JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION THEORY AND PRACTICE

Ensuring Student Awareness of Corporate Social Media Usage: An Accounting

Information Systems Course Project

Author(s): Robert C. Zelin II, Jane E. Baird

Citation: Robert C. Zelin II, Jane E. Baird, (2012) "Ensuring Student Awareness of Corporate Social Media Usage: An Accounting

Information Systems Course Project," Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, Vol.12, Iss. 2, pp. 44 - 50

Article Type: Research paper

Publisher: North American Business Press

Abstract:

This paper describes an Accounting Information Systems course project that required students to

research Fortune 500 companies’ presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia. The project was

designed to address the disparity between what college students think social media technologies are used

for and how social media are actually used by businesses. Through the project described in this paper,

students learned that corporations are using social media for a variety of purposes, with marketing being

the most prevalent. Accounting and financial information was found to be much more prevalent on

Wikipedia than on Facebook or Twitter.