Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Education Social Networks

Arizona State Launches Influencer Degree Where Students Must Gain Real Followers (dexerto.com) 192

Posted by BeauHD from the likes-for-credits dept.
Arizona State University has launched a 120-credit bachelor's degree in content creation that teaches video, podcasting, branding, analytics, media law, and social strategy. For their capstone, students are "expected to build a real social media account and demonstrate audience growth during the program," reports Dexerto. From the report: The Content Creation BA is housed within ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and appears in the university's 2026-2027 course catalog. The 120-credit-hour degree prepares students to become "an influencer and strategic storyteller" by teaching video production, podcasting, personal branding, audience analytics and social media strategy. The program was approved by the ASU University Senate in March 2026. Its proposal said graduates would be prepared to work independently as influencers and content creators across livestreaming, videography, writing, podcasting, graphics and emerging media.

[...] For the program's final project, students will choose a social media platform, such as TikTok, create a content and growth strategy, and attempt to gain real followers throughout the semester. "They will have demonstrable audience growth," [explained Jessica Pucci, senior associate dean at the Cronkite School]. "They will have a platform of their choice with real content and real followers and a real audience behind them." The curriculum includes courses titled How to Become an Influencer, On-Camera Presence, Introduction to Editing, Videography, Podcasting and Audio Storytelling, Social Media Foundations and The Digital Audience.

Arizona State Launches Influencer Degree Where Students Must Gain Real Followers More | Reply

Arizona State Launches Influencer Degree Where Students Must Gain Real Followers

Comments Filter:

  • Arizona seems like something a californian high on schrooms and lost in the desert made up.

    • But you're going to have a magical life, because no matter where you go, it will always be better than Tucson.

  • Better than an art degree tbh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wgoodman ( 1109297 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @07:11AM (#66260356)

    I made the mistake of going to art school thinking it was actually about the art. This sounds closer to what they were actually trying to teach (poorly).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      There are art schools that teach art well. It is just not most of them. You essentially have to go to one of the few best ones on the planet to get a good education, like the "Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien". Getting in is apparently pretty hard though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Any good school for teaching art rather than art criticism would be hard. And would probably only teach one school of art. I doubt that hyperrealists would get along with romanticists.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          That is not how that works.

          • Worse, this isn't journalism. This is quid pro quo influence peddling. Bribed, grifted, marketed. It's not journalism in any meaningful way.

            Story telling is a broad branch of writing involving various elements of fiction.

            Journalism should never be involved in fiction.

      • Well here near me is this famous school called Cranbrook. When I first moved to Michigan from a few states away my friend took me on a tour past the place. It was like a secret village in the woods with rolling hills and fancy stone fences for a few miles. The facility looked like something out of Harry Potter with little lofts and various little village like features everywhere. The view from the street in one specific spot showed a huge Greek column with fountains and statues near a marble staircase. We a

  • The world needs more influencers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spacejock ( 727523 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @07:19AM (#66260368)
    Also telephone sanitation engineers and hairdressers.

    • Also, be a lert, the world needs more lerts.

    • The UK gives out visas for professions that cannot be fulfilled with locals.

      Like dog-walkers, ballerina, disk-jockeys, party-clowns.....

    • Telephone sanitation is more important than you think. You don't want to get wiped out by a particularly virulent telephone, you know.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Only joke on the rich target? But I was looking for something in the "What could possibly go wrong?" genre.

  • Yet another... (Score:3)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @07:20AM (#66260370)

    degree that provides little value to society. Surely worth mom and dad siphoning the savings or taking out debt to develop those narcissism skills.

    • Re:Yet another... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Slayer ( 6656 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @09:01AM (#66260538)

      It's a profession like marketing, and in fact it seems to be what comes after marketing. As a parent of three teenagers I can confirm, that a decent social media campaign can yield more more than thousands of bill boards. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this professionally, even if old timers like me shake their heads.

      • I don't have any objection to people getting educated on how to be literate with the technology available for doing their jobs and interacting with their world. I also agree - just because I think it's stupid doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

        What I have a problem with is not with the information itself, it's with the increasing trend towards abuse. With traditional marketing, it's more obvious that it's sponsored, and there are more obvious standards as far as how far you can go with stretching the t

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        There is nothing wrong with professional lying, indoctrination, exploitation and hype-creation? Do you have any morals at all? Or is "making money" the great absolution for all evils in your view?

        • That's how marketing has always been. An education in it also teaches how to not be influenced by it...

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            "To resist the dark side, you have to join the dark side"? Cool philosophy bro. Now, down here where at least some people try to be good people on the other hand...

            • Does getting an education about for example the Nazis mean joining the Nazis? Unless you consider getting more social media followers (audience growth) at all to be joining the dark side, that's not what I said. Avoiding learning about topics that make you uncomfortable is not what makes someone a good person.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                Does getting an education about for example the Nazis mean joining the Nazis?

                Studying marketing is not studying "about" marketing. It is education on how to do it. Seriously. And if that is the primary education, then yes, it means joining them.

      • I see your point, but I find little value in it personally....though I suppose I see little value in people who engage in "traditional" marketing as well.

    • Reflecting on it, it could be a useful thing to study from the side of selling pick axes to gold prospectors. The practitioners are drawn to it because it doesn't require an education, but someone with studied experience could design and sell middleware, market peripherals, and so on and make a living.

  • "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
    -- Goodhart's law

    You can bet that there will be special offers to buy followers in Arizona. Also students will make deals to follow each other and test how many accounts they can create themselves without the social networks noticing.

  • Is the teacher qualified? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @07:31AM (#66260388) Homepage

    That is, do they have a social media account with at least 50,000 followers?

    • The entire program is actually a reality show run by MrBeast.

      • I would definitely watch MrBeast attempting to teach college students how to do his job.

        Especially if they decided to make it a 'unscripted' show where they picked a bunch of idiots and advised them to act even stupider than they were.

        • I would definitely watch MrBeast attempting to teach college students how to do his job.

          MrBeast at some point straight up admitted that he gamed the YouTube algorithm and that it would be nearly impossible to replicate his success now. The guy is also definitely no Elon Musk when it comes to diversifying his businesses. His "virtual kitchen" burgers make Steak-n-Shake look like haute cuisine, and I really don't know what possessed him to conclude that America needed yet another brand of extremely mediocre chocolate snacks.

  • Decide if you are a University or a Trade School (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @07:51AM (#66260412) Journal

    Social media influencing is "Marketing". Marketing is an area of theoretical study. A university should be offering degrees in 'bigger picture' areas of expertise that one can take an apply. This is not at all to suggest that academic institutions of that type should not offer, even require course that do focus on a practical application like social media influencing. Because the ability to take the lofty concepts and applying them in practical way is part of being an expert in any given area.

    You get a degree in mechanical or possibly 'Automotive' engineering if you want to go to work ultimately designing engines; you absolutely would be doing a good deal of course work that focus on small gasoline powered internal combustion power plants, but your overall area of study is still broader.

    Universities need to get smarter about how to track trends and meet immediate labor market needs without spinning up entirely new programs, that are so narrow they face a real possibility of not making any real sense at less than a decade or two down the line. This kind of thing is why the public gets a dim view of education and why more and more people look at the ROI of these degrees and go "nope" even though the analysis might be wrong (after all they haven't had the freshman stats course yet). They see a chart showing how going to work earlier and chasing compound interest with with lower wages beats school and higher wages later on average but forget about the fact that people with 'social media influence degrees" who also end up making coffee pull down the average. Actually getting a degree in mechanical engineering, economics, medical etc, usually will pay off.

    • Well, universities already offer programs in marketing and performing arts. That said, this should really be called "Advanced Shilling". Let's drop the "influencer" conceit and call it what it is - sales.
  • In so many ways, I don't follow this.

  • Which platform... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JJJJust ( 908929 ) <JJJJust.gmail@com> on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @08:07AM (#66260430)
    How long until a student chooses OnlyFans as their platform?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Even that would not assure higher follower numbers. There is too much porn and too much porn-adjacent content on the Internet already.

      • The "think of the children" and identity verification mania that swept the world in the first half of this year, means only adults can learn some people have breasts. Porn and nudity are longer the primary merchandise of the internet. It's not surprising that video LLMs are being instructed to 'undress' people. At the same time, OnlyFans performers are revealing more of their bodies.

    • ASU?
      Almost a certainty that the female (and probably some of the male) students already have it.

    • OnlyFans performers do their advertising on other social media sites. This very week, many of them have migrated to nudity, for a millisecond. I suspect that OnlyFans is saturated and new entrants can no longer grow their base with bikinis and suggestive dance moves.

  • "Students will be given classes in economics, banking, getting loans and registering businesses selling widgets. To graduate, students must show that their business made a profit."

    WTF people?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This is just the worship of the Great God Mammon, "academic" version.

    • To be fair. this is a University with a 90% acceptance rate. It makes Greendale Community college look respectable. No offence Todd.

      • To be fair. this is a University with a 90% acceptance rate. It makes Greendale Community college look respectable. No offence Todd.

        That doesn't mean anything. The school acceptance rate doesn't say anything about the quality of education.

      • OFFENCE TAKEN! Offence... taken.

  • An audience of fools (Score:5, Insightful)

    by diodeus ( 96408 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @08:26AM (#66260448) Journal

    One must ask: why would anyone want to be "influenced" in the first place?

    • How about, "why did we start calling salespeople something else?"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That is just the thing. People do not want this, but the aim of all good influencing/propaganda/manipulation/indoctrination is to change that and make people like being abused. Pure, undiluted evil, of course, but some people get off on that and others do not care how much harm they cause as long as they earn money.

  • Arizona State? I thought Streamer University is currently happening at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas!?

    Streamer University - Wikipedia https://share.google/krqmS3VhP... [share.google]

  • He/she will mysteriously disappear, because people that can manipulate the masses this well are needed elsewhere

  • The headline should be "Arizona State University Offers BA in Narcissism"

    I remember when they were a school that wasn't a fucking joke - my father got an accounting degree and a CPA from ASU as his second bachelor's.

    • While I share your disdain for most "influencers", it's no more narcissistic than, say, public speaking, or politics, or opera (or any singing), or any degree that involves getting in front of people demonstrating skills of one sort or another.

  • Do you think students would sign up if we called it what it is? "Learn how to be the next Billy Mays!" p It should at least be under the business school. Unless they're looking to generate green power with Cronkite's spinning corpse.

  • ...had a wonderful solution for people like these.

  • I find it difficult to believe that 'influencers' are a good sign at a society level; but I'm a little puzzled by the degree of hostility to what is basically a degree for self-employed PR/marketing people.

    As much as I'm not happy about it, PR and marketing are absolutely entire fields; and I'd assume that people doing those things whose client is themselves would also benefit from a dash of entertainment related law; contracts and accounting related to dealing with sponsor agreements; and the same sort

  • I mean I get all of this but one thing that I rather disliked about PhD's is the idea that someone is becoming an expert on a topic, by showing that they can advance the topic with a new idea. Sure the idea is the degree leads you to a research company where you need to continue creating new ideas, or a teaching position where you aren't expected to just teach, but continue advancing research but... If we want most of our advanced teachers to hold PhDs to prove they are experts on a topic, why don't we hav

  • It's called marketing. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, influencers don't acquire followers because they're so amazing and people just flock to them. They acquire followers because they engage in good old fashioned...marketing. They literally pay marketers money to get them into your feed.

    That gizmo they just discovered and think is amazing? Yeah, they're getting paid to promote it. That restaurant or destination they are gushing about? Yeah, they're getting paid for that too. They work very hard to appear

    • If it's just marketing, as you say, how many followers can you get for the Poop emoji?

      There's more to it than "just marketing". There has to be something of interest, regardless of how banal others might consider it, to get them to follow you.

      • The assumption is that the "influencer" has something useful to share. Given that, you don't acquire followers without marketing.

  • Remove how silly it sounds from the get-go. It's an evolution of marketing and PR. It should be a specialty or certificate; anyone successful won't stick around for 120 credits. New platforms will be created and fall within the 4 years of required classes.

  • On the other hand, nothing tends to turn people off on subjects more than having to take classes on it, so I say go for it!

  • I will be offering a Degree in Moderation, get every single student in this program to be blocked by every social media platform before they complete their term.

  • For the program's final project, students will choose a social media platform, such as TikTok, create a content and growth strategy, and attempt to gain real followers throughout the semester. "They will have demonstrable audience growth,"

    So they start with their Mom as a follower and by the end of the year they have about as many followers as are enrolled in the same course

  • Requires no education, just "vibes". All you have to do is read from a corporate script, and be open to being exploited by having no say in which companies you choose to represent until you strike it big. Success is absolutely not guaranteed, competition is fierce and simply by being highly visible on socials you become a target for weirdos. Sounds like hell to me.

  • A degree in Influencer, whether it's an AA or a PhD, is still better than anything in Women's Studies.

  • How Social Media Is Wrecking Kids' Lives and Stealing Their Childhood | Jonathan Haidt [shortform.com]

    “In this episode of The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, Jonathan Haidt joins Peterson to examine how technology use, particularly social media and smartphones, affects youth mental health. They discuss the sharp rise in anxiety and depression among young people since 2012-2013, with particular focus on how these technologies impact boys and girls differently. While girls face challenges from social comparison and pee

  • Aren't these kind of controversial degrees the specialty of bullshit private universities ?

    I mean, even serious universities have mediocre to outright bullshit degrees, but they try to stay into socially established degrees. They want the money bad students bring without being too obvious, and they make a balance between the money it brings and the reputational cost. The communication degree of my Alma Mater had an atrocious reputation, but degrees in communication were common so in that regard they could a

  • Why do you need the degree if you have the followers?

  • Imagine going into debt to get a College Degree to become an influencer . . . . . :|

    As an influencer, your usefullness to society is right up there with overpaid Athletes
    and people who know how to cry on cue. ( actors )

    In addition, the odds of you making it into the big leagues where the real money exists
    is about as likely as a lottery win.

    But, go ahead, get your influencer degree.

    As the old adage goes:

    " A fool and his money are soon parted. "

  • When we award degrees for something so banal and trivial, you can be certain that the end times are near. And deservedly so.

  • We have PROOF it's a garbage degree designed to... (Score:3)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Tuesday July 28, 2026 @06:10PM (#66261788)

    trick a whole new batch of kids into massive piles of education load debt.

    Consider: The internet is, and for YEARS has been, completely awash in so-called influencers. NONE of them got those positions by getting a degree. NO DEGREE EXISTED OR WAS REQUIRED. The dumbest people on Earth were capable of teaching themselves to be influencers. The primary "skill" in many cases seems to have been "willing to do something outrageous that was beneath what others were willing to do, no experience required".

    When a college/university starts a degree program for something flashy and current, but which has existed for years with no degree programs or degrees at all, the purpose cannot possibly be that society has a need for people trained in this supposedly new thing. The Professors involved have nothing to profess. The people with all the experience are clearly NOT the ones in academia who plan to expound upon this subject, for a premium price. This is all about making money from a new generation of kids whose families insist they should go to college but who have no deep desire to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc and simply want to be the next Kardashian... it's another trick to get kids to sign-up to be the pipeline of cash where a kid gets a loan of government cash, hands it to a college, and then the kid is on the hood to repay it while the college laughs and the kid is left with a career as a barista or a lifeguard.

Slashdot Top Deals

You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it!

Close