The Associated Press Weighs In on Social Media Terms

June 16, 2010 • 5:23 pm • POSTED BY awilson

For decades the Associated Press Stylebook has been a journalist’s most sacred rule book. When the book first launched in 1953 I bet the editors never thought they’d be adding a “social media” section to their orderly, crisp white pages.

Social media has been both a journalist’s arch-nemesis and best friend over the recent years. But if you’re confused by the language of the intangible community of social media, blogs and forums the Associated Press Stylebook has brought in the big guns to lay down the law.

The 2010 edition was released earlier this month and includes sensible changes such as changing “web site” to “website” and allowing “fan,” “friend” and “follower” to be used as both nouns and verbs.

Ever wondered what POS meant? Well, before it wouldn’t have mattered. POS could have stood for “practice obnoxious singing” for all I cared. According to the Associated Press, POS stands for “parent over shoulder”. I guess the teeny-boppers use it to indicate to their friends on IM or text messaging that a parent is close by? Does this sort of thing really belong in the Associated Press Stylebook?

If silly acronyms weren’t enough, you can bet that words such as “retweet,” “trending” and “unfriend” also made it into the social media guidelines.

Yes, those are now “real” words.

I don’t know whether or not to be thankful that this social media world has finally laid some ground rules or upset that more trees were cut down to add extra pages on a media-type that is so subjective that even journalists are asked to observe it with discretion.

Just when we thought social media land was a free-spirit, cyberspace teenager who let anyone post, chat, blog and tweet the Associated Press has officially let us know that this form of media needs parenting too.