking students to respond to other students’ posts. Moreover,
social media allows instructors to forge a close-knit learning community among students and
continue engaging them beyond class time.
Economic educators concerned with engaging students in and out of the classroom can use
social media to facilitate their goals. As far as we are aware, Kassens (2014) provided the only
documented use of social media in economics classrooms. In other disciplines, students enrolled
in classes where social media was used have shown better engagement and higher test scores, and
faculty evaluations were higher (Dhir, Buragga, and Boreqqah 2013; Ebner et al. 2010; Mazer,
Murphy, and Simonds 2007; Junco, Heiberger, and Loken 2011). As a discipline, economics
may benefit from the ability to engage students and increase students’ interest in the discipline.
Instructors can decide whether to use social media as a supplement to instruction or make it a
more formal part of their curricula. We provide this guide to stimulate an increase in the utilization
rate of social media in economics classrooms and to encourage research assessing the efficacy of
this new tool in the pedagogy of economics.

NOTES

1. For films, see Becker 2004; Dixit 2005; Formaini 2001; Leet and Houser 2003; Mateer 2005; Mateer
and Li 2008; Sexton 2006. For television shows, see Al-Bahrani and Patel 2014b; Ghent, Grant, and
Lesica 2010; Gillis and Hall 2010; Luccasen and Thomas 2010. For music, see Hall and Lawson 2008;
Hall, Lawson, and Mateer 2008; Mateer and Rice 2007; Tinari and Khandke 2000. For literature, see
Hartley 2001; Kish-Goodling 1998; Watts 1998.
2. Al-Baharani and Patel (2014a) conducted a survey asking students about their social media use. They
found that social media preferences were ranked as follows: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.
We believe economic educators are familiar with the benefits and use of YouTube and therefore we
focus on the other three platforms.
3. For a more detailed description of these platforms, see the text under the section entitled, “Getting
Acquainted with Social Media.”
4. While the ability to connect with students is available to faculty members, we recommend not exercising
this option. This helps create clearer boundaries and better identifies the purpose of the social media
connection.
5. For more information, see https://about.twitter.com/company.
66 AL-BAHRANI AND PATEL

6. Our Twitter usernames are @teach econ and @patelnomics.

7. See table 1 for a definition of retweet (also abbreviated as RT).
8. For more information, see http://instagram.com/press/.
9. For more information, see http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=861599.
10. Please contact the author for a checklist of items to discuss on the first day of class and for a sample
rubric to assess student posts.
11. The instructor may also want to direct a specific class’s attention to the tweet. For example, topics
that are important to students in a macroeconomics course may be followed by #macro. This informs
students that this tweet is especially important to them.

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