September 4, 2019
In recent weeks, some members have expressed concern about the appropriateness of items appearing on AJS’s social media accounts. The Executive Committee has discussed these concerns and I am writing to share the committee’s sense of the proper role of social media in the AJS’s efforts to serve its membership.
The AJS maintains a Twitter account and a Facebook page. We have asked the staff to ensure that our tweets and posts fall into one of the following three categories:
1. Information about our own programs (the conference, grant applications, etc.)
2. News of our members
3. General information about the broad and diverse world of Jewish academic and cultural studies and Jewish higher education
The first two categories are straightforward. The third is less straightforward and requires evaluation to ensure that information that is tweeted or posted is both relevant to some portion of our membership and drawn from a respected source. While some have suggested establishing a committee to review items to be tweeted or posted, this is not how the fast-moving world of social media works. Nevertheless, limiting our tweets and posts to the three categories listed above, will improve the utility and relevance of our social media activities.
