What topics should be covered in a "new media" class for journalists?

April 27, 2009 7:22 AM

What topics should be covered in a "new media" class for journalists?

I am putting together a class on "new media" for journalism students at the university level.

I am a journalist with lots of experience in the field of convergent/Web 2.0/new media - and that's why I'm asking the hive mind to help.

This class will be a companion to The History of Journalism, and will probably be listed as The Future of Journalism.

It will be for journalism students who have already covered all the basics - AP stylebook, ledes, nut grafs, interviewing, writing and so on.

If you were to teach or take a class like this, what do you think should be the topics covered?

Feel free to go into great detail and include links - also, if this turns out well, I'll showcase to students how I used AskMeFi to help create the class.

posted by Lownotes to education (13 comments total)

New York Times' Policy on Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites
posted by furtive at 7:31 AM on April 27

Creative Commons

The DMCA

Pro-am models

Complementing one's reporting with blogging

Hyper-local models (such as Mark Potts's Backfence.com)

CAR!! Especially vis-a-vis hyper-local reporting

Packaging for the Web: "chunking"

Flash journalism. The classic examples are the Post's coverage of the Washington-area sniper shootings, still online, and Spanish coverage of the Madrid train bombing. (I regret I cannot remember the outlet now; they did a great job.)

Other visual journalism: NYT's narrated slideshows

I hate to say it, but "the long tail"

Interactive advertising and behavioral targeting

I'm sure I'll come up with more...
posted by jgirl at 7:36 AM on April 27 [1 favorite]

How could I forget? Read or discuss Don't Make Me Think.
posted by jgirl at 7:41 AM on April 27

A review of proposed models for monetizing journalism online?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:41 AM on April 27

Convergence Culture, by my advisor (full disclosure), Henry Jenkins (director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, about to take a sweet positions at USC Annenberg School of Communication, would be a great (to my mind, essential) text to look at. It's kind of an academic/mass market hybrid, so it's an easy read packed with good ideas.
posted by lalalana at 7:52 AM on April 27

I'd go further than showbiz_liz and do a compare contrast of how journalism has been funded and the historic quirks that allowed such things (local monopolies) and how things will have to change in the future.
posted by mmascolino at 8:30 AM on April 27

I'd definitely discuss "Journalism via programming" along the lines of Adrian Holovaty's EveryBlock and Steven Johnson's outside.in.

It also might be interesting to discuss how established media law maps to the Web. Do existing definitions of defamation, obscenity, national security restraint, and privacy apply to emerging journalism-like activities such as blogging? The EFF's Legal Guide for Bloggers is a good place to start for this topic.
posted by pb at 9:03 AM on April 27

As an overall theme, I would discuss this idea: "New media is now just 'media.'"
posted by Mo Nickels at 9:14 AM on April 27

I teach a course called "Media 2.0" that's a bit wider in scope that just journalism (my course is aimed at anyone who wants to produce/distribute content over the internet) but I also use both The Long Tail and Convergence Culture as the primary readings. Another related concept is produsage (Bruns' book is a bit more dense than Jenkins' but the core concepts could be translated). Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody has a couple of chapters that speak directly to the dilemma facing modern journalism.

Syllabus is on my website linked in my profile if you're interested.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 9:32 AM on April 27

If you are doing any practical aspects I think there's an aspect of writing for the web that is often glossed over - phrasing so that it's conducive to linking. I've known a number of good writers who write things that leave them no choice but to make a link out of 'here' or 'this.'

Beyond that.. search engines, fair use, chilling effects*, advertising challenges...

And Clay Shirky's "Thinking the Unthinkable" should be required reading.

*We once got a trademark threat over the term "humble ab0de" [obfuscated because I'd just as soon not come to their attention and thereby stir the ant mound] if you can believe it, and while we thought it was one of the most moronic things we'd ever heard we had to think long and hard before deciding to tell them to pound sand. The Gray Lady would have had a team to bounce that to, but more and more outlets are small and/or broke and will be cowed by stuff like that.

The flip side of the situation might be interesting as well; if they'd just approached us with a "ha ha isn't it funny, that's OUR NAME!" we'd have likely updated the post and given them some link love. The way new media interacts with the world is different than the way the MSM does, and if they're fresh off history of journo and still aware of how short a period of time we've had the existing media culture then perhaps they can avoid being polluted with this woe-is-me attitude much of the newspaper establishment is soaking in.
posted by phearlez at 1:28 PM on April 27

Show them A Fair(y) Use Tale.

Oh, and Epic 2015 is practically required viewing, but not as fun as the above!
posted by jgirl at 1:44 PM on April 27

I'm finishing my master's in journalism right now, and we're working through our first semester of a required multimedia storytelling course. MeFi Mail me and I'll see if I can send you our syllabus. (We have diverged a bit, but I can hook you up with my prof for some more details.)
posted by Madamina at 4:35 PM on April 27

I'm a librarian who started out in journalism, so:

-authority and information online (thinking critically about information, information standards, etc.)
-citizen journalism
-how technology can make journalism smarter (tools, tactics)

& how bout you link to your school's library page?
posted by onell at 8:15 AM on April 28